now that i ave finally stopped crying. who wants to make me feel better about being rejected from mcmaster. anyone know the main reason you are rejected? i had very high average and what i thought was a solid sup app. also the big question.... kin or life science at mcmaster or at another university with full tuition scholarship. id like to go to med school. any thought/opinions are helpful

health sci is the best program since it is the easiest and assures the highest possible gpa for med, but you can still get into med. consider kin at mac, or go to a school with a full scholarship. dont do life sci

Suggestions?

Yea: Set yourself apart from the heard and do biomedical engineering, THEN go to med school. As a bonus to biomed engineering, after you get your undergrad degree, you can start making money immediately if you change your mind about med school (engineering graduate studies pay you money...).

Kin's good for jobs after too, but I'm saying the biomed engineering degree will set you apart from the pack. Mac Health Sci will not... So you dodged a bullet.

Silver, what's wrong with life sci at mac?

As for kin or life sci, you're gonna have to look through the undergraduate calendar and take a look at the courses you will be taking and make a decision based on that. However a full tuition scholarship may be nice cuz it does get expensive. But in general no matter which university you decide to go to, most bio/life sci programs are very similar

Originally Posted by mike_302

Suggestions?

Yea: Set yourself apart from the heard and do biomedical engineering, THEN go to med school. As a bonus to biomed engineering, after you get your undergrad degree, you can start making money immediately if you change your mind about med school (engineering graduate studies pay you money...).

Kin's good for jobs after too, but I'm saying the biomed engineering degree will set you apart from the pack. Mac Health Sci will not... So you dodged a bullet.

this is false. mac health sci average gpa for the students is over 3.9 due to how gpa friendly the courses are. gpa is king when it comes to professional/grad schools and is the toughest thing to improve if you get off to a rocky start, which you wouldnt in health sci.

Originally Posted by Silver

this is false. mac health sci average gpa for the students is over 3.9 due to how gpa friendly the courses are. gpa is king when it comes to professional/grad schools and is the toughest thing to improve if you get off to a rocky start, which you wouldnt in health sci.

The whole "Mac health sci gpa friendliness" thing is a bit controversial though, is it not? Plenty of concern there, regarding med schools recognizing that Mac's Health Sci program is meant to give everyone the highest grade possible. It's also why grad schools have supplementary applications:
Biomed engineering, or similarly challenging programs, demand a lot and may not give you a perfect GPA, but the true mature student will recognize the added value out of getting to med school through a unique, more challenging avenue --- and although I am not an admissions officer, Med Schools should certainly be recognizing biomedical engineering degrees as worthy of further evaluation. If they really are only evaluating GPA, and not the difficulty of the program you are getting into, I'd be extremely concerned...

You want med school and didn't get Health Sci? Go to an easier school with an easier program. I'm assuming you're speaking about Trent because that's the only school I know of that gives out full scholarships for those who possess 90+ averages. Just go there, you'll be in less debt and probably acquire a higher GPA if you were to put in the same amount of work at both Mac and Trent.

The poster above is incorrect. Med schools like every other professional program in Canada only care about your GPA and MCAT scores. They do not care about the difficulty of your program because it is too subjective to evaluate. Seeing as how the average admissions GPA for med schools is already a 3.9 (11) out of 4.0 (12), I wouldn't risk it by doing an engineering degree.

Originally Posted by Pendragon

The poster above is incorrect. Med schools like every other professional program in Canada only care about your GPA and MCAT scores. They do not care about the difficulty of your program because it is too subjective to evaluate. Seeing as how the average admissions GPA for med schools is already a 3.9 (11) out of 4.0 (12), I wouldn't risk it by doing an engineering degree.

Hmm.. I dunno -- not saying you're wrong, but I'd look into that a bit more. That may just be a perception that people get from GPA's. If you're end-game is med school in 4 years, it's probably worth the official confirmation now, that a better quality degree isn't more valuable...

This being said, if med schools are only accepting the top X-number of applicants after sorting the list by GPA, I'm extremely sad for the state of medical education...

Originally Posted by mike_302

Hmm.. I dunno -- not saying you're wrong, but I'd look into that a bit more. That may just be a perception that people get from GPA's. If you're end-game is med school in 4 years, it's probably worth the official confirmation now, that a better quality degree isn't more valuable...

This being said, if med schools are only accepting the top X-number of applicants after sorting the list by GPA, I'm extremely sad for the state of medical education...

I agree with you and it is the unfortunate truth. I know a lot of people who went to schools like York, Ryerson, Brock, UOIT, etc. for relatively easier programs, beat the below-average competition to get a high GPA, and got into med school over those who worked twice as hard as them to get their degrees, but did not have the GPA they were looking for. This is true of law, dentistry, pharmacy and physiotherapy as well where they mainly care about the stats that you are applying with. Schools try to maintain their statistical medians in order to remain competitive among rankings and that is the only objective way we have to really evaluate the caliber of students in a program.

Lol this is one of the most misinformed posts about med ive heard in awhile. Your school or program has literally 0 bearing on med school applications.

Hell, I'll make you feel better. Where you want to meet?

We can discuss your options as well as university education from perspective of a 4th year student.

Originally Posted by mike_302

Hmm.. I dunno -- not saying you're wrong, but I'd look into that a bit more. That may just be a perception that people get from GPA's. If you're end-game is med school in 4 years, it's probably worth the official confirmation now, that a better quality degree isn't more valuable...

This being said, if med schools are only accepting the top X-number of applicants after sorting the list by GPA, I'm extremely sad for the state of medical education...

obviously med schools look for other things in applicants, but gpa is one of the main ways they cut people off. your low gpa is the hardest thing to recover from if you wish to be competitive for med shcool in canada. the other aspects of your application (mcat, ecs, research, etc) can all be improved in a variety of ways, but to recover from a year where your gpa is like 3.7 is very tough.

Originally Posted by Silver

obviously med schools look for other things in applicants, but gpa is one of the main ways they cut people off. your low gpa is the hardest thing to recover from if you wish to be competitive for med shcool in canada. the other aspects of your application (mcat, ecs, research, etc) can all be improved in a variety of ways, but to recover from a year where your gpa is like 3.7 is very tough.

Lol what a world we live in where a 3.7 is considered an abysmal GPA hard to recover. To be honest, I would just go to an easier undergraduate program and school and get the best GPA. No point in going to engineering (NOT a good decision, trust me). Also medical schools often consider your best 2 years/last 2 years/ drop lowest courses, etc..., so a poor GPA in one course or one year IS not that bad

Originally Posted by gggggg

Lol what a world we live in where a 3.7 is considered an abysmal GPA hard to recover. To be honest, I would just go to an easier undergraduate program and school and get the best GPA. No point in going to engineering (NOT a good decision, trust me). Also medical schools often consider your best 2 years/last 2 years/ drop lowest courses, etc..., so a poor GPA in one course or one year IS not that bad

McMaster and Ottawa med schools look at your cGPA and have pretty high cutoffs, Ottawa in particular. It is in one's best interests to get stellar grades beginning from first year, but I agree that a 3.7 is a solid GPA, it's just not enough for med school. The medians for schools in Ontario are well above 3.9 at present and the competition only seeks to get harder with each passing cycle. I can't tell you how many times I've heard in first and second year, of students at Mac saying that they will be doctors. By the time fourth year rolled around, most of them did not make it in and became depressed about the job opportunities available to them with a generic life science degree.