MD2019_A Posted July 22, 2015 Report Share Posted July 22, 2015 Hello, I've gotten numerous messages on this topic and it's tough to reply to all of you (I want to, but I just can't, sorry!) Most of them are on the issue of NAQ score and how to improve them. To give a little context, I got rejected last year by UBC as an OOP, but I made the IP cut-off despite an average GPA and MCAT: GPA: 82.88 MCAT: 30ECs: Lots of research, community work, and leadershipAQ: 21.49 NAQ: 33.70 TFR: 55.19 I got a lot of messages as soon as I posted my stats asking what I wrote for my ECs and how I wrote them. Here are a few tips for you guys applying this year: 1: Understand your audience Recognize that you're one of the 1000s of applications reviewers are reading. What are the consequences of that? a. the reviewers can't read every detail you write, b. they won't spend time scrutinizing your ECs, and c. they aren't going to make assumptions and inferences about you, they're going to take everything for its face value. Just from realizing this aspect, you can already start to tailor your application accordingly. You won't waste characters in your app trying to impress with long sophisticated words 2: Understand the purpose of the app This is clearly stated in the app website itself. Read through it and it will tell exactly what they are asking for. Look through their guide at http://mdprogram.med.ubc.ca/admissions/help-guide-2015-2016/ to understand what they want to know about you. It got very easy for me after this point. 3: Approach your app as a holistic entity You want to write a clear and concise story for the reader that they can a. follow through and b. understand what you're all about after reading it. This is was the biggest factor for me. I knew myself. I knew what I was passionate about and what activities I did as resume fillers. Focus on your passion. Develop themes. For me, I focused on photography, research, squash, and youth civic engagement. Within each theme, I had anywhere from 2-4 activities that I worked on because I truly believed in them. What that does is it makes writing for them a lot easier because words literally flow out of your finger trips. You want to speak from your heart keeping in mind what they are asking for. I can truly say it's not about what you did, it's about how you write it. And that is solely based on if you are passionate about what you did. I do think it's possible to weed out applicants who have 4.0 GPAs but never showed any passionate and commitment to their art, and that is exactly what they are looking for. 4. You don't need scholarships and publications. I had 0 scholarships in the awards section. I only had local and very small recognition titles. Nothing fancy. I had 0 research publications, just a couple abstracts at conferences. Again, they are not looking for those things, those sections are there to make the app easier to follow, that is all. I hope that answers some of the questions. As for the rest, please try to post questions here as many of you guys had similar questions. I'll try to answer them here moving forward. Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean Claude Posted July 25, 2015 Report Share Posted July 25, 2015 Agree with everything above except #4. I'd be careful saying you don't "need" publications. I'm sure you don't need publications or scholarships, but if you do, it will help your application. Just saying from my experience (naq 42), I had a few publications and conference presentations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amichel Posted July 25, 2015 Report Share Posted July 25, 2015 Agree with everything above except #4. I'd be careful saying you don't "need" publications. I'm sure you don't need publications or scholarships, but if you do, it will help your application. Just saying from my experience (naq 42), I had a few publications and conference presentations. Obviously they help, but they are definitely not needed. I think OP makes a fair statement and it can definitely be a source of anxiety for some applicants. (It was for me!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephencurry1 Posted August 10, 2015 Report Share Posted August 10, 2015 Hi, Are you saying that for an activity such as research in a lab, you entered multiple activities detailing what you did there? I'm debating whether I should be grouping my activities or I should be having separate tabs for each thing I did in that activity. For example, I have grouped all of my clinical volunteering together even though I had several different positions and volunteering in different areas. Is this the correct way to approach the non-academic activity section? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartpig Posted August 11, 2015 Report Share Posted August 11, 2015 Hi, Are you saying that for an activity such as research in a lab, you entered multiple activities detailing what you did there? I'm debating whether I should be grouping my activities or I should be having separate tabs for each thing I did in that activity. For example, I have grouped all of my clinical volunteering together even though I had several different positions and volunteering in different areas. Is this the correct way to approach the non-academic activity section? I would say that you can group them as long as you did similar tasks. I'm sure adcom would recognize multiple entries with the same location and same verifier as simply a space filler for the app. For example, if I worked with kids in different areas of the hospital doing similar duties, I entered it once and explained what I did instead of making multiple entries for each department I volunteered in. I hope this clears up your question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephencurry1 Posted August 12, 2015 Report Share Posted August 12, 2015 Thank you! That answered my question! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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