Admissions Blog

Waitlist Round 3

By Admissions on Jun 06, 2013 Hello! Waitlist round 3 offers have been sent- deadline June 10. Congrats again to those who received an offer! Permalink | 4 Comments

Waitlist Round 2

By Admissions on May 30, 2013

Just a quick not to say that we sent our second round of waitlist offers (eg. third round of offers) today. The deadline is Wednesday, June 5 @ 12:00 noon PDT. Congratulations to those who received an offer!

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Waitlist Round 1

By Admissions on May 27, 2013

We know some of you are eagerly waiting to hear news about how the waitlist is going and we apologize that we could not post sooner (the website underwent some back-end upgrades last week and a freeze was instated). We sent our first round of waitlist offers on Thursday, May 23 in the afternoon. The deadline for this round is Wednesday, May 29 at 12:00 (noon) PDT. As per usual, while this round had some new offers (eg. to those who received a ‘waitlist’ letter on May 15) a good portion were to sites of preference for recently accepted students. We envision that round 2 will have more new offers than the last as we should better know where we have positions available. We are hoping to send round 2 on Thursday, May 30.

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Being Waitlisted

By wong79 on May 17, 2013

Being Waitlisted

As you can imagine, we are getting a number of questions from applicants who have been waitlisted. We understand that being waitlisted frequently feels like a combination of disappointment at not being admitted, elation at not being rejected, and confusion about what to do and how to prepare for the future. The thoughts,” can I expect to hear something? When should I expect to hear something? Should I be moving forward with my back up plans? Is there any hope? And if there is any hope, what is the percentage of hope and where am I in relation to others?” are all completely normal and very common. Below we’ll try to answer some of these frequently asked questions:

1)   When will the next round of offers go out?

The first round of offers closes on May 22 at 12:00 (noon) PST. At that time we will take a look at how many applicants have accepted their offer and paid their deposit and at which sites we have positions available. We will then send subsequent rounds of offers as soon as possible- likely on May 23.

2)   How does the waitlist work and who is on the waitlist?

This is a complicated question (don’t you love that answer?) 🙂 Our best description of the waitlist and how it works is on the handout we provided at the site information sessions. If you don’t happen to still have a copy, you can find one here.

3)   If I am offered a position off of the waitlist, how will I know and how long will I have to decide?

Offers of admission will continue to be given electronically. Because the time frame for acceptance will become shorter and shorter throughout the summer (as we get closer to the start of classes) we strongly encourage you to check your OAS account or email once a day. If you do choose to rely on email make sure your email stays current and that you are still able to receive our messages. Also, make sure your phone numbers and mailing addresses stay current as we may need to get in touch with you other ways.  You can update your information on your profile page.  In the next few weeks we will try to give offered candidates 3-4 days to respond, but later the notice periods can be as short as 24 hours.

4)   How many applicants get off the waitlist?

The stats for the last few years are posted on our website. Scroll to table 15 where it says “Declined Offer.”  Feel free to check it out! We can’t say from year to year, but as you can see there are trends.

5)   How long is the ‘waitlist’?

Somewhere between too long and exactly right. Sorry, cannot disclose precisely how many, too many confounding issues like site preferences and in-province, out-of-province status.

6)   How is the waitlist ranked?

It is based on the holistic review process of the Admissions Committee. Calculating your ‘TFR’ pre-interview and trying to gauge where you are on the list is not a worthwhile endeavor.

 

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Final Decisions

By wong79 on May 15, 2013

We have now sent all notifications and want to express our sincerest regrets for those of you who were not admitted this year. All applications were carefully and thoroughly reviewed and the decisions made with great care. We hope the following information helps you navigate the statistics that were provided and better inform you about what the admissions office can and cannot help you with moving forward.

We know receiving the news that you have not been accepted into medical school may be hard to accept, especially if this is not the first time you have heard it. We hope you understand that this letter does not mean you are not suitable to be a doctor, but that this is very competitive program and there are not enough positions for all the good candidates who apply.  We understand that it is very disappointing after all the time you spent studying, preparing for your MCAT and taking part in activities that you feel are important to be a well-rounded applicant. However, if medicine is a career that you would really like to pursue, please don’t be discouraged.

As mentioned on our previous blog (May 15) if you received a “regrets” letter you will be able to view your academic and non-academic scores, as well as an indication of how you performed on the interview, on the Applicant Status page.  We hope this information will be helpful to you. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer any one-on one advising or discuss details about your application but our website offers a lot of information about our selection criteria that could be useful to you.  We will not be able to post the statistics of the admitted class until the fall. However, there are several years of statistics on our website. Comparing the information you receive about your application to those of the most recently admitted classes will likely give you a good sense of where your areas of strength and weakness lie.

If being a medical doctor is still a career that you would like to pursue, we would welcome you to apply again.  The next application will open on June 10 and our best advice to you is that when you are ready, have a look at the aspects of your application that are ‘average’ or ‘below average’ and see if there are ways you can improve them for the next application cycle. Also, review how you wrote and what you included in your non-academic sections (research, non-academics, employment, etc) and see if there is any way you feel you can better demonstrate what you have accomplished and who you are as an applicant (without exaggerating). Make sure you have appropriate verifiers and if you make it to the interview stage again that your referees know you and fall within the guidelines as they are stated.

Once again, we appreciate your interest in our program and wish you the best of luck whatever you decide.

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