Special Treatment for Queen's Engineering

[DiscoDoc]

I did a search and came up with nothing on this. Does anyone know why Queen's Engineering is given special consideration by OMSAS? Looking at the OMSAS conversion table, Queen's Eng. and RMC are type 4 schools. Most other schools that give percent grades are type 3.

 

Looking at the differences, they are at a slight disadvantage in the low 90's. But they are at a huge advantage in the 70's and 80's. For example a 72 at Queen's Eng is 3.3. Elsewhere it is 2.7.

 

3 4

4.0 90–100 93–100

3.9 85–89 84–92

3.7 80–84 75–83

3.3 77–79 72–74

3.0 73–76 69–71

2.7 70–72 66–68

2.3 67–69 64–65

2.0 63–66 62–63

1.7 60–62 60–61

1.3 57–59 56–59

1.0 53–56 53–55

0.7 50–52 50–52

< 49 < 49

 

Of course Queen's Eng is probably harder than many other programs. But what about other engineering schools? If you give special consideration to Queens Eng, what about U of T, Waterloo, and other schools?! Am I missing something?

 

Sorry, just needed to vent!

[blinknoodle]

Well, I would prefer to have the advantage at the higher grades (row 3) then an advantage at the lower grades (row 4). If you are only getting 70's, whether that is a 2.7 or a 3.3, neither will be getting you into medical school.

[cluelesswonder]

well, there's still a pretty significant advantage at the higher points on the scale -- looks as though a 75 in queen's eng still gives you a pretty respectable 3.7, while a 75 elsewhere will give you a 3.0.

 

it is weird that they wouldn't give that scale to all engineering programs. i wonder how they decide?

[blue_eyes]

Wow, that's a pretty big difference in the scales. From what I've heard about Queen's engineering though, marks are curved pretty brutally and class averages are always very low.

[NLengr]

That's pretty typical of most engineering programs though.

[Andie]

I think that engineering is a tough program to get good marks in at any school, not just Queen's... but with respect to differential treatment when calculating the GPA I believe it has to do with the number of applicants from Queen's Eng to medicine. If they have had enough people apply they can do some fancy calculations on their marks and how they perform in med school to adjust the grading scales - on top of the averages, bell curves etc. and the fact that they just don't like to give out high marks

 

Spoken from a Queen's Engineer... so maybe I'm biased.