Probably Second Degree. Right?

[Sanuki-ben]

Hey everyone,

 

Getting a lot of info here and have pretty much come to the conclusion that I need to do a second undergrad degree to improve my gpa. I have a cumulative gpa of 3.3 and a final 60 credit gpa of 3.65. But I am also a B.C resident and have yet to do the pre-requisites or write the MCAT. Although a little less tangible to quantify, I also think I have a decent shot of scoring high on the NAQ section.

 

Before I resign myself to another three years of undergrad study, if I ace the pre-reqs as well as a few other classes peppered in and score well on the MCAT, do you think I have a chance?

[avenir001]

of course you have a chance.

what is your % gpa? cuz 3.3 could easily be 80+%..and 3.65 could be as high as ~85%...in which case u don't really need to do another degree...those would be competitive stats for ubc...but to be eligible for gpa schools, a second degree would be a good idea.

[TankMasterFlex]

I applied with a 3.3 overall and 3.3 last 60 credits, and it got me 16/25 on the academic part. In your case, it would likely get you 18/25. You would need like 19 on the NAQ part to get an interview, which is doable (The average for interviewed people was 16.5 I think).

[Sanuki-ben]

Well, I just matched it up to the Sauder Business School scale and the cumulative comes out to 76.5% and then 79.8 for the final two years. I could very well be messing up the calculation though. All I did was match the totals up.

[celeria]

i don't know if this will help, but here are the scores that i got from ubc the first time i applied:

 

Overall GPA: 3.495 = 77.30%

Last 60 credit GPA: 3.83 = 83.25%

AQ: 19.40

[avenir001]

someone came up with the AQ formula a while back and it is:

(overall gpa)*60 + (last-2-yr gpa)*40 = C

AQ = 1.0422*C - 63.8

supposed to be accurate within 0.3 AQ points

 

so using this, currently your AQ is ~17.3

to get an interview as an ip, this year u'd have needed 36.5 (AQ+NAQ)...so you'd have to have 19.2 for your NAQ...which is a bit on the high side, but doable.

if you did 2 more undergrad years with an avg of ~85%, then your AQ would go up to ~21.7...

[Sanuki-ben]

thanks..definitely gives me some perspective. I have basically two years ahead of me, which I need to do anyways for the pre-reqs. And what I also just noticed is that I should be able to take advantage of the 10 year rule, which will most definetily improve my gpa.

 

Lastly, my degree isnt from a science background, and it will have been a long time since taking any science related classes. Do you think doing all the pre-reqs in a full-course load would be too much? And do you suggest an order of taking the classes that would balance the load and increase my chances of doing well?

[medisforme]

if you don't have the pre-reqs, the order will basically be determined for you (ie. first year bio, first year chem, then orgo, and biochem etc..). also, make sure you have the english prereqs covered (basically any two english courses numbered 100 or above). If you've done a full load in the past, don't worry about doing a full load for your pre reqs (for UBC specifically) if you don't think you can handle it, because the adcoms there only want to make sure you have been able to handle a full course load at some point in your undergrad (unlike some ontario schools ie. western, where full course load is mandatory basically).

[agray33]

Is english also combined in the pre req GPA?

[medisforme]

yes, because you need 6 credits of english for ubc pre-reqs

[agray33]

haha, yea that makes sense. One more thing: I go to UWO which gives percentages. Would UBC convert any of these percentages on some wacky scale in order to get my cumulative %GPA, or would they simply take all my averages - as determined by UWO - to create my percentage GPA?

[medisforme]

not exactly sure what you mean. UBC uses % not gpa, so they would probably just take the percentage of your classes and use that.

[agray33]

Yea, sorry for my confusing wording but that is what i meant. Basically, I was only wondering whether UBC will just take my percentages as given by UWO.

[Destiny Gundam]

Yes. You need 6 creds of first yer English. I got screwed over by Eng 110, only got 73, heh! But then Eng 112 is much more doable so that evened things out for me. Looking back, it was the right strategy (for me) to be a bookworm the first 2 years to get a good average (build a solid "buffer") then start exploring more extracurriculars in 3rd/4th/5th year.