Admission Requirements
The UBC MD Undergraduate Admissions Office reserves the right to change the admission requirements at any time without notice. Please read the Notes to Applicants to learn about recent changes to our requirements.
Minimum Academic Standing
Minimum Credit Requirement
Transcript Requirements
Prerequisites
Claiming AP or IB Credit
MCAT
Citizenship
BC Residency Requirements
Minimum Academic Standing
Please note that due to limited enrolment, meeting the minimum academic standing does not guarantee admission to the program, or even consideration for an interview. A realistic review of the statistics on our website for the averages of successful applicants is recommended before submission of an application.
BC applicants with an overall academic average of less than 75% and out-of-province applicants with an overall academic average of less than 80% (based on the adjusted academic average, if applicable) will not receive full file reviews and thus will not proceed further through the application process.1 A full file review consists of a full academic evaluation, a non-academic evaluation and where appropriate, a rural/remote suitability evaluation.
It is recommended that self-identified Aboriginal applicants achieve a competitive grade point average. Their academic scores will be reviewed at the discretion of the Aboriginal Admissions Sub-Committee.
You must report all university-level courses, programs, and grades. Individuals who have withdrawn from another medical school for academic reasons are not eligible to apply. Individuals who are enrolled or will be enrolling in another medical school during the application cycle must inform the program using either the online application form and/or email. Failure to include relevant information may result in disqualification of your application.
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1These averages must be attained although the published minimum academic requirement for applying to the MD Undergraduate Program is an overall GPA ("OGPA") of 70% based on all university-level courses attempted (see Minimum Credit Requirement)
Our minimum requirement of 90 credits must be 90 university-transferable credits taken at a post-secondary institution. AP or IB credits cannot count towards the 90 minimum credits.
All applicants must submit ONE set of official transcripts, in sealed and endorsed envelopes issued by the Registrar(s) of the home institution(s), from ALL post secondary institutions attended, to the MD Undergraduate Admissions Office by the application deadline. Please refer to the Application Timelines for further information. Applicants must submit transcripts from ALL post-secondary institutions attended, including but not limited to colleges and universities, institutions attended on exchange, study abroad institutions, institutions attended on a letter of permission or as a visiting student, etc. It is not sufficient for our purposes for the courses/grades to appear on your home institution's transcript. Transcripts can be sent directly from the institution or sent by the applicant to us, as long as the transcripts arrive in their official, sealed, endorsed envelopes.
If your home university does not mail original academic records directly, then stamped, attested true photocopies of academic records in sealed envelopes and endorsed by the Registrar at your home university will be accepted as official.
To be considered official, all transcripts (and degree certificates, if applicable) must arrive in sealed and endorsed envelopes issued by the home institution.
Applicants who attended post-secondary institutions (including on exchange or study abroad) outside of North America must have their foreign transcripts assessed by either ICES, the International Credential Evaluation Service or WES, World Education Services.
Prerequisites
The Faculty of Medicine considers students from a variety of backgrounds; no preference is given to any particular degree program. Applicants applying by August 2011 for entrance in September 2012 must have completed the required prerequisite courses (or equivalents) by April 30, 2012.
Note: As applicants are required to demonstrate their academic ability to determine their suitability for the rigorous MD curriculum, taking the Credit/D/Fail option for prerequisite courses may not be a helpful indicator in the selection process and could potentially jeopardize your application to the program.
Courses in behavioural sciences, biometrics, statistics and physics are recommended, but not required.
This chart is a guide only. Final authority regarding course equivalency rests with academic advisors in the Faculty of Medicine. Superscript numbers refer to the notes beneath the table.
| Prerequisites and UBC Vancouver course numbers1 | UBC Okanagan course numbers | Simon Fraser University Equival-ents | Trinity Western University Equival-ents | University of Northern BC Equival-ents | University of Victoria Equivalents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
English2,3 minimum 6 credits Choose any one of: ENGL 100 or 112 (recommended) Plus one of: 110, 111, 120 or 121 |
One of ENGL 112 or 114 (recommended)plus one of ENGL 150, 151, or 153 or Any two of ENGL 150, 151, or 153. |
Any two of ENGL 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 199 (recom-mended) | ENGL 103 & 104 | Any two of ENGL 100, 102, 103, 104, 170. |
Any two of |
|
minimum 6 credits BIOL 121 & 140(L) (plus BIOL 111 for students without BIOL 12) |
BIOL 116 & 125 | BISC 101 & 102 |
BIOL 113 & 114 or BIOL 103, 104 & 105
|
BIOL 101 & 102 |
190A and 190B |
|
General Chemistry or CHEM 111 & 113
|
CHEM 111 & 113 or CHEM 121 & 123
|
CHEM 121, 122 & 126 |
CHEM 111 & 112 or CHEM 103 & 104 |
CHEM 100 & 120(L) and CHEM 101 & 121(L) |
CHEM 101 & 102 |
|
minimum 6 credits CHEM 203 & 213 or CHEM 233, 235 & 213 or CHEM 233, 235 & 205 If taken prior to September 2011: CHEM 203 & 204 |
CHEM 203 & 204 or CHEM 213 & 214 |
CHEM 281 & 282 (CHEM 286 no longer required) | CHEM 221 & 222 | CHEM 201 & 250(L) and CHEM 203 & 251(L) | CHEM 231 plus either CHEM 232 or CHEM 235 |
|
minimum 6 credits BIOC 202 & BIOC 302 (recommended4) or BIOL 201 & BIOC 302 for UBC students only or BIOC 303 If taken prior to September 2012: BIOC 300
|
BIOL 311 & 319 or BIOC 304 & 305 |
MBB 222 & 321 |
CHEM 384 & 386 (C/L with BIOL 384 & 386) |
BCMB/CHEM 306 & BIOL 311 Prior to 2007: BCMB/CHEM 306 & 307 |
BIOC 300a & 300b (preferred) or BIOC 299 (or BIOC 200) and one of either BIOL 360 or 361
Prior to Sept 2005: BIOC 300 |
NOTES:
1. Course combinations were revised on December 6, 2011. Applicants who have completed course combinations based on previously published data are assured that they have satisfied the prerequisite requirements in the applicable subject areas.
2. For UBC students, the 6-credit first year English requirement can be met by taking one of ENGL 112, ASTU 150 or ENGL 100, PLUS one of ENGL 110, 111, 120, or 121; OR it can be met by successfully completing the Arts One Program or CAP (Coordinated Arts Program).
3. English courses must be offered by the English department. Either one full year of English Literature courses, or one half year of English Literature and one half year of English Composition. Non-UBC courses must be equivalent to courses listed in the table. Please note that OAC (Ontario Academic Credit) English does not meet the requirement.
4. Although both of the BIOL201/BIOC302 and BIOC202/302 streams are acceptable prerequisites for the medical program, the BIOC202/302 stream has a human focus and is designed for students planning to enter the health sciences fields, including medicine.
To assess course equivalency, refer to detailed UBC course descriptions to ensure that the topics covered in the courses and the credit weightings are similar. Please follow the department links above or consult the UBC calendar. Final authority regarding course equivalency rests with academic advisors in the Faculty of Medicine and is only available after your application has been submitted and evaluated by an academic advisor.
|
Where course was completed |
Action |
|
BC colleges and universities |
Consult the official, online transfer guide, www.bctransferguide.ca |
|
Other Canadian institutions |
If the course is not listed, consult the sample week-by-week course outlines on our Web site. |
|
International Institutions |
Consult the sample week-by-week course outlines on our Web site and submit week-by-week outlines for each course you have taken. Applicants who attended post-secondary institutions (including on exchange or study abroad) outside of North America must have their foreign transcripts assessed by either ICES, the International Credential Evaluation Service or WES (World Education Services ). Applicants must arrange to have official transcripts and the WES or ICES reports submitted to our office by the application deadline. These reports are required to augment academic evaluation of an applicant's file (and it can also be to an applicant’s advantage to have their foreign transcripts assessed by these organizations). However, the Admissions Office reserves the right to apply its own evaluation. In some cases, the Admissions Office may request applicants with international credentials to submit both a comprehensive and supplemental report from ICES to assist in the academic evaluation of their application. |
Claiming AP or IB credit towards prerequisite requirements
The following minimum grades must be achieved in order to claim AP or IB credit to satisfy the prerequisite requirement in the applicable subject areas. Please note that if the applicable first year courses were taken in first or second year only (not in subsequent years), the grades for these courses will be used instead of the AP/IB credit.
| Subjects | AP | IB |
|---|---|---|
| Biology | 4 | 6, Higher Level only |
| Chemistry | 4 | 6, Higher Level only |
| English | 4 | 5, Higher Level only |
All applicants (except UBC students) must also send one set of official AP or IB transcripts directly to the Admissions Office by the application deadline. Our office does not accept electronic copies of AP or IB transcripts, nor can we access those sent to UBC's Enrollment Services.
The address where you can write (or call) to obtain an official AP transcript to be sent to the Admissions Office (our Code is #3939):
AP Exams
PO Box 6671
Princeton, NJ 09652 USA
Toll-free: 1-888-CALL-4-AP
Phone: 1-609-771-7300
Email: apexams@info.collegeboard.org
The address where you can write to obtain an official IB transcript:
Transcript officer
International Baccalaureate North America
475 Riverside Drive, 16th Floor
New York, NY, US-10115 USA
E-mail: transcript.ibna@ibo.org
Phone 1-212-696-4464
Fax: 1-212-889-9242
MCAT
All applicants must take the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and request that their results be released online to UBC via MCAT Testing History (ThX) System after UBC's online application is live for the current cycle. Test results for the last five years, inclusive, are considered valid. In accordance with AAMC regulations, applicants must release all scores. It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that all results are released and received by the Admissions Office.
The minimum MCAT requirement for applying to our program is a score of no less than 7 in any of Verbal Reasoning, Biological & Physical Sciences and no less than M in the Writing Sample. Applicants with scores lower than these will be made ineligible. Please review the Faculty of Medicine MD Undergraduate Admissions Statistics Summary for an indication of competitive scores. It is recommended that self-identified Aboriginal applicants achieve competitive MCAT scores. These scores will be reviewed at the discretion of the Aboriginal Admissions Sub-Committee.
Click here for information and online registration for the MCAT 
exam. MCAT scores must be received by October 1. The last accepted MCAT test date is August 31 of the application year. In the event that your scores from an August exam date are not available for release before October 1, please contact the Admissions Office before this deadline.
Please note: UBC is not a part of the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS). You must therefore specify that you want your test results released to UBC. This can only be done AFTER your results have been sent to you using MCAT's online "THx system ." Applicants are strongly encouraged to utilize the menu option on the THx System called "Review the status of my THx requests" to confirm that results have been successfully released to UBC.
To avoid submitting an application that will become ineligible as soon as the MCAT score is received, applicants are encouraged to write the MCAT early in order to confirm their scores meet our minimum requirements before applying.
If you have written more than one MCAT, the eligible exam with the best score for our purposes will be used. "Eligible" means the exam meets our date and score requirements. To determine which exam to evaluate, we look at each individual score in an exam to produce an overall total converted score for that exam. The eligible exam with the highest overall converted score will be the one used for evaluation. Please note that only one exam is used in our evaluation - we do not take the BS from one exam and the PS from a different exam, for example.
Citizenship
The Faculty of Medicine welcomes applications from qualified individuals who:
- are permanent residents of Canada at the time of application, either as Canadian citizens or permanent residents, and
- meet the eligibility criteria, and
- believe they would be competitive on the selection criteria.
We regret that we are unable to admit international students.
Canadian citizens who are born outside of Canada will be required to submit proof of citizenship at the interview event.
BC Residency Requirements
Preference is given to residents of British Columbia; however, a small number of out-of-province applicants are accepted each year.
A BC resident, for the MD Undergraduate Admissions purposes, is someone who has met one of the following criteria:
- Lived or studied in BC for three consecutive years immediately prior to the application deadline; or
- Lived in BC for four years (not necessarily consecutive years) from the age of 12 or older. One year = 12 consecutive months; or
- Is a resident-under any of the above terms-of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, or Nunavut.
By the application deadline, applicants must submit the following: high school or other post-secondary transcripts, proof of employment, addresses or other appropriate documentation. The Admissions Office reserves the right to contact applicants for further information or documentation to clarify BC residency status.
