Subscapularis90 Posted November 14, 2010 Report Share Posted November 14, 2010 Im in my third year in the U.S. doing pretty poorly at my uni. My gpa is a 2.7 due to several reasons and I feel the need to leave my uni because I am just unhappy here. I was thinking about applying to UBC since they are the only ones that would still accept me as a third year transfer (McGill does as well but apparently they are too selective, 3.5+ gpa needed). I would need to spend an extra year there too finish (which isn't bad because I could use the extra year of good grades hopefully). My major is bio and my uni isn't a top tier school by any means, in fact its pretty lowly ranked (to give an idea of the difficulty), how difficult is the gen bio program at UBC (how hard is it to get and maintain an A)? How different is it from the American education system? Is undergrad research possible at the Vancouver campus? How did you guys fit in socially? I asked these questions already in the general forum, but if any American student, or anyone who is familiar with both the American college education system, and UBC's education system can help me out with these questions I would appreciate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
case_sensitive Posted November 22, 2010 Report Share Posted November 22, 2010 In terms of content of material, UBC would not be much different that any school in the States. I wouldn't however plan on going to any school in Canada with the assumption of getting easy As. On the social aspect, everyone is very welcoming and there should be no problem fitting in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johndoe88 Posted January 12, 2011 Report Share Posted January 12, 2011 Im in my third year in the U.S. doing pretty poorly at my uni. My gpa is a 2.7 due to several reasons and I feel the need to leave my uni because I am just unhappy here. I was thinking about applying to UBC since they are the only ones that would still accept me as a third year transfer (McGill does as well but apparently they are too selective, 3.5+ gpa needed). I would need to spend an extra year there too finish (which isn't bad because I could use the extra year of good grades hopefully). My major is bio and my uni isn't a top tier school by any means, in fact its pretty lowly ranked (to give an idea of the difficulty), how difficult is the gen bio program at UBC (how hard is it to get and maintain an A)? How different is it from the American education system? Is undergrad research possible at the Vancouver campus? How did you guys fit in socially? I asked these questions already in the general forum, but if any American student, or anyone who is familiar with both the American college education system, and UBC's education system can help me out with these questions I would appreciate it. lol McGill, UBC, U of T and Queen's are all very hard. UBC has a rep for being one of the toughest. If you are at a US state school and doing that poorly coming to UBC will be worse for you. If you're at Harvard than maybe you got a shot but you need to go to a crappier university. Try UNBC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dino Posted November 15, 2011 Report Share Posted November 15, 2011 I may be wrong, but I don't think there is a "general biology" degree. There are zoology, botany, microbiology, biochem and some specialised programs such as pharmacology (not pharmaceutical sciences), medical lab sciences and physiology. And yes; UBC is one of the toughest. It is very hard to get in, even for B.C. students and then you have to take classes with other very smart students. You have to be a high achiever to do well on a bell-shaped curve with such classmates (a typical class average is approximately 68% - remember... these are generally smart people who did very well in high school). This means you can't afford to screw up on a single exam. On the bright side, if you do extremely well for the last 3 full years (excluding summer classes which are often not considered in your wGPA), do some volunteering and participate in extracurriculars, you may stand a chance. Best option: attend a school where the admission criteria are not as high and outshine your classmates, whom will not be such flawless oddities. On the other hand, UBC probably the highest density of beautiful young women in North America (except maybe some community colleges in SoCal). By the way, don't believe that welcoming / nice / polite crap. We are no better, nicer or more welcoming as a people than Americans (I am specifically commenting on the current university aged generation). Best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moo Posted November 16, 2011 Report Share Posted November 16, 2011 I'm sorry but I have to disagree. UBC is not a tough school by any means. Grading in Canadian schools, even at UBC, is generally a lot more lenient than in US schools, even state schools. Some programs at UBC are difficult (engineering, math, physics) but I would definitely not count life sciences among them. I did my undergrad at UBC - math and physics courses were really tough (we had 50-60% averages, equivalent to D's and C's), bio-courses were a cake walk. I also did my MPH at UBC and we had A averages in most of our courses, even in the "difficult" statistics courses. People here have too high an opinion of UBC. Of course, if you're from a "low ranked" school, it may be different. But in general, UBC does not and can never compare with the likes of Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc. I know because I went to med school at Northwestern and the vast majority of my classmates were from the Ivy's or really good state schools. They were A LOT smarter than my classmates at UBC, even the really good ones. Even coming back to Canada, my classmates in med school were a lot smarter than the med students here, so it's not a selection thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dino Posted November 16, 2011 Report Share Posted November 16, 2011 For me, it was the other way around. The further a class was from physical sciences, the harder I found it. Probably because the further you get from math & physics, the harder it becomes to measure, quantify and calculate. This only happened to me at UBC, though. The scale went like this: Easy...........................................................................................Hard <===========================================================> Physical Sc................Life Sc....................Psych..............Other Social Sc. Didn't mean I didn't love them, but they were not as "intuitive" to me. Except for quantum mechanics. That's just feckud! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Let'sGo1990 Posted December 21, 2011 Report Share Posted December 21, 2011 lol McGill, UBC, U of T and Queen's are all very hard. UBC has a rep for being one of the toughest. If you are at a US state school and doing that poorly coming to UBC will be worse for you. If you're at Harvard than maybe you got a shot but you need to go to a crappier university. Try UNBC. Hah.. that gave me a laugh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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