The latest updates from the MD Admissions team.
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. Permalink | No Comments
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.
Permalink | No CommentsMay15
By wong79 on May 13, 2013
In order to avoid giving some of our candidates unnecessary anxiety we are posting this information on our blog as opposed to sending anyone an email plus, a few of you who are planning to apply in the next few years can get a sense of how the final stages of the process work- at least this year.
So here is what we have planned for May 15:
We will first change your status internally, review everything one more time and then click “send” which will change your status externally. “Send” means that your status in your account will update and you will receive an email to both your OAS communication history and your personal email address. This email will contain a copy of your notification letter. If you receive an offer you will need to log in to the actual OAS to view the acceptance package as there are several letters to read, forms to submit, a way to accept or decline the offer, etc. (This information will not be in your email). Please follow all of the instructions in the acceptance package and read the information thoroughly. There are a few time-sensitive things you will need to do in order to make sure your seat is confirmed (please read email of April 23 for review).
Those of you who receive a “regrets” letter will be able to view your Applicant Profile Summary (APS form) where you can see your academic and non-academic scores, as well as some other information on your application. We are sorry, but we are not able to provide any further details on how your file was evaluated. Applicants on the wait-list do not have access to this information at this time.
We have to update the system essentially applicant by applicant, so it is generally easiest if we send notifications in small ‘batches’. This means that if you are surrounded by a number of other people, all who applied and are going to be given the same information, it is possible that one person’s status will update and a few minutes later another person’s status will update and then several minutes later another…. etc. etc. etc. until finally it will get to you and you would receive the same letter as all of them. Therefore, while it might be agonizing to wait, don’t be discouraged by others around you.
This is what we plan to do:
- Send regrets
- Send waitlist
- Send offers
We won’t be making announcements in between because we want to focus and send everything as quickly and efficiently as possible. PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT US IF YOU HAVE NOT HEARD ANYTHING BY THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY (PST). Please be patient and we will get to you. We plan to update everyone’s status by the end of the day (4:30 PM PST). Also, please note that we reserve the right to change the plan above if for any reason it becomes necessary.
As in the past we will also be sending everyone who is getting an offer a paper version of their letter to the mailing address we have on file. If you forgot to update your mailing address, we’re sorry, it is too late now to change it, but you will still get a copy of the electronic one, so no need to worry. We plan to put the letters in the mail on the evening of Tuesday (May 14) or early morning on Wednesday (May 15) so it is possible, but not likely, that you may get something in the mail before your email is sent. (Yes, we all remember the ill-fated mail-out of 2011 when we thought we would put the letters in the mail a few days early in order to account for delivery time and many lucky folks in the lower mainland got their letters 1.5 days early and freaked out their friends who had their letters delivered later in the week. We do not plan to put anyone through that kind of stress again).
For everyone’s peace of mind, we won’t be sending the notifications early, so there’s no need to check your status or email until Wednesday.
To all of you, those accepted and those not, we wish you well, whatever news you receive on May 15th.
Permalink | No CommentsWhy UBC medical school
By wong79 on Apr 30, 2013
It’s that time again when our office is prepping for the upcoming admissions notifications and as most of you know, on May 15th final decisions including offer letters for our program will go out. Whilst it is always a day of mixed emotions, we will be excited to announce the UBC MD Class of 2017! Leading up to notification day last year, we had a series of posts about our offer process. This year, we thought we would tell you about some great aspects of the UBC MD Program, which you may not be aware of.
People (yourself included!) may think that once you are admitted to the UBC MD program your social life will be over. You will no longer have time for your significant others, friends and family. You will spend endless nights studying, and all your focus will be on those thick heavy medical textbooks.
We won’t lie – medical school is hard. However, you may be surprised to learn that our program is not just about lectures and clinical training. Our students are also encouraged to take part in health and wellness programs, charitable projects (e.g. Food Drive , Run for Rural Medicine, World Aids Day, etc.), physician shadowing, mentorships, class plays, parties, Arts in Medicine, and so much more! Many students continue with their own volunteer work or take up research opportunities, amongst other things.
Although they are not mandatory, we believe all of these experiences enrich both your medical education and your life. Many of our faculty members help create projects and opportunities for students to be active in the university, local and global communities. Finally, if you don’t find something that interests you, create your own opportunity! We’ve had many students pilot projects and initiatives both inside and outside the program. The Medical Undergraduate Society (MUS) can provide information on current projects, events and clubs.
All of our program areas have support and resources available at all times if you need help with personal, financial, and academic issues. Additionally, UBC Medicine has a dedicated financial aid officer who can help students make the best decisions for their individual and unique financial situation. For more information about financing medical school, look here:
Other awesome opportunities a UBC medical education will give you:
– Early clinical experience. Even in the first semester of med school students begin to learn clinical skills and enter family practice
– Rural training opportunities. The UBC medical program is committed to giving every student at least one great rural training experience during their medical education
– An entire province of possibilities. While students are divided into four main program areas, if an opportunity exists at a different site it may be possible to get permission to explore your interests away from your ‘home’ base for a set period of time – this is particularly true for summer student research opportunities.
No matter which of our four sites you may be offered, we are confident you will enjoy your medical training at UBC. Thank you to all of you for your interest and we’ll be in touch soon.
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New BC Residency Definition
By wong79 on Mar 21, 2013
As many of you have noticed, The Faculty of Medicine has changed the BC Residency Requirements for the MD Undergraduate Program. According to the new definition, applicants are considered BC residents if they hold a currently valid BC CareCard or BC Services Card by the application deadline.
We recognize that some of you are displeased with this new, condensed definition of BC residency and we want you to know that this change was not just for our program, but for all programs within the UBC Faculty of Medicine. In previous years, different programs determined their own definitions of BC residency and the Faculty deemed that it would be optimal to have a single definition that was simple, easy to administer and defensible. The Faculty consulted with all the stakeholders concerned and considered the needs of each program. The decision to have one common criterion of BC residency was made at the highest level, in consultation with UBC Senate and the Government of BC.
This new definition should cover the majority of our applicants, although no definition of BC residency is perfect. Whichever one we have used in the past meant that a few applicants felt disadvantaged and, unfortunately, we do know that this will be the case again. However, this is the definition we will use going forward and we will not be able to make any exceptions. We are sorry that perhaps a few applicants who met our previous definitions will not be considered BC residents under the new criterion, but we do still allow that up to 10% of our seats are available for out-of-province applicants.
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