GPA clarification

[SheriffLobo]

Hey guys,

 

I've recently come across a problem that a lot of people seem to have glanced over when talking about their GPA (even my resident career counsellor made this mistake until I corrected her). When people post here or in the "What are my chances" thread, people often give their gpa according to their university's GPA system and NOT the OMSAS conversion scheme. I'm just wondering if this happens often on the forums (I know I've come across it a couple times when people revisit their grades and find out their OMSAS gpa is way lower).

 

I hope there's a requirement to post gpa according to OMSAS and not your university's scheme. It can honestly make the difference between a competitive and non competitive gpa, and it makes it especially difficult when trying to gauge any given candidate's competitiveness

 

For example, right now, I have a 4.0 GPA through my midterms, HOWEVER, this translates to a 3.98 GPA according to OMSAS. Anything above an 85% is considered to be a 4.0 at UofT, but according to OMSAS, only a 90%+ can be considered a 4.0. It is the OMSAS gpa that medical schools use to gauge your academic performance, not the one given to you by your university.

 

If someone can reaffirm this...or maybe clarify it for me, that would be appreciated. I hope I haven't misinterpreted this whole thing.

[DOC_Ma]

Hey guys,

 

I've recently come across a problem that a lot of people seem to have glanced over when talking about their GPA (even my resident career counsellor made this mistake until I corrected her). When people post here or in the "What are my chances" thread, people often give their gpa according to their university's GPA system and NOT the OMSAS conversion scheme. I'm just wondering if this happens often on the forums (I know I've come across it a couple times when people revisit their grades and find out their OMSAS gpa is way lower).

 

I hope there's a requirement to post gpa according to OMSAS and not your university's scheme. It can honestly make the difference between a competitive and non competitive gpa, and it makes it especially difficult when trying to gauge any given candidate's competitiveness

 

For example, right now, I have a 4.0 GPA through my midterms, HOWEVER, this translates to a 3.98 GPA according to OMSAS. Anything above an 85% is considered to be a 4.0 at UofT, but according to OMSAS, only a 90%+ can be considered a 4.0. It is the OMSAS gpa that medical schools use to gauge your academic performance, not the one given to you by your university.

 

If someone can reaffirm this...or maybe clarify it for me, that would be appreciated. I hope I haven't misinterpreted this whole thing.

 

How do you know they don't use OMSAS GPA? Also even if they don't use OMSAS the discrepency shouldn't be huuge. Besides I think most people actually DO use the OMSAS scale.

[Asta]

This is a good point. But there are med schools outside of Ontario. My 'big schools' are U of C, U of A & UBC. So my OMSAS GPA isn't very interesting.

[SheriffLobo]

After going through the OMSAS catalogue more critically, most schools do state whether they use OMSAS or not. However, for those that don't (For example OOP schools), how does one go about finding what their marks mean at these med schools? I assume you'd have to convert it again somehow?

 

For example, say I want to find out what an 85(4.0) counts at Western or U of C, would I have to dig up their GPA charts?

[KMMD]

You need to look at each medical school's website to find out what scale they use. You will need to convert each grade individually and then take an average after conversion.