The latest updates from the MD Admissions team.
Transcripts
By Admissions on Aug 12, 2011 Less than 4 days left before the application deadline! (Try not to panic!) As you can imagine, we are receiving 100’s if not 1,000’s of documents each day and therefore need some time to process them. Please be patient! Since we know that many of you will be sitting in nervous anticipation about whether or not your transcripts have been received by the deadline- here are a few ways you can check yourself: 1) You couriered them and the status of the slip says, “received/delivered” (double check the address, and if it is the same as the one in the help guide, you are fine). Please don’t contact us. We probably just haven’t had time to update it yet. If we haven’t updated your document’s status by Thursday the 18th, please contact us with the receipt and proof of confirmation, and we’ll work together to try to figure out what happened. 2) You delivered them in person. There is a rumor out there that we don’t accept hand delivered transcripts. That is not true. We accept hand delivered transcripts as long as they are in a sealed envelope from the original institution. To hand deliver something, please go to the address listed in the help guide and give it to the receptionist. Please be nice to her! 3) You checked the “application status” tab and it states that all of your documents have been received. (Make sure you aren’t missing anything, like a college course you took for fun, or an exchange university. But if the system says we have everything and you’ve included everything, it’s ok, it’s all here). ***Please note that we DO NOT accept electronic submission of documents in any form (email, fax, etc). Take a deep breath and inhale/exhale. This part’s almost over! Permalink | 2 Comments
Emailing Admissions: Current Applicants
By Admissions on Aug 05, 2011
Hello current applicants! T-10 days until the application deadline! As you can imagine we are receiving a lot of questions regarding the application, documentation, etc.
In order to help us respond to your emails faster, when you contact us through the OAS please include: your first and last name as stated on your application profile.
To speed up response time we will NOT be responding to the following types of emails:
1) Inquiries regarding whether we have/have not received all of your documents. The status of transcripts, BC residency documents, other required documents, etc. are being updated daily. Please check the “application status” page of the OAS for the current status of your documents. If you sent in your document and its status states, “not received,” one of several things could have happened: 1) we have not received your document and you should probably send a new one; 2) when we received your document you had not completed the corresponding part of your application, so we could not update your document’s status- please make sure that you enter in all of the institutions you have attended, your BC residency status etc. We go through the stack of documents we have received that were not entered in to the OAS every few days. This means there is a delay in processing time of your documents; 3) If you are a UBC student and you requested that your transcript be accessed electronically and the email can be seen in the “communication section” of the OAS we have officially received your transcript. We are updating the status of your documents as soon as possible, however, it is more important for us to inform the applicants who need to request paper transcripts that their documents have/have not arrived because they will need more time to request a new one if it got lost in the mail. Please be patient.
2) If you’ve emailed us about a transcript, BC residency, or MCAT and your status has since been updated.
3) If you’ve informed us that you have updated the transcript section of your application. Please see above (2) for how we process documents we’ve received that did not have institutions, etc. listed when we received them.
4) Emails asking if a certain verifier is appropriate. As we’ve stated before, please use your best judgment. Bear in mind, if we can’t contact the verifier because they no longer work with an organization, have moved, are from a foreign country, etc, they are probably not a good verifier. We need to be able to contact someone who will be able to discuss your involvement with an activity and who will appear to be a credible source of information.
5) SISC Transcript Requests. Please see above (3) regarding why.
If you have other specific questions or concerns regarding the application/ application process, please read through the help guide and website first. If the answer is not there, feel free to contact us and we will be in touch with you as soon as we are able.
Good luck and we look forward to receiving your application!
Permalink | 11 CommentsReceipt of documents
By Admissions on Jul 29, 2011
As the August 15th application deadline is approaching fast – and it is a strict deadline – for those of you who have not yet submitted – please submit soon! We are receiving a huge number of transcripts and other documents in our office every day and we do our best to update them as received as soon as we can, within 48 hours if possible.
If they are not showing as “received” on your on-line application, please be patient and don’t email or call us asking if we have them – it could be that they arrived in our office that morning and not yet processed. Given the volume, it is too time-consuming for staff to try and search for a particular document that has not yet been filed.
If you are unsure if your transcripts have reached us, it may be best to request another copy and to have them couriered to our office to ensure you have confirmation of delivery by the deadline.
Permalink | 2 CommentsNon-Academic Section – Verifiers
By Admissions on Jul 22, 2011
Please make sure that for each non-academic, employment, research and rural entry, you provide the contact information of a person who can confirm details about your involvement in the activity. These verifiers can be contacted at any time during the application cycle and, where possible, please include both the verifier’s e-mail address and phone number. It is not advisable to use one contact for verification of numerous activities. Family members or close friends should not be used as verifiers except where appropriate (e.g. solo travel experiences).
Remember that if you don’t clearly provide a verifier, or if there are discrepancies between the details in your application and those confirmed by the verifier, notes are added and may affect your file – and you don’t want that! Please review your details carefully and double-check your hours, dates, etc with the verifier if necessary. In addition, make sure your verifier’s contact information is accurate before submitting your application.
Some applicants have noted that there aren’t sufficient characters within the contact information box to be able to provide the complete email for some verifiers who have unusually long addresses. If this is the case, you can add this information in the description box for the activity.
Permalink | 6 CommentsMisinformation
By Admissions on Jul 14, 2011
Whilst understanding that applicants to our program want to try & find out any nuggets of information that they think might possibly help them to get into the MD program, as we have said before, there is a lot of misinformation around. People who were just admitted to the program may be well intentioned in offering advice and feel they know “the formula”, but that is not necessarily the case. By all means research as much as you can, but remain a little sceptical. Read or listen to someone and then check with us. Can’t tell you the number of times someone has said to us: “I’ve heard that….”, “my friend got in and says that…” and then it proves not to be accurate at all.
If you have any questions about our evaluation process, if you are wondering about prerequisites, don’t rely on what you read on the premed forum – we have read some misleading and even completely wrong statements there. One of the reasons we started this blog was that so that people can ask questions here. If you can’t find the information you need on our website, contact our office (through the on-line application if you are a current applicant) or attend one of our Information Sessions. We can’t tell you what non-academic activities might “look better” but are here to help as far as we can.
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