Relative to other schools, is UBC harsh on ECs?

[AMS1989]

I was just wondering if UBC is considered harsh on EC's, or if my NAQ should be relatively suggestive of how other schools across canada (particularly ontario) might rate my EC's?

[songofdovely]

Not sure if I would consider it "harsh", but moreso a consequence of the fact that UBC is one of very few med schools across North America that place such a huge emphasis on EC's (50% AQ 50% NAQ pre-interview). Because of this, UBC med is naturally going to draw a lot more "EC-competitive students" (for lack of a better term) and, because of this, the bar becomes really high for EC. I'm not sure how it goes for other schools, but for UBC their admission process selects a candidate that has "Average ECs" and essentially everything is relative to that profile.

 

So to answer your question, I would think that the "average applicant" would likely have more things on their EC's at UBC than in a school that primarily GPA based.

[future doc]

u of c also places more emphasis on ECs compared to others...

[Drogba]

In terms of Ontario, U of Ottawa probably places the highest emphasis on ECs pre-interview, although ECs play an important role at practically every med school in Ontario at some point in the process.

[UBCMD]

I would not use UBC's ranking of your NAQ to try to extrapolate how other schools would evaluate you on your ECs. Each school has their own system of looking at and evaulating ECs. This process is somewhat subjective, and every school will look for different EC qualities and assign what they think is appropriate.