New GPA weighting has killed my chances...

[Guest deamented]

Sure has....for those of us with a bad year, an ok year, and two very good years are now SOL.

 

If you had finnished your degree after four years, they used to drop lowest year and weigh the second lowest at half, using your two best fully weighted. Now, they only drop your four lowest courses.

In my case, I did very poorly in my first year, in all courses. It doesn't matter now, cuz one of them is gonna be thrown into the mix....

What a drastic change. THey basically went from dropping nearly 7.5 courses to 4 courses. I guess competition has just gotten to great.

[Guest Biochem10]

I guess it either helps or hurts! For me, the old system would have been useless because I have a couple of bad marks scattered all over my record, but no "really" bad year. Just take comfort in the fact that if you apply to Western, they will take your two best years only. At least it's not like McGill, where they take your whole record into account. I think each school is looking for different applicants, so may be this is a way of cutting down the amount of people who apply to every school.

[Guest batman]

thats true - each school is looking for different applicants, although by U of T raising their MCAT cutoffs this year, it sort of competes with UWO. I think somone else said this before, but with this new weighting formula, it will raise most people's marks, effectively reducing the weight on GPA, so they can focus more on the essay and interview. I think they're figuring out that 60% GPA is a bit ridiculous for finding good physicians, so they lower the weight without actually lowering it.

 

Any news on whether or not they plan on increasing the # of seats this year in Ontario?

[Guest aneliz]

Not confirmed yet, but I have heard rumors that UWO will have 147 or 148 seats in meds 2007. This is an increase from my class (meds 2006) which has 133 and a big increase from meds 2005 (118?)....I have no idea what other Ontario schools are up to or if it has even been decided.

 

Cheers!

[Guest bluesky125]

This is also not confirmed yet but I have heard that U of T is going to have 198 seats again for the 2007 med class.

[Guest FeelingBrokenatQueens]

Hi, my average in firstyear last year was 63%, and all of my courses were around that mark, two were even in the 50s.

 

I'm working really hard this year, and I should be in the 70s-mid80s. Next year and in 4th year (which is when I plan on applying (fourth year)), I should be in the 80s-90s.

 

But finding out about the new UT system has terrified me. Hell, I couldn't move for a long moment.

 

 

Do I still stand a chance of getting into UT? UT is the only med school I really want to go to. I need the big city, I need Toronto...and there are other reasons for my UT desire, including academic ones related to UT's meds school itself.

 

If I don't get into UT, I honestly don't know what I'll do. Maybe I'll do a second undergrad degree. Sigh.

 

I feel so broken.

 

 

 

p.s. I am at Queen's University.

[Guest therealcrackers]

Why do you want to "suicide" your chances of medical school by pinning all your hopes on U of T? IT's big, it's nebulous, it's impersonal, and yes, they did grant me a degree. (That's talking about the school in general---can't speak about the med school, and I sure there are some wonderful people in there from Naylor on down.) There are good educational experiences to be had at all the schools in the province...

[Guest bad hombre]

First of all, the med school you attend eventually shouldn't be that important if you really want to go into med (and if you're going in for the right reasons).

 

Secondly, if you love U of T so much why are you at Queen's at the moment?

 

You're feeling depressed because you won't get into U of T, yet you still have a chance at a great career by going to another school. Seriously...

[Guest peachy]

Hey FeelingBrokenAtQueens,

 

I'm just curious - if you believe that you can earn 80s-90s in your third and fourth years, then why not in your second year as well?

 

peachy

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Don't forget there's MANY other health related professions. Don't exclude them! Examples include physiotherapy, nursing, X-ray/MRI/Ultrasound technologists, Optometry, and Paramedicine just to name a few. Many/most of them are suffering shortages. Many of them offer pretty decent renumeration if that's an issue for you. And considering the current shortage in trained employees in many of these fields the pay scale for many of these professions is probably only going to increase to entice more people into these professions. And if your interest is genuinely in the academic side of things. . . you can always do a PhD or M.Sc.

 

 

But if you really want medicine, you need to keep your mind open about where you go. Heck, even having a 4.0 GPA or even 100% in every subject won't guarantee you admission to U of T- there are a lot of variables you can't control. Choosing a competitive career like medicine often means making sacrifices such as not choosing your location of residency. This is also true by the way if you want to get into a competitive specialty, and even once you have completed your specialty you might not have a say in where there is an opening for gastroenterologists/radiologists/etc.

[Guest bluesky125]

Hello,

 

Try not to be too concerned about the new admission grading system since it may change in the future. Just try your best and see how your 2nd, 3rd and 4th years go.

 

Even thought I really like being at U of T, there are a lot of great med schools all over Canada

 

Good luck ! (Now back to studying, anatomy bell ringer next Monday !)