Canadian Undergrad GPA vs. American Undergrad

Potato! · Jul 11, 2004

In considering your GPA, do US Med schools usually consider what school you did your undergrad? I'm asking because I've often heard that American schools give out grades more easily than Canadian schools. Obviously this is not the case for all schools, but in general do you think this is true?

I have about a 3.6 GPA from my Canadian school, and the average MCAT the students from my school write is 35 or 36, while their avg. GPA is about 3.6. So will adcoms look at this and think "hmmm, that school doesn't seem to give out very high grade." 36 is pretty ridiculous. Don't believe me, check out the 2004 matriculating class at UBC: http://www.admissions.med.ubc.ca/ad...osting.ViewDocument&postingCode=100&area_id=1

Bottomline question: Do ADCOMs consider where you did your undergrad in considering your GPA?

Thanks

Blade28 · Jul 11, 2004

That link seems to show data for matriculating students, not the average GPA and MCAT from your school's undergrads.

Potato! · Jul 11, 2004

Blade28 said:
That link seems to show data for matriculating students, not the average GPA and MCAT from your school's undergrads.

True enough, but I'm refering to the average of BC applicants being 35-36. There are only 3 sizeable universities in BC: UBC, SFU and UVic. Most anyone applying to Med school in BC went to one of these 3 schools. UBC is the most well-known out of all of them (and it's the one with the Med school)...so it is a bit of an assumption on my part to say that the avg. applicant from UBC had a 35-36. Nonetheless, it seems like a reasonable assumption.

principessa · Jul 12, 2004

Potato! said:
True enough, but I'm refering to the average of BC applicants being 35-36. There are only 3 sizeable universities in BC: UBC, SFU and UVic. Most anyone applying to Med school in BC went to one of these 3 schools. UBC is the most well-known out of all of them (and it's the one with the Med school)...so it is a bit of an assumption on my part to say that the avg. applicant from UBC had a 35-36. Nonetheless, it seems like a reasonable assumption.

It still seems a little implausible. First of all, Wash U's MCAT average for matriculants is around a 36, and that's the highest of the American schools. So you're telling me there's a Canadian school whose applicant pool averages about the same MCAT as people who have been accepted and chosen to attend Wash U? I know Canadians have it together, but come on!

If you're actually referring to the average MCAT for accepted or matriculated students, it's probably incorrect to assume that it is equal to the average MCAT for all the people from your school - that would assume that everyone who applies is accepted, and we all know that's not true.

To answer your real question, if they are familiar with your school's grading policies I'm sure they will take that into account. If not, you still have a good GPA.

IndyZX · Jul 12, 2004

i refuse to believe that average mcat for applicants. i refuse.

IndyZX · Jul 12, 2004

then again, maybe BC is a mega-balla school. this is news to me.

EMDream · Jul 12, 2004

Potato! said:
In considering your GPA, do US Med schools usually consider what school you did your undergrad? I'm asking because I've often heard that American schools give out grades more easily than Canadian schools. Obviously this is not the case for all schools, but in general do you think this is true?

Nope nope nope. Harder to get A's in the US. 93%+=A here.

Your gpa will be recalculated and I think it will be beneficial. They don't consider the fact that an 85 is a B in the US, they take it for the A that it says it is in Canada, and very rarely will you see A+'s in US schools.

samurai_lincoln · Jul 12, 2004

There are a lot of things that are "high" at UBC, but I think that anyone claiming an average MCAT of 35+ there is blowing smoke. Was that enough weed references for one sentence?

MoosePilot · Jul 12, 2004

samurai_lincoln said:
There are a lot of things that are "high" at UBC, but I think that anyone claiming an average MCAT of 35+ there is blowing smoke. Was that enough weed references for one sentence?

Yeah, that website, if I'm reading it right, seems to claim that their average matriculant MCAT is 37.1 with n=200. Reading the data at: http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/table0404.pdf
it seems that approximately 2.8% (figured by adding up the percentage getting each score 37 or greater and assuming that 0% really equals .049%) of 27,586 people made 37+. That works out to about 772 people making that score at the April admin. If 200 people in that score range matriculate to UBC... well they're taking a very real percentage of the top performers.

Pinkertinkle · Jul 12, 2004

Canadian MCAT scores must be like Canadian dollars. At the current exchange rate, that 37.1 comes out to be 28.1, now there's a more reasonable number.

bakedlay · Jul 12, 2004

Pinkertinkle said:
Canadian MCAT scores must be like Canadian dollars. At the current exchange rate, that 37.1 comes out to be 28.1, now there's a more reasonable number.

hah

winstonm · Jul 12, 2004

yeah right...while it's possible that the matriculant avg is a 36, how could the average of the 1100 applicants be a 36?

principessa · Jul 12, 2004

Pinkertinkle said:
Canadian MCAT scores must be like Canadian dollars. At the current exchange rate, that 37.1 comes out to be 28.1, now there's a more reasonable number.

Medikit · Jul 12, 2004

Pinkertinkle said:
Canadian MCAT scores must be like Canadian dollars. At the current exchange rate, that 37.1 comes out to be 28.1, now there's a more reasonable number.

good one

liverotcod · Jul 12, 2004

MoosePilot said:
Yeah, that website, if I'm reading it right, seems to claim that their average matriculant MCAT is 37.1 with n=200. Reading the data at: http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/table0404.pdf
it seems that approximately 2.8% (figured by adding up the percentage getting each score 37 or greater and assuming that 0% really equals .049%) of 27,586 people made 37+. That works out to about 772 people making that score at the April admin. If 200 people in that score range matriculate to UBC... well they're taking a very real percentage of the top performers.

I absolutely love this kind of analysis. Real actual numbers, from a dependable source. Thanks for blowing this one up.

winstonm · Jul 13, 2004

liverotcod said:
I absolutely love this kind of analysis. Real actual numbers, from a dependable source. Thanks for blowing this one up.

Although I'm skeptical of UBC's #s, that kind of analysis doesn't really work with Canadian schools. There are no rolling admissions here (most write the Aug. MCAT), and applicants can be anywhere from going into their third year to having written the MCAT 5 years ago. So you could have 9 or so MCAT administrations being represented in the applicant pool. While a 37 avg from 200 matriculants is high, it doesn't represent as extreme a proportion of everyone who got a 37 as some of the posts suggest. Anyway, UBC is doubling the size of the entering class so the avg. will probably drop.

With respect principessa's comments about avg. MCATs from American and Canadian writers, that would be interesting to see. I would expect that the average here would be a bit higher than down there only because there are far fewer universities in this country, with less of a difference in quality among them than the thousands of schools in the States. Since admission to meds here requires undergrad education at one of these few universities (which are not the same as colleges here, community college courses are not allowed), the pool of writers is probably more highly selected.

Plus, not everyone who has a 3.8 and 36+ MCAT is that anxious to run away from Canada and head to Wash. U or some other top 5 school there. I know a hell of a lot of people that would rather spend 4 years in Vancouver, close to Whistler, than St. Louis or Baltimore, especially if they want to stay here for their careers and not be $200K US in debt (with the above exchange rate calculations, we know how much that would be in CAD

).

UBC is a very respected school but don't expect any favours. Maybe if class averages were reported to med schools through AMCAS, but that's not the case.

MoosePilot · Jul 13, 2004

winstonm said:
Although I'm skeptical of UBC's #s, that kind of analysis doesn't really work with Canadian schools. There are no rolling admissions here (most write the Aug. MCAT), and applicants can be anywhere from going into their third year to having written the MCAT 5 years ago. So you could have 9 or so MCAT administrations being represented in the applicant pool. While a 37 avg from 200 matriculants is high, it doesn't represent as extreme a proportion of everyone who got a 37 as some of the posts suggest. Anyway, UBC is doubling the size of the entering class so the avg. will probably drop.

I've got no problems with you disputing my numbers, but come on, dispute them.

200 out of 772 is 26%. So sure, it seems obvious that UBC isn't taking one quarter of the top MCAT testers.

If you assume that August was similar, then UBC would be getting over 10% of the top scorerers from that year.

What you seem to be doing is assuming that these 200 people are coming from many years of MCAT administrations. The problem with that is if Canada is saving up all it's top testers to have one really unbelieveable year, then are you saying that all of the previous years were particularly anemic while those guys waited for this one particular year to apply? Why would all of these folks with 37+ MCATs wait?

It's possible, but seems unlikely that UBC is drawing over 10% of the world's top testers per year.

exmike · Jul 13, 2004

MoosePilot said:
It's possible, but seems unlikely that UBC is drawing over 10% of the world's top testers per year.

Especially since 80-90% of MCAT takers are US residents that have no incentive to apply to UBC anyway. I think we need to get some clarification from UBC.

MoosePilot · Jul 13, 2004

I just realized my numbers suck

I made the assumption that you could treat a 37 average as if everyone had a 37+. That's stupid. For every 38 they could let in a 36, which opens up their available numbers quite a bit. For every 39 they could let in a 35.

So my numbers aren't good. I woke up with that in my head for some reason, how weird.

wends · Jul 13, 2004

im from vancouver and i just about keeled over when i saw those numbers, esp when the previous years the averages were 10's and 11's, never 13.1!!! i dont think the average of 200 ppl is around 37, i think something is wrong and/or they're trying to pump themselves up. utoronto dont even have those number. ubc is alright, and they've already opened up about 100 spaces, but some of them are for rural and aborigonal programs. whistler may be nice, but i'd take washu over ubc any day.

winstonm · Jul 14, 2004

MoosePilot,

You're right about the US thing--UBC doesn't take international students so its numbers look even more unreasonable now. Plus, even if they balance out 37+ scores with less than 37 scores, how many times could they do that given the scarcity of people who score 37+ anyway?

In order to get 1100 applicants with an average of 36 or so just from Canadians, they would need every Canadian who got a 36+ in about 7 years (not administrations, YEARS) to apply there, if 10% of all 36+ scores come from here. That's absurd, especially since they only take 2 out of province students and many people from Alberta, Ontario & Quebec, where most of the 36+ scores probably come from, won't bother applying there.

I was just playing devil's advocate up there. VanCity is still beautiful though.

JDAD · Jul 25, 2004

The posts in this thread are typical american attitude. No one can belive that in a differnt country, there are people that are as qualified, or even more qualified as here in the good old USA.

Look at the numbers. It plainly says the average MCAT for APPLICANTS is 10.9V, 12.2P, 12.7B . Add this up for a whopping 35.8. Yes, you read it right 35.8 is the average MCAT score of the APPLICANTS. Are you shaking and starting to tremble? That is higher than every single school in the USA. There are many schools in Canada that tell you to not even bother applying if your MCAT isn't above 32Q. That is, if you don't have a 32 and Q in the writing sample, you can't even apply because they won't look at your application. Getting into medical school in much harder in Canada then it is in the US.

I am ready to be flamed for this, but everyone needs to realize that there are other people from other countries that can do this better than they can. Yes, America is an amazing country, but it isn't the best at everything.

Also, about it being easier to get A's in Canada becasue the cutoff for "A" is 86 while in the US it's 90, I dare you to transfer and then tell me what you think. I have experinced both systems, and I can tell you honestly, school in Canada is much much harder than school in the US. In HS, my average was about 88% - I was 3rd in my class. I then transfered down to a US school and finished my high school here in the US, my average was 104%. The difference, in Canada, there is no such thing as a curve. There are no "extra"credit classes, and there are no bonus points. If the teacher gives an exam and the entire class average was 54% and the higherst grade was 78%, that is how the grades go. The material is very similar, and the teachers are very similar, but the "curve" and the extra credit stuff make it much easier down in the US.

Now you can think what you want about this post. I don't care. With all that being said, I am still living in the US and I intend to stay here. (The economy sucks in Canada and their social medical system is even worse if you are the physician)

If you get one thing out of this please let it be this: No matter how good you think you are, there will always be someone better. This is true unless you have an olympic goldmedal around your neck or a nobel prize on your torphy case. So be proud of your accomplishments, but stay humble.

(One more thing, the UBC numbers, while I see no reason for a school to lie about that, seem way off to me. There is no way the applicant pool averages a 35. Last year the average matriculant MCAT was about 33, and now that they are adding more students, I predicted it would drop to around a 32, not increase to a 37. I had to get my point across about staying humble, but I don't belive it either. But school is harder in Canada then it is here. Unless you try to compare a Canadian CC to MIT or somehting. ITS ALL RELATIVE)

MoosePilot · Jul 26, 2004

JDAD said:
(One more thing, the UBC numbers, while I see no reason for a school to lie about that, seem way off to me. There is no way the applicant pool averages a 35. Last year the average matriculant MCAT was about 33, and now that they are adding more students, I predicted it would drop to around a 32, not increase to a 37. I had to get my point across about staying humble, but I don't belive it either. But school is harder in Canada then it is here. Unless you try to compare a Canadian CC to MIT or somehting. ITS ALL RELATIVE)

I'm humble enough by comparison with other folks from the US.

However, we have more people. A bell curve being what it is, I expect we have significantly more people at the top end.

School may be more difficult. I don't have any evidence one way or another. To maintain that, though, you have to have fewer people pre-selected for their ability or you have to have more motivated people. Where's the motivation? The fact that the economy sucks so to do well you have to graduate from these super hard schools? :laugh:

Well, if Canadian schools are harder and Canadian pre-meds are averaging 35+, then I guess we'll start to see the majority of medical breakthroughs originating in Canada. I await developments...

JDAD · Jul 26, 2004

Moose, your just mad because the Canadian army is bigger.

I agree though, I think the UBC #'s are garbage. Their average MCAT is about 33 not 36.

But don't rip on Canada about new medical discovery, they provide plenty, they just don't have the funding to compete with the US jugernaut.(sp)

MoosePilot · Jul 26, 2004

JDAD said:
Moose, your just mad because the Canadian army is bigger.

I agree though, I think the UBC #'s are garbage. Their average MCAT is about 33 not 36.

But don't rip on Canada about new medical discovery, they provide plenty, they just don't have the funding to compete with the US jugernaut.(sp)

That must be it :laugh:

They've got so many cargo planes that I feel threatened.

No, really, I'm not ripping on them for new medical discoveries. I do believe that if Canadian docs were markedly superior to US docs, it would show up somewhere. Medical discoveries are one measure.

winstonm · Jul 26, 2004

MoosePilot said:
That must be it

They've got so many cargo planes that I feel threatened.

No, really, I'm not ripping on them for new medical discoveries. I do believe that if Canadian docs were markedly superior to US docs, it would show up somewhere. Medical discoveries are one measure.

A study was done a few months ago comparing research output or the percentage of high impact papers coming from different countries ... something like that. The US was around 60% and Canada about 7% I believe. I think we were 6th place overall, higher in medical sciences. Canada will never have the raw research output that the US has because your population is 10x ours and the funding is higher. Comparatively, though, we were about equal given the size difference.

As for discoveries, look up Tak Mak, Lap Chee Tsui, Lori West. Mak discovered the Tcell receptor, probably the most significant medical discovery as yet unrewarded with the Nobel. Tsui discovered the gene for cystic fibrosis and West showed that ABO-incompatible heart transplantation is possible in infants, which will revolutionize transplantation once American centres other than Atlanta and Denver wake up and accept the protocol. These are just a few people obviously, but highly significant ones. Sick Kids has the largest hospital based pediatric research facility in the world after Harvard. Look at this...

"IBM?s ?deep computing? comes to Sick Kids Sick Kids is using ?deep computing? technology and bioinformatics software donated by IBM to host and manage the Genome Database (GDB), the central repository for data generated by the Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP is the international scientific program aimed at unlocking the secrets to human kind?s genetic code. Deep computing refers to the combination of superior computer performance and ?smart? methods for the analysis and storage of data.

Sick Kids took over the management of the GDB from Johns Hopkins University after funding in the U.S. was terminated. The GDB receives millions of queries each year from scientists. It is used by genetics researchers and physicians worldwide via the Internet to locate markers useful in the disease-gene mapping process. Without the GDB it would be difficult, if not impossible, for scientists to coordinate their work in the Human Genome Project, leading to possible duplication of effort and delays in advancing knowledge about genetic diseases."

Research, as you mentioned, is only one measure, and I would argue a minor one since most big discoveries are made by PhDs, not MDs. Look at some clinical highlights...
The biggest breakthrough in diabetes since insulin was discovered in Toronto was the Edmonton protocol. Children's Denver, which has done more heart transplants than any peds hospital in the last 5 yrs, had half its team do fellowships at Sick Kids in Toronto. Dr. Bailey at loma Linda, who did the first one, also did his fellowship at Sick Kids. Washington U. stole the team that did the first lung transplant from Toronto General. The former head of ped cardiology/surgery at Stanford, michael Black, was a uofT meds grad. The head of fetal cardiology at UCSF, Lisa Hornberger, was recruited to set up a program there in the model of the one here. Arguably the best cardiac surgeon in the world, Tirone David, is at Toronto General. Toronto, I believe, has the largest associated medical enterprise (affiliated hospitals, research centres etc.) of any single medical school on the continent, though not as big as the Texas center in Houston. You get the point. (i have so much cardio stuff cuz that's my area of interest).

As for our economy sucking, it was much better than the States for nearly all of the last 4 years. You can't get a 50% exchange rate here anymore (now I can start cross-border shopping again) and we were creating more raw jobs (not proportional).

it's hard to assess GPAs here vs the states because there are good and less-good schools in both countries obviously. I had a friend doing BME at Hopkins and his normal science (non-engineering) courses were any harder than mine at UofT, where every class with over 40 people has to have an average between a C- and B-, usually a C, giving an average GPA just over 2. MIT or Caltech must be crazy, but I'm pretty sure that most of my friends here would do just as well in pretty much any American school. As i wrote earlier though, no US med school is going to give you "a boost" because the GPA is Canadian.

yeah, and I guess an American is gonna be scared of our military :laugh:

you americans should be proud as hell of Lance Armstrong...that man is amazing.

(excuse the long post. I don't post often, and like mine to have a bit of substance.)

supadupadoc · Jul 26, 2004

EMDream said:
Potato! said:

Nope nope nope. Harder to get A's in the US. 93%+=A here.

actually you're quite wrong. having graduated from the university of toronto and having spent my first two years of college at UCLA, i know for a fact that it IS easier to get an A at UCLA than an A at UofT, regardless of the fact that it is only 85%. at UofT, grades are not curved up EVER, once in awhile they are curved down. also, A+'s are more commonplace at UCLA than UofT.
about the original post...... US schools (i'm referring to 5 or 6 ones i've spoken with ranging from top tier to so-called "safety" schools) DO realize the differences btwn the 2 systems, and value your canadian A the same way as an American A, regardless if one is actually 85% and the othe 93%. remember that canadian applicants are not unusual. at some schools as a canadian you are even clumped into the general pool of US applicants. your best bet is to call admission offices and ask.

Click to expand...

supadupadoc · Jul 26, 2004

JDAD said:
The posts in this thread are typical american attitude. No one can belive that in a differnt country, there are people that are as qualified, or even more qualified as here in the good old USA.

Look at the numbers. It plainly says the average MCAT for APPLICANTS is 10.9V, 12.2P, 12.7B . Add this up for a whopping 35.8. Yes, you read it right 35.8 is the average MCAT score of the APPLICANTS. Are you shaking and starting to tremble? That is higher than every single school in the USA. There are many schools in Canada that tell you to not even bother applying if your MCAT isn't above 32Q. That is, if you don't have a 32 and Q in the writing sample, you can't even apply because they won't look at your application. Getting into medical school in much harder in Canada then it is in the US.

I am ready to be flamed for this, but everyone needs to realize that there are other people from other countries that can do this better than they can. Yes, America is an amazing country, but it isn't the best at everything.

Also, about it being easier to get A's in Canada becasue the cutoff for "A" is 86 while in the US it's 90, I dare you to transfer and then tell me what you think. I have experinced both systems, and I can tell you honestly, school in Canada is much much harder than school in the US. In HS, my average was about 88% - I was 3rd in my class. I then transfered down to a US school and finished my high school here in the US, my average was 104%. The difference, in Canada, there is no such thing as a curve. There are no "extra"credit classes, and there are no bonus points. If the teacher gives an exam and the entire class average was 54% and the higherst grade was 78%, that is how the grades go. The material is very similar, and the teachers are very similar, but the "curve" and the extra credit stuff make it much easier down in the US.

Now you can think what you want about this post. I don't care. With all that being said, I am still living in the US and I intend to stay here. (The economy sucks in Canada and their social medical system is even worse if you are the physician)

If you get one thing out of this please let it be this: No matter how good you think you are, there will always be someone better. This is true unless you have an olympic goldmedal around your neck or a nobel prize on your torphy case. So be proud of your accomplishments, but stay humble.

well said JDAD. and like you, i have every intention of settling in the US for many of the same reasons you've already mentioned. on the other hand, i disagree about the average MCAT scores for applicants in canada being around 32. last year the cut offs ( and yes ppl these ridiculous schools still employ rigid number cutoffs) for ontario schools were generally btwn 28-30. and of course, ontario medical schools are the most competitive in canada. in fact, the only thing more competitive worldwide are california medical schools. having said that, their gpa cutoffs were....... ready for this?..... as high as 3.83

(western university in london ontario)

hmm... · Jul 26, 2004

I believe that the cut-offs are pretty high. U of T and UBC are two of the bigger schools. One funny story is that one guy went to U of T to for undergrad while his friend went into York (or something like that), and he didn't make it in while his friend did.

I heard that in China, there are people who go crazy studing for TOFU (forgot spelling) and get 630-640! There are huge schools that specialize in teaching english and test prep there.

supafield · May 18, 2006

Lol a lot of American vs. Canadian debate going on here.
The amount of positions in Canadian Medical schools are very limited, Ontario especially. I go to the University of Western Ontario and they would not consider you for an interview unless you had a 30, Q. Then they tagged on that not only did it have to be a 30, but you couldn't score below 10 in any section. So this year 10, 10, 10, Q was required for an interview. The average entry GPA for U of Toronto Medicine was 3.87 last year. Queens University required a 32, Q to be granted an interview. Those were the absolute minimums, so a 35 average isn't out of the question. The Canadian medical system is very understaffed but more positions aren't made available. So some of these scores that sound a little ludacris are just that, however they're very real. My girlfriends older brother was able to get 1/4 Interviews in Ontario and 6/6 in New York and Michigan. So numbers of applicants/spots availble do come into play but anyone outside of Ontario and B.C., and from what I hear, California as well, should be happy they don't have to put up with this competition despite having excellent reputable medical schools of their own .

Canadian Undergrad GPA vs. American Undergrad

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