Why Wait Until May 15?

Interviews are over and the timeline says offer notifications are still weeks and weeks away… but why? Many applicants may wonder why we wait until May 15 to send the offers when the interviews are finished in February. There are a couple of reasons: one is that there are still several things to do before we can send the offers (or even know who to send them to), while another one is that we harmonize our offer date with that of other Canadian medical schools.

The first thing that happens after the interview is the post-interview file review. After the interviews, a second file review is performed. This review includes all aspects of your file, including references, MCAT scores, etc.

At the Final Selection meetings, the Admission Selection Committee discusses applicants and reaches a consensus to decide who is admissible to the program and who is not. The Selection Committee is not aware of site preference rankings – they just decide who should be offered a position in the program if one is available and who, unfortunately, should not be admitted this year. Since your entire file is up for review, there is a lot for the committee to discuss and these meetings take some time to complete.

When the meetings are finished, we know the list of admissible applicants. These applicants are then allocated to sites based on their ranking order and site preferences. Basically, we assign applicants to their first choice site unless that site is already full. We assign those applicants to their second choice, third choice, etc. as necessary (but not to any site marked “No Interest”). Applicants who are not assigned to their preferred sites are most likely put on the waitlist for those sites. If all of an applicant’s listed sites are full by the time we get to their name, they are placed on the waitlist.

Finally, we have our list of who is going where, who is on the waitlist, etc. Although we have this information before May 15, we wait until then because many other Canadian medical schools send their offers on or around this date as well. This allows applicants who receive offers from multiple schools time to consider the offers simultaneously. In addition, the process of filling the positions in the class goes more quickly and smoothly if applicants who decide not to go to UBC can decline their initial offer rather than withdrawing their acceptance later (but we of course understand that this is sometimes unavoidable). We also like to have a set day so applicants know to check their email and/or Application Status page on that day.

It is very hard to wait, especially the last few days, so we really do appreciate your patience!