Admissions Blog

Misinformation

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. Permalink | No Comments

$1000 Deposit Transferred for MED 2015

By Admissions on Jul 04, 2011

MED 2015 students, the $1000 acceptance deposit has been transferred to your tuition account and should be updated in your SSC Financial Summary.  A few transfers are still outstanding for students who were recently accepted to the program, but these should be taken care of by the time registration opens.

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Application Questions – July 4

By Admissions on

Update: We have removed the sorting feature to avoid confusion.  Please enter your non-academic activities and employment history in the way that is easiest for you.

We’ve been getting some questions about the application.  Hope this helps to answer them!

Employment History – The Help Guide says to complete this section starting with your most recent position first because that is what is easiest for most people.  However, the system will automatically arrange your entries in chronological order, so if you want to enter them in a different order, that’s fine.

Non-Academic Activities – You can enter your activities in the order that is easiest for you.  Because of the entry limits it might be easiest to enter them according to category, but if you prefer to enter them chronologically or some other way, you may.  The system will automatically arrange your entries in chronological order.

Activities completed before post-secondary – This year, we have removed our previous guidelines about including secondary school activities.  We want to see your most significant activities and are leaving it up to you to decide what those are.

MCAT status – It’s ok if you see “MCAT not found.”  Please check your MCAT status starting July 11.  As long as you correctly released your scores on or after June 1, you don’t need to re-release them.

Proof of BC Residency status – This will be available online starting July 11.

Update: Please remember the blog is for general comments and questions.  We will not respond to questions pertaining to your particular situation or application here.  For these types of questions, please email us through the online application system instead.

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Waitlist Movement

By Admissions on Jun 23, 2011

Great news for some of you! Today, we restored a number of applicants who were originally removed from the waitlist, back to their position on the waitlist. This year we have experienced an unusually high amount of waitlist movement, particularly for this late in the game, and have therefore taken this course of action. We originally made the decision to remove applicants from the waitlist based on calculated statistics acquired from years of data as we did not want to give false hope to those whom it was statistically improbable would be offered a position. (We wanted to avoid stringing you along). If you received an email through the OAS asking if you would still like to be considered for our medical class this year, you were one of the lucky few. Congratulations!  Again, we cannot say where anyone is on the waitlist, and stand by what we said originally for all waitlisters – it is still a good idea to consider other options as we cannot say when/if an offer will arise, but will be in touch with you as soon as possible.

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When to Submit Your Application

By Admissions on Jun 20, 2011

A frequent question amongst prospective applicants is, “does it matter when I submit my application?” Like answers to many admissions questions, do not necessarily believe everything you read or hear from fellow applicants or from those who were admitted in a previous year. You obviously have to check very carefully that all the information you entered in your application is correct before you submit, but with the June 1 cut-off for non-academic activities, there is no reason to wait! The sooner you submit, the sooner you can ensure that your transcripts and any other required documentation has been received by our office. Besides the sooner you submit, the sooner we can begin to evaluate your application. If there is something we need to follow up with you, we can do so in a timely manner. You don’t want the frustration of your application being made ineligible because of a missing transcript for a three credit course you took as a visiting student four years ago, which you had forgotten about until we notice it on your home institution’s transcript. We know it’s human instinct, but for your peace of mind, please do not wait until the last few days or even weeks to submit. Submit early and you can relax for the rest of the summer.

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