*GPA and med admissions

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Jason

Date:***1/8/2001 6:34 pm*PST

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Hi, everyone

I just heard recently that GPA is quite different from average and that GPA is what med schools look at.

If I get 75% in a course, its GPA will be 3.0; if I get 80% in a course, its GPA will be 3.7. A 5% difference here would make a signicant difference on my overall GPA. So it is possible for a person to have a 90% average but a rather low GPA like 3.7 (because one course of GPA 3.0 will destroy everything). And it is also possible for another person to have a 87% but a high GPA of 3.9 (if that person has 87% in all his courses) The GPA system I'm talking about is out of 4. For example, 90+ is 4; 85-89 is 3.9; 80-84 is 3.7; 77-79 is 3.3; 73-76 is 3.0. Med schools convert each course to GPA and calculate GPA average, that's what I heard. A GPA average below 3.8 is considered inadequate.

Is it true that med school only look at GPA average instead of numeric average? Is it possible to have one really bad course destroy your whole transcript? If anybody has any information, please drop a few lines.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Jase

Date:***1/8/2001 7:09 pm*PST

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Yes.. this is true...

 

My average (numeric) was not high, but my GPA was high.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Jeff, UG2

Date:***1/9/2001 7:40 pm*PST

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I'm not sure about UBC (since stats published on their page seem to be based on arithmetic averages), but Ontario schools, McGill, and American schools only look at your grade point average rather than your % average. Note, however, that different schools use different systems. For example, the system that you described above is the OMSAS system used in Ontario. I believe that if you apply to the States from a Canadian School, the system is slightly different, with an 85+ counting as 4.0 grade points. A GPA below 3.8 is "inadequate" only at U of T and Ottawa (at least as far as Ontario schools are concerned), and that's only if you're in undergrad. I suppose having just 2 or 3 "bad" marks can spoil an otherwise stellar academic record, but in most cases you won't see someone with seven 96's and three 76's (these 10 courses work out to a 90 average but 3.70 GPA). That seems a bit on the extreme side. For a given % average, I'm pretty sure marks are much more spread out than that, so things should balance out.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Author:*Ian Wong, MS2

Date:***1/13/2001 2:29 pm*PST

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Hello,

 

I think it varies with each medical school as to how they assess your marks. There are even conversion keys out there somewhere (I had a copy once, and can't find it now) that was used to convert my UVic GPA (which is on a 9-point scale) to a UBC GPA, a U of Calgary GPA, or to an OMSAS GPA.

 

Incidentally, none of those three resulting marks looked visually equivalent. Even more amusing is that UBC somehow came up with a percentage grade for my transcript (eg. 87%), which is impossible as UVic doesn't record your percent grade for each course, but instead gives letter grades.

 

As you've already pointed out, this is one of the hazards of having many universities, each of which is independant to the others. You get bizarre differences in grading schemes, course difficulties, transfer credits, etc.

 

I think your best action at this point is to stop worrying about your GPA. There is simply nothing you can do at this time that will affect your past marks. Just keep plugging away at your current, and future courses. Best of luck!

 

Ian

Can, MS2