acceptance timeline

[Anon]

Does anyone know how much time you are given to accept or reject an offer of admission? Also, are all offers for ontario schools sent out by each individual university or by OMSAS? Thanks :)

[RAK2005]

I believe (from what I got last year) that you get two weeks to conditionally accept an offer, and at the end it turns into a firm acceptance unless you receive another offer from a different school. I think the date was June 14th last year (my acceptance arrived May 31st? or just after).

[haloo]

Yes, it is two weeks after the May 31st acceptance, but what about if you are contacted to be taken from the waitlist later on? Is it another two weeks after that? I mean, if you are out of town and have to get contacted by someone else like your parents how long do the admissions office wait then for an answer?

[RAK2005]

Hmmm, good point about the waitlist... My impression is that a waitlisted individual has 24 hours to respond to an offer, so if say you were waitlisted at two schools at once and got offers at once past the June 14th deadline (like this would REALLY ever happen!) I guess you'd have to take the 24 hours to decide.

Reality is that most students with multiple offers will be offered admissions on the 31st-14th of June. If you are waitlisted ONLY, you pretty much have to take what you get. If you get only ONE offer with one waitlist, you only have the May 31st - 14th window to see if you get off of the waitlist.

I think that covers most of the combinations/permutations. Back to hockey playoffs (GO HABS!!!)

[bad hombre]

so, if you receive an offer of acceptance and you don't respond to it by june 14 because you're out of town, then you're registered anyway?

[Da Birdie]

hmm
and what about those OOP schools (such as UofA) whose interviews are held in late May and initial offers are sent in late June/early July?!

does it mean that an applicant(who likes UofA and Queen's equally) must reject/disregard the UofA application if he is offered a space off the Queen's waiting list before the UofA results come out?

:rolleyes

[RAK2005]

I am really only talking about Ontario. I'm not sure about the policies outside, but the ones I've stated hold true for the majority of cases here.

If you "conditionally accept" and go out of town, by the 14th your conditional acceptance becomes a "firm" one, meaning you must register at that ONTARIO school.

If you're an OOP and you say, get a U of A acceptance in May and then get a Queen's one a month later things become interesting. MY understanding is that you would probably need to put a deposit down on your U of A spot after a certain date...if you got a Queen's acceptance after that deposit, you could probably tell U of A you're not coming and lose your deposit. In the long run it may be worth it to you to do this if you're committed to Ontario.

OMSAS has linked their acceptance system with all 5 Ontario schools to prevent the above scenario from happening. Thus when you make a firm acceptance you are taken off all other Ont. school's waitlists/acceptance lists.

Hope this helps.

[Anon]

Hey. Thanks for the info. Could you tell me if the offer comes directly from the school or from OMSAS. Thanks :)

[In the know]

The offers come directly from the school (as do the refejections).

[JD]

I think you have to give a conditional acceptance to an offer by June 14. Then as people mentioned, if you don't get off another waitlist by July 3, this conditional acceptance becomes finalized (i.e. you're dropped from all Ontario waitlists). However, they have no control over your status at schools outside Ontario (e.g. UBC, U of A, American schools, etc.) so you can still remain on those waitlists.

[Da Birdie]

ahh...

thanx a lot RAK2005 and JD :)

[Cassiopeia04]

My experience is that med schools (omsas and otherwise) do have a system of knowing where else you've been accepted. I had accepted a spot at UBC (and paid their deposit) before Queens sent out their acceptances. And when I talked to the people at Queens, they already knew I had given my ok to UBC and in order to accept Queens I had to give up my UBC spot.

W
Queens Med 2

[Da Birdie]

Wow the med schools actually communicate with each other during the admission process?! This is the first time I hear about this...

Better be careful during the interviews (ie make sure not to put any school down, or tell every school "yup, you are my first choice / you have my favorite program" etc) :D

[Ian Wong]

Calgary knew that I had been accepted at UBC, and told me so when they accepted me off of their waitlist. I think it's been common practice for a while now (my opinion). As to whether they actually compare notes on applicants; I really doubt that. I suspect that the communication takes the form of lists of acceptance letters for each respective school.

Ian
UBC, Med 3

[Da Birdie]

hmm.. I guess we applicants don't have to worry too much about the "waitlist vs. OOP-offer" conflicts then...since the Canadian schools seem to be taking care of that :)

Thanx Ian!

btw Ian, you seem to have gotten acceptances from all the western med schools!?! That's marvelous~ :eek

[governorgeneral]

anyone know if the schools send out their initial acceptances, waitlist and rejection letters all on 31 may, or just the acceptances first, and the others afterwards?

[Ian Wong]

Floating to the top...

Ian