This post was sent via email to current applicants. If you are planning to apply this year and did not receive this email because you have not yet started your application, please start your application as soon as you can. The deadline is less than a week away!
Document Status Updates
a. Transcripts received in the mail – We are normally able to update transcript statuses within 24 hours of the transcript arriving at our physical location. At least one entry for each institution must be started on the Transcripts page of the application in order for us to update the status of your transcript.
Please note that there is an approximate two-day delay between our mailing address and our physical location, but transcripts are on time if they arrive at the mailing address by the deadline.
If your transcript says “Not Received” – We finish updating transcripts in the afternoon. If your transcript status still says “Not Received” at around 5:00 p.m., it means your transcript did not arrive that day. More generally, it means that we have not received your transcript yet. It may be in transit, or it may have been lost before arriving at our office. Either way, it is not in our office, so we cannot provide any further information beyond what you can see on your Application Status page. For this reason we will not be able to answer inquiries regarding the status of transcripts that were sent by regular mail. You must make the decision to send another transcript (preferably via courier) or wait and see if your transcript arrives. As a reminder, all transcripts must arrive at our mailing address by Thursday, September 15 at noon Pacific time or your application may become ineligible.
If you sent your transcript by courier and have proof that your transcript has been delivered to our mailing address, please email us with the tracking information.
Please note that having proof that you submitted a transcript request on a certain date or having proof that the transcript was sent from your institution on a certain date does not mean the transcript has arrived yet.
Some transcripts arrived before the applicant began his or her application. We go through these transcripts and update them on a daily basis.
b. Transcripts carried forward from your 2015/2016 file– These are updated daily, but as long as you have marked the box on the Additional Information page asking us to transfer your transcripts to your new file, you can consider your carried-forward transcripts received by the deadline even if the status for these transcripts says “Not Received.” You must submit a new copy of any transcript that has changed since you last submitted it.
c. UBC Transcripts– These are updated daily, but as long as you have marked the box on the Other Information page to authorize us to access your UBC transcript electronically, you can consider your UBC transcript received by the deadline even if your UBC transcript status says “Not Received.”
d. BC Residency– As long as you have uploaded your currently valid BC Care Card or BC Services Card by the September 15 deadline, you can consider your proof of BC residency to be received on time, even if your BC residency status says “Not Received.” As a reminder, proof of BC residency will not be carried forward to your new file.
e. MCAT – Please complete the MCAT page of your application and release your scores to UBC using the MCAT Score Reporting System by October 1 (please release your scores now if they are available). It is not enough to complete the MCAT page of your application – you must also send your scores to UBC using the MCAT Score Reporting System. UBC is not part of the AMCAS system. We are currently updating MCAT scores once per day.
Hi,
I have a unrelated question regarding the work/activities section. If one was volunteering with an organization for over 3 years but with a different role each year (eg. first year rep, to marketing chair, to president of the club). Would you classify all of it under one activity or describe each of the three roles separately?
Thanks in advance for your help!
The deadline has passed, but thank you for using your best judgment to sort this out and complete your application!
Hi,
I have another slightly unrelated question regarding the MCAT. Seeing that the new MCAT is exceedingly more difficult than the previous MCAT, will the admissions committee take this into consideration? For example, if one person has a 30 on the old mcat, and one person has the equivalent to a 30 on the new mcat, would the new mcat have a slight advantage?
I personally believe the new mcat should be slightly favoured considering how much more difficult it is, and the added material to the exam (biochemistry, psychology, sociology). But I would love to hear what the admission committee’s stance is on this.
Thanks in advance!
Thank you for your input on the relative difficulty of the two exams. The selection committee knows about the key differences between the two versions of the MCAT, but both versions are valid assessors of things like critical thinking, reasoning ability, and scientific knowledge. We do want applicants to transition to MCAT 2015 so this year (2016/2017) is the last year the old MCAT will be accepted. Starting in 2017/2018 we will only accept scores from the new MCAT.
If you are interested in how applicants from last year performed on the MCAT, you might find it interesting to look at the MED 2020 statistics we recently posted as average scores from both the old MCAT and new MCAT are included.
Hi,
Question about verifiers: if unable to contact or reach the one included in applications, would admissions message applicants in an attempt to supply a new verifier or would the activity be ruled out?
Thanks!
In most cases, the applicant would be contacted and asked to review the verifier’s contact information and/or provide a new verifier.
Can taking the MCAT in August as opposed to June delay review of your application, or is it considered the same as long as your MCAT score will be released before the last date and your application is submitted on time?
In other words, is there an advantage to writing the MCAT early?
Is there an advantage to submitting your completed application early?
Thank you!
Your application is considered the same as long as you take the MCAT by the end of August and we receive your scores by the Oct. 1 deadline. However, if you write the MCAT at one of the later August sittings, you may not get your scores back before the application deadline. This means you might apply, only to have your application become ineligible when your scores are released. In addition, if you encounter testing difficulties (computer problems, etc.) it may be too late for us to accommodate a rescheduled exam.