New Requirement for uOttawa

[Donald_Duck]

Hello all,

Rumor has it that a new requirement will surface that you will need a minimum letter grade of B (3.0/4) in all your science prerequisites in order to be a successful candidate for admissions (not this year but in coming years). Please plan accordingly if this will actually be implemented. This may include summer grades as well. This includes IB or AP classes that were credited on your high school transcript if you are using those as your prerequisites. A B on the uOttawa scale is 70-74% or a 6 (3.0 on a 4 scale). This is a 70% equivalent for CEGEP. 

Hope this helps ducklings.

Mr Duck

(edit: I had originally put a B is a 3.3 on a 4 scale when in reality it is a 3.0 on a 4 scale)

[rmorelan]

26 minutes ago, Donald_Duck said:

Hello all,

Rumor has it that a new requirement will surface that you will need a minimum letter grade of B (3.3/4) in all your science prerequisites in order to be a successful candidate for admissions (not this year but in coming years). Please plan accordingly if this will actually be implemented. This may include summer grades as well. This includes IB or AP classes that were credited on your high school transcript if you are using those as your prerequisites. A B on the uOttawa scale is 70-74% or a 6 (3.3 on a 4 scale). This is a 70% equivalent for CEGEP. 

Hope this helps ducklings.

Mr Duck

if you don't can you repeat the course to obtain that grade or are you locked out in some way? I suppose maybe you can just keep working up the food chain as it were with higher level science courses(?)

[Donald_Duck]

Not entirely sure since the rule isnt officially implemented but if I were to guess they would take the highest grade (that being said, retaking a course does not replace the grade, they will count it as taking it separately in the GPA calculation unless of course its taken in the summer). As you already know froggy. 

Mr Duck

[CardiacArrhythmia]

28 minutes ago, Donald_Duck said:

Hello all,

Rumor has it that a new requirement will surface that you will need a minimum letter grade of B (3.3/4) in all your science prerequisites in order to be a successful candidate for admissions (not this year but in coming years). Please plan accordingly if this will actually be implemented. This may include summer grades as well. This includes IB or AP classes that were credited on your high school transcript if you are using those as your prerequisites. A B on the uOttawa scale is 70-74% or a 6 (3.3 on a 4 scale). This is a 70% equivalent for CEGEP. 

Hope this helps ducklings.

Mr Duck

That's interesting to hear. Just for clarification, wouldn't the 70-74% range correspond with a 3.0 on the OMSAS scale instead of the 3.3?

[Donald_Duck]

You are absolutely correct, a B+ is 3.3 my bad! I edited my original post to reflect the change thank you!

Mr Duck

[-D-]

It's official: https://med.uottawa.ca/undergraduate/admissions/application-process/eligibility-requirements

[CardiacArrhythmia]

59 minutes ago, Executive-D said:

It's official: https://med.uottawa.ca/undergraduate/admissions/application-process/eligibility-requirements

Now the real question is whether or not they decided to implement it as a cutoff for applicants or will they evaluate it competitively.

[hey 123]

So is this for the next cycle?

[rmorelan]

16 minutes ago, hey 123 said:

So is this for the next cycle?

Looks like it! 

I wonder how many people this will impact. It must have some effect or why bother making the change. 

Organic chem which for many people may be the one course that causes problems (cannot hide that course in the summer anymore either).

[LUUO]

10 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

Looks like it! 

I wonder how many people this will impact. It must have some effect or why bother making the change. 

Organic chem which for many people may be the one course that causes problems (cannot hide that course in the summer anymore either).

I wonder this too. I didn't get a 70+ in Orgo.  I've completed further organic chemistry courses, so I hope they don't deny people who didn't get a 70 in basic orgo if they got better in more advanced courses. 

[rmorelan]

1 hour ago, LUUO said:

I wonder this too. I didn't get a 70+ in Orgo.  I've completed further organic chemistry courses, so I hope they don't deny people who didn't get a 70 in basic orgo if they got better in more advanced courses. 

When I applied I could select which courses I wanted them to use to prove I had the prereqs. I am hoping that you can still do that and if you fail to achieve the required grade in the introductory course you can "simply" swap it out for another - annoying because if you don't at least get a B (so it is already a weak subject for you and you are getting GPA hits) now you have to take an even harder version. At least the summer option still seems to be there.

All this is just a reminder to never count on any particular school policy to be permanent. There hopefully won't be many but some people are going to be scrambling to hit this requirement for next year as we are of course well into the winter semester leaving only the summer (and they may not have done the prereq in question any time recently so forgot it all)

[Deathnote]

They wouldn't suddenly apply this criteria to the current admissions cycle right...........

[Oscar31]

eek

[erythrocyte]

7 hours ago, Deathnote said:

They wouldn't suddenly apply this criteria to the current admissions cycle right...........

I lost sleep last night thinking about this exact same thing. I know it’s for next year’s cycle... but there’s always the irrational side of me that thinks otherwise. 

[rmorelan]

1 hour ago, Monocyte said:

I lost sleep last night thinking about this exact same thing. I know it’s for next year’s cycle... but there’s always the irrational side of me that thinks otherwise. 

Yeah no they wouldn't but of course it is still fires up the old premed paranoia.

 

[Donald_Duck]

This does not apply to current applicants as the toad mentioned. Please catch up on sleep to prepare for the interviews!!! 

Mr Duck

[rmorelan]

1 hour ago, Donald_Duck said:

This does not apply to current applicants as the toad mentioned. Please catch up on sleep to prepare for the interviews!!! 

Mr Duck

Toad?

That's like me calling you Mr. Swan.

[Donald_Duck]

Ill take the complement any day

Mr Duck

[USMDCanadian]

I wouldn't mind if they enforced this during the current cycle (less competition to worry about ). 

[medbruh]

15 minutes ago, premed_thr0waway said:

I wouldn't mind if they enforced this during the current cycle (less competition to worry about ). 

Nice attitude 

[EthicsForBreakfast]

21 minutes ago, premed_thr0waway said:

I wouldn't mind if they enforced this during the current cycle (less competition to worry about ). 

And like I also don't want a doctor that only got in because he/she filled 3 years with fluff courses to make up for the fact that they tanked basic sciences which are the important concepts in medicine....

 

Veterinary is TERRIBLE for that. They need to get on this game. 

[rmorelan]

19 minutes ago, EthicsForBreakfast said:

And like I also don't want a doctor that only got in because he/she filled 3 years with fluff courses to make up for the fact that they tanked basic sciences which are the important concepts in medicine....

 

Veterinary is TERRIBLE for that. They need to get on this game. 

I agree in part - but some of their prereqs are exactly at all relevant to medicine. Ha, I have never used organic chem once yet in this process - med school or residency. 

[erythrocyte]

1 hour ago, EthicsForBreakfast said:

And like I also don't want a doctor that only got in because he/she filled 3 years with fluff courses to make up for the fact that they tanked basic sciences which are the important concepts in medicine....

 

Veterinary is TERRIBLE for that. They need to get on this game. 

If that was the case, wouldn’t you expect all Ontario Universities to require a science degree with strict requirements for entry? 

Even American schools are departing from the traditional pre-requisite science courses they once required. 

Tanking a course in 1st year of university is not uncommon, and I think it’s part of the reason why most schools weigh your GPA of your final years considerably higher, or eliminate the courses completely. 

[nice]

.

[EthicsForBreakfast]

11 minutes ago, distributed_healthcare said:

Isn't this why the science sections of the mcat exists? But I guess since Ottawa doesn't take the mcat, they need to have other means of assessing an applicants ability to study science. But I don't think it's fair to assume that just because someone doesn't take science courses throughout their undergrad that the rest is "fluff". A lot of schools go off the idea that it's not important what you know going into medical school, but your ability to quickly learn new scientific and clinical concepts that is important. 

I'm out of province so I can't speak for other universities, especially in Ontario but by fluff I mean additional introductory courses without direction towards any particular degree. Veterinary doesn't require a degree and so more often than not people won't actually advance and just stay at the 1st or 2nd year level. The key here is that "the rest of their undergrad" doesn't actually exist because like I said, they're not working towards a degree. I think it's excellent that medical schools are wanting a broader range of students but where pre-requisites ARE required, it's assumed that the information from them should be known in order to understand the concepts they plan to teach in medical school because otherwise they wouldn't ask you to have it. If they drift away from pre-requisites, it's assumed that basic sciences will then be covered in the curriculum where necessary.