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Confused about GPA and most recent 60 credits


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Hey everyone, this has probably been beaten to death but I am confused about the GPA and "most recent 60 credits" requirements.

 

1) I did my undergrad at the University of Waterloo and all my marks and GPA are already in percentages. Will UBC convert these or leave them alone?

2) What are the most recent 60 credits? At Waterloo, we had semestered courses so each course was generally worth 0.5 credits. OMSAS says that semestered courses would take a weighting of 1...which means that I'd still only have a total of ~46 credits. Does most recent 60 credits just mean the last 2/3 years?

 

Finally, is there any weight given to the rigour/difficulty of the undergrad program? I graduated from Honours Computer Engineering with an 82% average (~84% if you remove 1st year courses) and would like to know if this would help my application.

 

Thanks in advance!! :)

- D

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Oh, forgot to ask:

 

Since I'll need to take classes to fulfill the pre-requisites, will these marks be added to my GPA calculation?

 

Thanks again.

 

No.

 

Hey everyone, this has probably been beaten to death but I am confused about the GPA and "most recent 60 credits" requirements.

 

1) I did my undergrad at the University of Waterloo and all my marks and GPA are already in percentages. Will UBC convert these or leave them alone?

2) What are the most recent 60 credits? At Waterloo, we had semestered courses so each course was generally worth 0.5 credits. OMSAS says that semestered courses would take a weighting of 1...which means that I'd still only have a total of ~46 credits. Does most recent 60 credits just mean the last 2/3 years?

 

Finally, is there any weight given to the rigour/difficulty of the undergrad program? I graduated from Honours Computer Engineering with an 82% average (~84% if you remove 1st year courses) and would like to know if this would help my application.

 

Thanks in advance!! :)

- D

 

If your marks are already in percentages they will not convert it. There is nothing to convert.

 

30 credits = 5.0 courses

60 credits = 10.0 courses

 

No. Difficulty does not matter.

 

And they look at everything. Your first year will be counted.

 

- Lupe :cool:

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Actually, your pre-req marks will count for your overall GPA and also if they are recent, to your last 60 credits. I'm not sure why Lupe said no? But UBC looks at all your grades and will not exclude anything unless it's 10 years old and you can apply the 10 year rule.

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Thanks for your quick response Lupe! So if 60 credits are the last 10 courses, that essentially means my 4th and final year of undergrad (5 courses/semester). For pre-interview screening, is the overall GPA, last 60 credits average and non-academic score given a 33% weight?

 

Thanks

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For your pre-interview score, you get a mark out of 25 for Overall GPA and your last 60 credits. The weight given to each is suspected to change this year, but in years past people believed it to be 15 marks for last 60 and 10 for overall GPA. You also get a mark out of 25 for your non-academic activities. Your total is out of 50. To get an interview if you are in province, last year it was around 36.XX and for OOP it was about 41.XX but don't quote me on those exact numbers.

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Oh interesting. Hmm makes sense, I guess I can call UBC to find out for sure. Since I currently live and work in Seattle, is there anything against taking the prereqs at an American school like University of Washington?

 

No, it doesn't matter where you take the pre-reqs as long as they are equivalent to the pre-reqs that are designated at UBC. You can always email them to check to see if it's okay.

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So if 60 credits are the last 10 courses, that essentially means my 4th and final year of undergrad (5 courses/semester).

 

No, 60 credits would be equivalent of two years of a full course load. At UBC, most courses are 3 credits, and most people take 5 in a semester to make it 15 credits. If you do this for both fall and winter sessions, that gives you 30 credits for one year. Therefore, 60 credits refers to 2 years of full time studies, so in your case, it would probably apply to your 3rd and 4th year.

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Yeah 3rd and 4th year.

 

I said no to pre-reqs because I thought the OP meant he was taking the pre-reqs now.

 

If you've already done them, they will be in your overall. Yes.

 

EDIT: His post says

 

"Since I'll need to take classes to fulfill the pre-requisites, will these marks be added to my GPA calculation?"

 

So no they won't count if you've applied this cycle.

 

If you are applying next cycle and these courses will be finished then yes they will not only count for your overall they will also count for your last 60 credits as well.

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That's interesting. I always felt that people from SFU and UVIC got penalized because of their GPA scale but I guess UBC applies it universally to all applicants from universities other than UBC, regardless of whether the school uses the GPA scale or percentage. I'm assuming it's like the OMSAS conversion scale?

 

I guess those of us here at UBC are the only ones that know what our marks are exactly when applying.

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I just called UBC to ask some additional questions. I asked again about the conversion if I already have percentage grades from Ontario. They DO indeed convert percentage grades to UBC's standard.

 

Learn something new everyday! :)

 

- D

 

Doubtful.

 

If you look at the Accepted/Rejected Thread a lot of OOP applicants got an AQ of 25 with their grades in percentages being over 85% from their home institution. And all of them weren't WAY over 85; some were 86 or 87 and they still got an AQ of 25.

 

So, doubtful.

 

- Lupe :cool:

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Doubtful.

 

If you look at the Accepted/Rejected Thread a lot of OOP applicants got an AQ of 25 with their grades in percentages being over 85% from their home institution. And all of them weren't WAY over 85; some were 86 or 87 and they still got an AQ of 25.

 

So, doubtful.

 

- Lupe :cool:

Can you explain what you mean? What is AQ?

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Can you explain what you mean? What is AQ?

Hey dd,

just thought i'd respond to this post... I'm not sure if you have the answer to this or not but what the heck- may as well post so future applicants know what the terminology is.

 

AQ means Academic Qualities- it is the mark out of 25 that is generated by inputting an applicants last 60 credits average and overall average into a formula (which has been posted on another forum). The resulting number is your AQ score, which when combined with your NAQ or Non Academic Qualities score (also out of 25) gives you your overall score. If you are an In Province (IP) applicant you generally require an overall score around 36-37 to garner an interview. For Out Of Province (OOP) applicants the score is typically above 40.

 

In order to score a full 25/25 on your AQ your overall average and last 60 credits should be above 85% based on UBC's grading scale.

 

This is a statement from UBC Medicine's website:

The grading scheme of applicants’ particular institution(s) will be used and converted to a final percentage. We do not convert each individual grade.

 

From the above statement one could assume that a person's overall GPA is converted to the % equivalent and the compared to UBC's grading scale. The issue is that different schools use different scales and some ambiguity arises as UBC does not disclose how they convert from school to school. It would be nice to see some transparency with regards to how this process is done, but I'm not sure if it will happen anytime soon.

 

What you can assume though is that if you do relatively well in your classes- ie. around 85%- you will most likely see an AQ score of 23-25/25... which will help immensely when competing for interview spots.

 

Oh and as for NAQ scoring... nobody really knows how it works. It's broken down into different categories (on the UBC website). The website also has a breakdown of criteria they use to assess, but who knows what it means. The idea is to do things that you like doing and that will help you prepare for a career in medicine.

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