UBC Admission Blog

[Guest humhum]

You are getting way too worked up about this. I agree with you that it is unlikely that the IP acceptance rate will drop below 18%. I say that because it is unlikely that all the additional applicants are only in province. It would take around 1450 IP applicants to drop below that 18% mark. I also think that people arguing with you don't all believe that the rate will drop below 18% in the near future.

All that being said, everyone is arguing with you because UBC won't just change the seats. Claiming stats are on your side is insane; it would mean UBC is fluctuating their seat number every year.....

It's nice that you think you know how they operate but your speculation about changing numbers of seats is the most wild and unfounded. You attack us, saying we don't have insider information, but a number of us are in the program and the faculty is very open about a lot of this type of information.

If you're likely to receive an interview due to your stats, I would work on acknowledging you're wrong, and that you don't know everything, or your interview score will suffer.

Good luck.

 

You are agreeing with what I'm saying, and then you are disagreeing with stuff I didn't say. Not sure what to make of that, other than mmmmOK?

 

The number of seats most certainly do change, although they are preset before every application cycle. All in all, it works out that the In province acceptance rate is consistent. With me so far? If yes, then what is the beef? The only way for the acceptance rate to remain consistent with increasing application numbers is by increasing seat. Ooooooh math!!!

 

Am I the only one that has the decency to actually review the total number of students enrolled in the past ten year, and see how dramatically the number of seats has increased in a predictable manner?

 

Thanks for the unsolicited interview advice. That and the part that escalated into general life advice oh so very quickly, and with such lack of humility and proud pompousness. People must love that about you. Assuming so much about people you don't have the slightest clue about. Such a positive trait.

[are we ther yet]

Well I don't know what you believe was life advice, but that's fine. It is nice that you don't address any of the many valid points, that have evidence behind them, and continue with your "trend." It is also funny how certain you are about the validity of your stats, when there are only 10 points of data.

My question is why would UBC care at all about keeping it within that percentage range? Or the government bodies who control these things? If there is double the IP applicants next year, do you think anybody who regulates the seats would care?

Most schools in the US have significantly lower %. some schools receive 12,000+ applications for 200 seats, but UBC should maintain its 20% to please some group of people? for fairness? Give us a logical argument, or something to help us agree with you, because 10 points of data is certainly not enough.

[ajc260]

Things seem to have become pretty hostile here since I last checked in. Just throwing in my thoughts...yes, I completely agree that the number of seats for students is determined by politics and funding. I'm from Newfoundland and the province has been crying for physicians, especially in rural areas, for as long as I can remember. However, the seats offered here at our med school have only increased by a small number over the past few years despite the need for doctors and the amount of amazing applicants.

 

As far as I am concerned, who cares what admission statistics have been in previous years? Statistics do little in determining whether one will be accepted or not. There is a completely different pool of applicants every year. You could be at the top of the list one year and the bottom of the list the next. I've applied to UBC as an OOP applicant, so statistically my chances of acceptance are already slim to none. That being said, I don't know who I'm up against...all I know is that I have worked as hard as I can to get where I am to today and I hope my application stands out. If I'm not accepted, I don't blame statistics and seat allocation, I just know whoever was accepted obviously deserved it and that I have to start on building a better application for next year.

[monty]

Things have become quite hostile on here! I do have to agree that the seat numbers are unlikely to change. However, let’s suppose your theory is correct and that they will attempt to keep the acceptance rate for IP around 18-21%. Even if they were to do that it would not take effect this year. As has been mentioned by many people on this forum the resources are just not there right now. People were having trouble finding preceptors with the current numbers we already have. This is not just a problem for VFMP but also the distributed sites, in some of the distributed sites the preceptors are saturated almost everyone who can train is already training. Additionally, each student has a certain amount of funding allotted to them…more students equal more money. I have a hard time believing the provincial/federal government has told UBC that if they increase the number of seats at their school they will somehow automatically be granted more money for 10 extra students. Even if you believe in this “trend” and statistics I tend more to believe in the power of bureaucracy and how long that process will take just to get the funding approval.

 

Saying all this, I do not think your theory is correct. Just because you notice two variables moving together does not mean that one causes the other. Over the years there have been more applicants. Did the number of applicants cause UBC to increase the number of seats? Possibly, but it is equally likely that some other factor caused the increase in seats. Correct me if I am wrong but the increase in the number of seats was to address a predicted physician shortage not because more applicants were applying. Again, what I am saying is total conjecture. Speculate all you want, I would not hedge any bets on adding seats. You mentioned earlier that the percentage has ranged from 18-21% in recent years and judging by the approximately 450 ineligible applications then we are looking at about 1600ish vs 1400ish applicants. If you look at the acceptance percentage from there it goes from around 20% to 18%...I am not the best with statistics but there would seem to be no need to change the seat number based on the historical patterns you are citing?

[monty]

lol after writing that reply I went and read the other comments and realized it had already been said multiple times...

[infamyofinternal]

4th year here, don't expect any increase in seats. From meetings at BCMA, and CMA - there may be a shift towards reducing seats by a small amount over the next 5 years, if not stagnant.

 

More is being done to address the distribution problem of physicians across Canada. We have enough in the pipeline, just a bad distribution problem.

[Cerena]

4th year here, don't expect any increase in seats. From meetings at BCMA, and CMA - there may be a shift towards reducing seats by a small amount over the next 5 years, if not stagnant.

 

More is being done to address the distribution problem of physicians across Canada. We have enough in the pipeline, just a bad distribution problem.

 

Thank you for posting this

[hamham]

Just wanna to echo some of my classmates' thoughts by letting all know that there are more than 300 students in the lecture hall now (the 288 MD candidates and the dental students are having the same class for certain courses), and we can all feel the "stress" of being in such a huge class. It's a good thing that they do not add any more seats, as any increase will not bode well for future students.

 

PS: hamham is NOT (in any way) related to humhum. Thought I emphasize this.

[Cerena]

Just wanna to echo some of my classmates' thoughts by letting all know that there are more than 300 students in the lecture hall now (the 288 MD candidates and the dental students are having the same class for certain courses), and we can all feel the "stress" of being in such a huge class. It's a good thing that they do not add any more seats, as any increase will not bode well for future students.

 

PS: hamham is NOT (in any way) related to humhum. Thought I emphasize this.

 

As an aside, it will feel a bit more roomy come January Still congested but less so.

P.S. Good luck to you and the 2017s in your upcoming exams.

[sgh87]

Gotta love having some random bit of stats put together to counter facts. There is literally nothing to gain for med students/residents on these sub forums. However, many come here because we want to help as many premeds as possible because we understand the grind/difficulty/frustration of the process., just like many did so for us beforehand. So why challenge the common knowledge that we have acquired from being in the system, with random numbers and self-generated hypothesis, whilst maintaining a condescending tone. It may only discourage others from answering future questions you may have.

[KB Done]

This humhum guy is just an ignorant premed. Why do us med students/resident doctors bother? Leave him alone.

[murphy303]

Did any one notice that the last blog entry was September 4, 2013? Last year, there werr 3 more blog entry by now. No information about how many people applied this year!!!

 

they r on vacation? lol

[mlgquickscopepro]

Damn I thought someone posting in this thread would mean they posted stats

[throwaway2014app]

UofC had a 9% increase in applicants this year so I'm pretty sure every school in canada has a ~10% increase in apps this years

[murphy303]

And how is it that you know this with such certainty? You don't imagine they could find 10 additional seats for each of the 4 sites across the province?

 

You may not know that UBC has just completed a carefully executed plan to increase the size of the medical school sequentially. The Liberal government began the expansion more than 10 years ago, and the final phase has come and gone. The expansion is now finished.

 

Read more about it here:

http://www.tupc.bc.ca/publications/med_rpt.pdf

http://www.bcmj.org/article/medical-school-expansion-bc

 

The Faculty of Medicine is also piloting a new type of clerkship in which students spend a full year in a small community attached to a family physician, and thus meet the objectives of specialty disciplines through broad patient care. If successful, this model will allow students to complete their entire clinical education in smaller centres.

 

UBC admitted 256 first-year students in 2007, doubling the student intake in just 4 years. The speed of implementation has only been possible with intense collaboration from physicians, universities, health authorities, government, and patients. In 2008, the first cohort of students from this bold expansion will graduate and enter postgraduate programs, which are also expanding in anticipation of the demand.

 

This isn't something that just happened randomly. And actually, it might have over expanded. As things stand, UBC is having trouble getting enough preceptors, clinical teaching assistants, clerkships not to mention residencies, etc. Keep in mind Alberta has been downsizing their schools.

[murphy303]

After all, there are two people on the internet saying so, and they can't be wrong; a decade's worth of statistics from UBC be damned

 

These people may be doctors or medical students intimately familiar with the system and therefore far more knowledgeable than you.

 

UBC even says so on their own website in the welcome message that states they are accepting 288 students for this cycle.

http://mdprogram.med.ubc.ca/admissions/welcome-message/

 

Therefore, if number of valid IP applications grows, the rate of acceptance will go down.

 

And how is it that you know this with such certainty? You don't imagine they could find 10 additional seats for each of the 4 sites across the province? It seems only logical that somewhere in their long-term goals they are taking into account that the province's population has been growing year-over-year, and the physicians they need to churn out has to keep pace with their historical rate - if not with the population growth rate.

 

Either way, in my opinion is much less likely that the admission rate for in-province students will drop below the 18-21% rate it has been for the past 5 years, regardless of the number of applicants.

 

Bravo, so convincing! Never before such graceful string of words have much such a strong argument. The part implying I don't understand how the world works is a nice touch. ok! I'm going by your amazing suggestion and do my homework, and completely ignore a decade's worth of statistics published by UBC which entirely refutes your conjecture.

 

Buddy, just look up. Year after year the acceptance rate has been consistent. What part of that is so hard for you to grasp? The math part?

 

What is in it for you to deny so much historical trend as evidence and embrace instead some gloom scenario?

 

Yes, there is so much evidence that acceptance rates will fall off dramatically starting this year. After all, there are two people on the internet saying so, and they can't be wrong; a decade's worth of statistics from UBC be damned. How would it serve me or anyone to "dream" this anyways?

 

Relax dudes, and review the original thread. Someone was worried additional applicants are going to kill his/her chances this year, and I simply pointed out that barring some massive outlier anomaly, this year the acceptance rate will be in line with every previous year of the past decade.

 

This has nothing to do with your theories of political contingencies that drive medical school matriculations.

 

 

You write "[why] deny so much historical trend[?]" The trend is due to (a) a yearly increase in applicants as ( the medical school has been expanding (with these things occurring at approximately equal rates). The expansion is done, but the increase in applicants may continue. If you go back 20-30 years, there have actually been huge fluctuations in acceptance rates, with the trend being that the number of applicants is generally increasing.

 

The fundamental issue is that well-informed people are talking about the specific nature of the factors that lead to the outcomes that you reference in the statistics, while you are reasoning that because the acceptance rate has been stable for some time that it will continue to remain that way. That is superficial reasoning. We are not making fundamental observations about the natural sciences, but rather a system influenced by changing political and financial factors, so no reasonable expectation of consistency should apply here (otherwise, state reasoning?). The rate may or may not stay the same. But to reason that it will stay the same just because it has been stable for some time does not give due consideration to the factors that determine the rate.

 

I would suggest maybe you should talk to the people who are trying to help you with more respect. Asking people if they "grasp math" makes you look like a moron. If you do get into medical school, hopefully the process will humble you.