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The GPA Thread


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Hi this is my first time applying to UofM - I'm in-province, but I go to McGill where the grading system goes up to A only (85-100%), and has A- (80-85%).

 

I asked the lady responsible for AGPA inquiries at UofM and she said that only the letter grade on the transcript will be used for the conversion - meaning that I will only get 4.0 for all my A courses...

 

Apparently Mcgill stopped putting percentage grades on the transcripts since 2002 and they don't even give the option to profs to enter numeric grades along with the letters. So even for someone with straight A's, it will be adjusted to only 4.0 - which is below even the average AGPA of accepted students (4.20). Is anyone else from Mcgill, UofT, etc. (schools with 4.0 scale) in the same situation?

 

Is there ANY way around this? I was always under the impression that A would be equivalent to 4.5, and A- would be 4.0... I'm totally shocked about how grades are converted at UofM.

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  • 3 months later...

In this scenario...

Drop the Ds (9 cr. hours)

Then you have 72 hours of A+s,

 

Then 3 options.

 

1) Drop only the C+ and have 12 instead of 15 hours dropped. (72 hours of A+ and 6 hours of B+)

2) Drop the B+, full 15 hours dropped. (72 hours of A+ and 3 hours of C+)

3) Drop C+ and half the B+ course.

 

They will pick from the options 1 and 2 on which is more beneficial.

Option 1 will yield AGPA of 4.423

Option 2 will yield AGPA of 4.420

 

3 likely won't happen, but if it did, it would be 4.46 :D

 

Either way, I wouldn't worry about things like that at this point. Just focus on the MMI.

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  • 4 weeks later...

GPA is just a number in their calculations. There are simply far too many applications for them to go case by case and pick out situations where their policies may unfairly discriminate against an applicant. They justified this somewhat unfair policy to my aforementioned friend last year by saying this is why GPA is worth so little in their calculations.

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Wow. That's ridiculous. Just goes to show how stupid and illogical the GPA system is.

 

switcheroo, do you think they took the fact that A's were only converted to 4's into consideration when offering your friend an interview? or is GPA really ONLY a number and nothing more?

 

Can't answer this with any certainty, but given that they're hammered with OOP applicants, I doubt they look into it any further.

 

I suppose your only option is to get a killer MCAT.

 

Oh, nevermind, the original poster is IP.

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  • 3 months later...

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/medicine/alumni/media/Statistics_Class_2013_for_web.pdf

 

Am I correct in reading that the AGPA of the admitted class for OOP is 4.04 while the GPA for the admitted class of the Manitoba region is 4.19?

 

That's kind of strange considering usually the requirements on the OOP portion is usually a much higher GPA than the IP students

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That is the aGPA for the admitted class, not the accepted OOP students. The highest ranked OOP applicants will most likely get an acceptance from their home province and are more likely to stay closer to home.

Thus the few OOP applicants who actually enroll (6 out of 24 offers in 2009) will most likely be the OOP applicants with the lowest marks since they are less likely to have received an acceptance back home.

 

If you look in the Application Bulletin it shows that for the OOP who were offered admission the mean aGPA = 4.23 while IP was 4.20

 

Also since the MCAT plays a much larger role in Manitoba's ranking equation the offers of admission went to a mean MCAT of OOP: 12.5 while IP was only 10.6

 

So yes, OOP is a much more competitive group.

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Hey guys. When Manitoba calculates your aGPA converted from another school (say U of A), do any A-'s one may have fall under the "A" category or drop down to the "B+" conversion category. I couldn't find anywhere on the brochure/site where it talks about that.

 

The second question for calculating aGPA. It says that, with 120 credits completed, 30 credits get dropped. If you are entering your 4th year of undergrad, and will have completed the 120 credits by the time of entry into that med school if accepted, do they drop the 30 credits in the ranking, or do they view your application as if you only completed 90 credits and drop 15 of those credits. Sorry if that seemed confusing.

 

The reason I ask is that, for University of Alberta, they drop your lowest year for 4 year or more applicants. In the U of A's case, though, they drop the lowest year in the ranking even if you haven't completed the 4th year yet (But are enrolled and will be completed by time of admission), therefore basing your cGPA on 2 years only in the ranking, basically.

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Hey guys. When Manitoba calculates your aGPA converted from another school (say U of A), do any A-'s one may have fall under the "A" category or drop down to the "B+" conversion category. I couldn't find anywhere on the brochure/site where it talks about that.

 

The second question for calculating aGPA. It says that, with 120 credits completed, 30 credits get dropped. If you are entering your 4th year of undergrad, and will have completed the 120 credits by the time of entry into that med school if accepted, do they drop the 30 credits in the ranking, or do they view your application as if you only completed 90 credits and drop 15 of those credits. Sorry if that seemed confusing.

 

The reason I ask is that, for University of Alberta, they drop your lowest year for 4 year or more applicants. In the U of A's case, though, they drop the lowest year in the ranking even if you haven't completed the 4th year yet (But are enrolled and will be completed by time of admission), therefore basing your cGPA on 2 years only in the ranking, basically.

 

A- becomes A.

 

When they're calculating your aGPA for interview purposes they will drop 15 credit hours (or whatever correlates with the number of credit hours you've completed at that point in the fall -- as stated in the Applicant Info Bulletin). In April, when your final course marks are submitted, they will drop the 30 credit hours (or, again, whatever correlates with credit hours completed at that point in the spring) in the final ranking process.

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Okay, I know this sounds dumb, but I'm not sure how to handle labs in GPA calculation. I go to UW, so a full course is worth 0.5 units, and a lab is worth 0.25. How do I calculate GPA, multiply the lab by two? I'm having a brain fart :confused:

 

So, if my marks for a semester where:

 

90

93

85

88 and

85 for my courses (worth 0.5 at UW)

 

And

89 and

82 for labs (worth 0.25 at UW)

 

Then what would my GPA for that semester be? could someone "show" me how they get it?

 

thanks, I know this seems so simple, but I'm stuck :eek:

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Okay, I know this sounds dumb, but I'm not sure how to handle labs in GPA calculation. I go to UW, so a full course is worth 0.5 units, and a lab is worth 0.25. How do I calculate GPA, multiply the lab by two? I'm having a brain fart :confused:

 

So, if my marks for a semester where:

 

90

93

85

88 and

85 for my courses (worth 0.5 at UW)

 

And

89 and

82 for labs (worth 0.25 at UW)

 

Then what would my GPA for that semester be? could someone "show" me how they get it?

 

thanks, I know this seems so simple, but I'm stuck :eek:

 

All right here is how I would do it:

 

Each course (0.5 creds) is worth double the labs (0.25 creds), therefore multiply the course marks by 2 and keep the lab marks as is. Then divide your final number by 12 (ie '12' marks if you count each course mark twice as many times as the lab marks)...ie

 

(90x2)+(93x2)+(85x2)+(88x2)+(85x2)+89+82 / (2x5course marks + 2 lab marks)

 

= 87.75

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I looked at Waterloo's website and they have some courses where the lab is included in the 0.5 credits, some where it is stand alone, and some where the lab is related to a lecture course, but only the lecture is required for the lab and not the other way around? If that is the case then it is really simple. I initially assumed the labs were just marked separately, and that would make it tricky in terms of agpa and how many classes you can drop. After looking it up it would just be a weighted average. You would have to work it on the 4.5 scale (I believe uofm allows you to get onto the 4.5 scale if your transcript includes percentages), as the percentage average doesn't mean anything. The math would be the same.

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  • 1 month later...

Ok guys, I've posted elsewhere, but this seems to be the place for this post. Thanks in advance for your patience, this is a dumb question, I've just done the calculations myself and it almost seems too good to be true.

 

I'm trying to figure out my AGPA. My first two years are not full course loads, as I bounced around programs. Last three years are.

 

5 year totals:

11 A+

25 A

4 B+

1 B

2 B-

3 C+

1 C

 

Total of 47 courses. Everything below B+ was concentrated in those first two years (thank God for Western, Queen's, etc.) but those years didn't have full course loads. If my math is right, and Manitoba doesn't care about my quasi-part time status in years 1 and 2, I am eligible to have 30 credit hours dropped?!?! 10 courses?!?! Leaving me with one lonely B+ and then the rest all A and A+?

 

Also, if somebody could let me know what the % weightings are for MCAT/GPA/ECs pre-interview that would be fantastic. Thanks!

 

I'm OOP by the way...

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Ok guys, I've posted elsewhere, but this seems to be the place for this post. Thanks in advance for your patience, this is a dumb question, I've just done the calculations myself and it almost seems too good to be true.

 

I'm trying to figure out my AGPA. My first two years are not full course loads, as I bounced around programs. Last three years are.

 

5 year totals:

11 A+

25 A

4 B+

1 B

2 B-

3 C+

1 C

 

Total of 47 courses. Everything below B+ was concentrated in those first two years (thank God for Western, Queen's, etc.) but those years didn't have full course loads. If my math is right, and Manitoba doesn't care about my quasi-part time status in years 1 and 2, I am eligible to have 30 credit hours dropped?!?! 10 courses?!?! Leaving me with one lonely B+ and then the rest all A and A+?

 

Also, if somebody could let me know what the % weightings are for MCAT/GPA/ECs pre-interview that would be fantastic. Thanks!

 

I'm OOP by the way...

 

141 credit hours total (assuming these were all half-year courses), results in 30 hours dropped, or 10 courses.

 

A+ 4.5*33hrs=148.5

A 4.0*75hrs=300

B+ 3.5*3hrs=10.5

 

148.5+300+10.5=459

459/111credit hours

=4.135 aGPA

 

Are your biochemistry prereqs included in these top grades? If not, things will change a bit. Your biochemistry marks have to be included in the aGPA calculation.

 

Is that about what you got? Hopefully my math isn't off.

 

I think the criteria used for granting interviews, especially for OOP applicants, has become a bit of a mystery in the past couple of years.

In the past, there seemed to be OOP aGPA and MCAT cut-offs which changed each year, and were probably calculated based on the OOP applicant pool. If the applicant met both the aGPA and MCAT cut-offs, they'd get an interview. No weightings. You either met both cut-offs and got an interview, or you didn't.

 

If you take a read through last years interview thread, though, it sure looks like the process for granting OOP interviews has changed. I'm just not sure how.

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Yea I've taken 4 biochem courses, and had a mark of A in each. Any idea what those GPA/MCAT cutoffs were in previous years? I'll get my MCAT results on September 7th, but in the meantime, is my GPA even competitive enough for Manitoba to warrant consideration?

 

And yes, that's exactly what I got. Thanks for double-checking!

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Yea I've taken 4 biochem courses, and had a mark of A in each. Any idea what those GPA/MCAT cutoffs were in previous years? I'll get my MCAT results on September 7th, but in the meantime, is my GPA even competitive enough for Manitoba to warrant consideration?

 

And yes, that's exactly what I got. Thanks for double-checking!

 

I don't recall what they were, but, for some reason, 4.05 and 11.25 come to mind. Since things vary year-to-year, I'd say anyone with both an aGPA ≥3.9 and an MCAT ≥11.0 wouldn't be losing much (other than $95, or whatever) by applying.

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