Admissions Blog

2011/2012 Application Printable Until May 31

By Admissions on May 04, 2012 Applicants from 2011/2012, you can save a copy of your application in PDF format from now until May 31, 2012 at 12:00 pm PDT.  The link to the PDF is accessible though the online application system.  It’s on the Application page, right underneath the green checkmarks. This is the only way you’ll be able to have a copy of your application for the future.  Your 2011/2012 application will not be available online after May 31st, and the Admissions Office will not be able to provide you with a copy.  Please save and/or print your application this month!  Even if you’re not planning to apply again, we strongly recommend saving a copy just in case you need to refer to it later. Permalink | No Comments

Being Waitlisted

By Admissions on May 03, 2012

Welcome to the next installment in our series of posts about the offer process. Today we focus on the waitlist.

Getting waitlisted means the wait continues, unfortunately.  Being in limbo is tough and we sympathize with applicants in this position.  After the first round, we try to shorten the length of the offer rounds in order to get through the waitlist more quickly.  Still, though, the waitlist can be unpredictable, and due to this we do not reveal the length of the waitlist or where an applicant is on it.  We want to avoid giving false hope or false despair, so we keep the waitlist to ourselves.  While we always keep a few people on the waitlist up until classes start, once we have a better handle on how things are going we try to shorten the waitlist so applicants who aren’t going to get a spot can move on with their other plans.

There have been a couple of questions about the waitlist on other recent posts, so please check out the comments.  If you have more questions ask away!

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Getting an Offer

By Admissions on May 02, 2012

Welcome to the second post in our series about the offers process.  Today let’s look at receiving an offer.

Let’s say you get an offer.  Congratulations!  Once you stop hyperventilating, you can log into the online application system and read the Acceptance Package Information (there will be a new tab called Offer where you can access this).  This page has detailed information and instructions about specific requirements, so it’s important to read carefully.  Then you will complete the Response to Offer form and pay the $1,000 deposit.  There are some other forms to print and fill out that you’ll be able to access through the Acceptance Package Information page, but these are due at later dates.  If you have taken classes since you applied in August, please remember to submit your final transcript by June 30.

If you got an offer but didn’t get the site you want, you’ll most likely be on the wait-list for your preferred site.  Saying yes or no to your less-preferred site won’t affect your wait-list position at all, so you should make the decision about the less-preferred site based only on whether or not you are willing to live and study at the site you were offered.  You’ll be in the same position on the wait-list for your first choice site regardless of your answer.  Just keep in mind that this year, we will only offer you a place in a site that you expressed interest in; if you said “No Interest” to a site we won’t offer you a spot there.

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Offers Process Overview

By Admissions on Apr 25, 2012

Just like you, we at the Admissions Office are counting down the days until we send out the offers!  It is an exciting time for us as we see who will finally make up the class of MED 2016.  This post is the first in a series of posts about the offers.  Today we’ll cover the general process, and later on there will be posts about receiving an offer, being wait-listed, and receiving regrets.

As a reminder, there are 32 spaces available at NMP, SMP and IMP, and 192 available at VFMP.  Basically, we go down our list and offer spaces to people based on their site preferences until each site is full.  If we get to your name and only your third choice is still available, we’ll offer you your third choice and will most likely put you on the wait-list for your top two choices (please see our Site Selection post for more information on this).  If we get to your name and you said No Interest to the site that is still available, we won’t offer you that site, but will put you on the wait-list for your other preferred sites.  Your position on the waitlist for your preferred sites is the same in either case.

Out of the 288 spaces, up to 10% (29) can go to out-of-province applicants.  Because it’s ‘up to’ 29 spaces, not ‘exactly’ 29 spaces that are reserved for OOP residents, we don’t have a separate waitlist for them and we don’t always replace one OOP with another OOP – we go down the list and fill spots based on the list order, making sure we don’t exceed 29 OOP spaces.  There are usually quite a few highly-ranked OOP applicants so OOP declines do tend to be filled by other OOP applicants, but it really depends on how the list falls.

Here’s a quick overview of what will happen when you are notified: you’ll get an email, most likely on May 15.  This email will tell you whether you got an offer, were placed on the wait-list, or neither (a.k.a. regrets :().  You can also check your status on the Application Status page in the online application system.  Once you know your status you can go from there (more on this later).

We know it would be great to tell you the exact time we are going to email you, but we really don’t know when that will be.  We are planning to start notifications on May 15 for sure.  The exact time is up in the air because there are a couple of steps we have to complete the day we send the notifications, and these steps can take some time.  It’s hard to wait, but we appreciate your patience!  One request: please don’t call us and ask if we’ve sent the offers yet.  We promise we will email as soon as we can, and you can always check your Application Status page too.  If you don’t see anything there it means we haven’t sent you your notification yet.

One last thing: soon, when you go to the Application Status page you will be able to see a new line called Offer Status.  It will say something like “There is no offer status for your application.”  This is normal.  As soon as we send the notification your offer status will be updated.

That’s it for now!  Feel free to ask general questions here.  If you have a question that applies to your own specific situation, please email us through the online application system instead.

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Early Submission Incentive

By Admissions on Apr 23, 2012

This year we are offering a special incentive to encourage applicants to submit their application and transcripts early.  Applicants who have everything in by August 15 (including a completed application, transcripts, BC residency documents, name change, etc) will get a chance to book their interviews a day before the other interview-granted applicants.  These applicants will also be able to find out that they have received an interview invitation a day early.  Applicants who apply early but aren’t invited for an interview won’t find out their interview decision any earlier, though.  As always, once the application is submitted it can’t be re-opened for changes. Things like the MCAT and any necessary WES or ICES evaluations don’t have to be in by August 15.  They are still due at their regular deadline, October 1.

Since we aren’t counting summer 2012 courses in the OGPA or AGPA this year (edited for clarification: we are excluding summer 2012 courses only – courses from summer 2011, summer 2010, etc will be included) and since the cutoff for all non-academic activities (including work experience, research, and rural experiences) is June 1, there isn’t much reason to hang on to your application all summer.  Moreover, the early submission deadline offers a few good benefits to applicants who get an interview.  The biggest one is selectivity – you may have a better chance of getting the interview time you really want.  Since you can book earlier, you can also start making concrete plans for the interview weekend earlier, and of course just knowing about the interview decision as soon as possible is a positive for most people, too.

If you can’t or don’t want to submit early for some reason, that’s totally fine.  We promise it won’t have any impact on how we view you as an applicant and all files, whether they meet the early deadline or the regular deadline, will be evaluated in exactly the same way.  We’re just hoping to space out our workload a little more and reduce the flood of transcripts, calls and emails we get every year right before the deadline.  This will (hopefully) mean that we can be more responsive around that time in terms of updating transcript statuses and answering inquiries.

What do you think?  Will being able to book an interview spot motivate you to submit your application early?  Are there any other incentives that would encourage you to get everything in a month before the regular deadline?  Please leave your ideas in the comments – we might consider them for use in a future cycle!

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