How to gpa calculated for canadian medical schools
Medical School FULL Accepted Application: AMCAS & Canadian App, GPA, MCAT
Timecodes:
each year it seems like getting accepted
into med school in North America at
least just becomes harder and harder the
longer you're here the worse you're
getting you have to write so many tests
the MCAT for one so many signs
prerequisites seems like you almost have
to cure cancer to get into med school
thousands of people apply each year for
a few limited spots
and unless you're one of those lucky few
you may wonder what exactly you need to
get into med school
so it took me three times to finally get
in I'm a first year med student at UBC I
just finished my first semester and I
also applied to the MD PhD stream which
is the stream that I'm actually doing
so I applied three times the first time
I applied I applied in third year
undergrad I was doing my psych degree
which is also a less traditional route
and I didn't get any interviews the
second time I applied was after I
graduated my bachelor's degree and I
just got one interview to Queens but
didn't get accepted and finally I did a
master's degree at two years Master's in
neuroscience and I got an interview at
four places a University of Toronto
Queens UBC and Harvard out of all places
I decided to apply to a few schools and
I got accepted into UBC so I want to
take you a little bit on my journey what
I thought made me successful and how I
improved my application the three times
that I did it so that I could hopefully
help you and of course this is going to
look more from a Canadian perspective
but I'll also go over my application uh
for the schools that I apply to in the
states and again I was successful in
getting an interview but not getting
into Harvard Med so if you have any
comments as well please be sure to leave
them down below and uh yeah let's get
right into it
I think it's best if I started out with
my amcast report so this is my
application to the schools in the states
um just because I I think it has all the
same information as my applications to
the Ontario schools as well as to UBC
but it's just nicely laid out here I
think compared to the UBC application
and the Ontario application I just
blocked out some identifying information
but again I was born in sobanon Slovakia
immigrated to Canada when I was quite
young some people say that it matters
when you submit your application but
this is mainly for schools in the states
I think but I submitted it August 2nd
2021 and it was processed August 26th
going through my grades I would say I
did decently well I think my arms has
overall GPA was a 3.96 and we'll scroll
down to see what my GPA is in terms of
the MCAS but I think it's it's around
the same
um the way that they convert their
grades is a little bit different
compared to Canadian schools but this
was the grade that I reported and this
was the MCAS grade the a pluses are
turned into A's for whatever reason
and I did my degree in Psychology at
Queens in Kingston and I started in 2016
I graduated in 2020 so freshman year
here of course I took biology chem
mathematics physics uh and this was uh
psych as the years progressed I took
more
um took more psych related courses for
my degree I took some biochemistry again
mainly for the MCAT
and we'll see I also took the MCAT three
times I took econ just because I'm
interested in finance I mean the whole
YouTube channel that I made is uh is
based off of stocks so just wanted to
take econ so you can see I took stats
um
brain and behavior another biochem
course second econ course and again did
pretty well for all of them every story
is different I know a lot of people that
I would say that I personally did
focused a lot more on my academics and
less on my extracurriculars whereas
others focus a lot more on their
extracurriculars and have done a lot
more research in their undergrad versus
compared to me maybe they were also part
of the sport they did a lot of overseas
trips I think overall where my
application lacked was more into the
health health care related field in
Canada it's a lot harder to Shadow
doctors when you're in undergrad I know
that
uh if you're applying to the States you
can Shadow a lot easier as an undergrad
student there are even some laws I think
in Canada surrounding being able to
Shadow so I try to work around that but
I also I will admit I didn't have a lot
of volunteer experience in a hospital
for example but I know that you don't
necessarily need to do that to gain
admission into med so again just going
down here you have some econ courses
some more psych I took Farm
um social psych I took a nap again an at
100 microbiology
here I did again more psych courses this
was a directed special lab I also did a
thesis as well I took English this was a
prerequisite for UBC you need one
English course physiology behavioral
neuroeconomics super cool course
psych 501 which was the honors uh
organic chemistry I took in the summer
because I was a prerequisite for a lot
of schools in the states and this was
Dalhousie University again this was my
Master's a lot of I only had to take
four courses and again it was mainly
just thesis these are the signs grade
point averages
um
cumulative undergrad 3.95
and cumulative graduate
I guess four it doesn't count as the
science one
and all others I had a 4.0 GPA also for
my graduate 4.0 GPA so again very happy
with that total my accumulative
undergrad was a 3.99 GPA and cumulative
grad was a 4.0 GPA so I also took the
MCAT three times these are all my scores
so first test date I did it after first
year I myself super funny
I'm myself super funny which I mean I
think it was kind of maybe a little bit
of a bold move I think I was a bit
overconfident uh I scored decently well
five eleven so 81st percentile I think
the thing that was really bringing me
down and some schools just looked at the
car section I got a 125 in the cars
which was 60th percentile all the other
ones I guess I didn't do terrible 128 on
uh chemical like chem and Fizz
um bio I scored 127 and of course psych
I mean 97 percentile given that I'm
majoring in Psych that kind of makes
sense
second time I took it the next year so
2018 that was my best score ever 516.
um let's see if I can zoom in here 516
so 90 second percentile 128
for chem chemistry and physics
um 125 as well in cars so similar to the
other score I got 125 which was quite
disappointing
um and 131 in BIO so 98 percentile and
100th percentile in Psych and soch
I did much better in 2018 than in 2017
although this car score was still what
was bringing me down so I don't know if
it was good or a bad decision but I just
decided to do it all over again in 2019
and this time I I did worse than my
second time but better than my first
time I got a 513 which is 86 percentile
same score on chem and Fizz uh 127 on
cars so a big Improvement for me and bio
I got 128 and uh psych and soch 130. I
with the MCAT I think it was hit or miss
I remember those Summers I was working a
full-time job I had to kind of cram in
studying along with Athletics as well
and also just trying to have a good time
I mean I think that definitely burned me
out but I'm happy that I did it the way
that I did it I don't know if it was
necessary to take the MCAT
the final time but I did it it is what
it is
these are my experiences for the amcas
application I think it's easiest just to
list your Awards list the dollar value
that you got as well as
the years that you had them
um
and of course if there's multiple awards
that have different verifiers also
include that this was my main community
service volunteer activity where I went
into the loaded Ladle and
I've heard that there are many different
ways of describing the experience I just
decided to describe it
um as if it were a story but you have
thousands of people reading these
applications and if you make it a little
bit interesting rather than just like
listing what you did but say that for
example the kitchen was chaotic potatoes
were boiling banana bread was baking and
apples were being tossed into the salad
that kind of makes it seem more
interesting and more intriguing I had a
lot of research so I had quite a few
Publications I think I also updated my
application to show that I had more
Publications than this two first author
and one second author
I did a little bit of shadowing again
it's a little bit harder I think the
only reason why I was able to was at
least at Dalhousie I was a grad student
so that afforded me more opportunities
to to shadow in the or there
and I put my YouTube channel on this I
spent a lot of time on YouTube it was a
pandemic project I figured it'd be good
to get comfortable in front of a camera
I was interested in finance I managed to
become a decently successful just over a
year I gained about 2 000 subscribers
yeah whatever no big deal
I was a varsity rower throughout
undergrad I also did some other sports
but I put Varsity rowing because that
was where I had the most success made it
to Nationals and that was also one of my
most meaningful experiences which you
can stay on your endcast application I
think you can stay up to three
am I later years during my undergrad I
was a TA for psych 100. it was also part
of like a built-in course and you were
able to get paid always good to show
that you're you're able to help students
and if you haven't experience saying
something like oh the student was
struggling they got a b or a c on their
midterm and then next thing you know you
help them out and they had an A on their
final I mean that's always good rather
than saying I tutored this course for
this many hours
I was also residenced on uh and it's a
really good way to not only get a
leadership experience it's like a
residence advisor I think there are many
different names for it great way to save
money uh do a leadership experience and
now I'm a senior ra so this was also a
meaningful experience because just
because I put so much time into it in
general I like experiences that serve
multiple purposes so the ra one it not
only allowed me to have a leadership
role it saved me some some money of
course
uh I just listed some awards
um for my Varsity Athletics cited
Triathlon and Rowing here uh did some
conference presentations
for my undergrad and of course but my
lab experience as you can see 4 600
hours of research experience I spent all
my Summers pretty much working in a lab
I volunteered at a first a tent when I
was doing Triathlon I was also a peer
Health educator and many different types
of positions that you can roll in I was
just interested in it I ran a run club
and I also think it's nice to see that
first I was just on the peer Health
educator team I was a run Club member
but then the following year I was in a
leadership position I was actually
running I was the president of the Run
Club I was also the bike coach for the
University Triathlon for a bit I also
the Run coach for a year and I also
played chess so I think it'd be quite
long if I went through my whole MD PhD
research essay as well as my significant
research experience and personal
statement
in general the tips that I have for that
is be true to you develop a story don't
just list points on why you want to get
into medicine but really develop a story
from what formative experiences you've
had that led you into medicine so these
are all the programs that I apply to and
I think I only finished the supplemental
supplemental applications for maybe like
six of them and Harvard was the only
one that interviewed me I used the same
application for the Ontario schools as
well as for UBC so that's it for my
application the information that was in
this application was exactly the same
information for my UBC application let
me know if you have any questions Down
Below in the comment section so I'll
make some future videos but this is just
my application cycle from last year that
got me accepted into school a third time
around
but yeah feel free to subscribe if you'd
like more content like this and uh yeah
suno stocks out peace
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