Official Waitlist Movement Tracking Thread

[hopelessWaitlister]

Hello Potential Med 2015,

From my user name you probably already know that I was once wait-listed, so I know exactly how you feel at this point of time, especially when uOttawa is the only school you applied or gets wait-listed. To ease your anxiety a little bit, I'll explain how uOttawa wait-list works based on my past research and experience (Note: There may be changes made this year. What I said below is only based on what happened last year. The summery below is solely based on my personal observation, and I don't have any official sources to back it up.)

Based on what I have read, after interview, you will get an interview score of 4, 3.5, 3, 2.5...etc. They normally interview ~450 people for the English stream and ~90 people for the French stream.

If you get a 4 on your interview, you are in directly,which is around ~100 people. So I assume the 3.5 group should also have ~100 people, 3.0 another ~100 people, so on and so forth. Then within each group, individuals are ranked based on the wGPA. People with higher wGPA will be called first within that interview score group. Once they exhaust one score group, they will move on to the next score group, until they reach the school's admission goal. For the English stream, a lot of people admitted or wait-listed end up choosing other schools, so the wait-list does move quite a bit. Last year, everyone in the 3.5 group and people with >3.91 in the 3.0 group got in.

In the letter that you have received, it may say "Your name has been placed on a waiting list. You will be notified by telephone or by e-mail communication if your name appears at the top of the list, should a vacancy occur before September." If you have this, then it means you are on the "good" waiting list, which I assume are the 3.5 and 3.0 group. If you has something like, from your ranking on the wait list, we advise you to make other plans, then you are probably in the 2.5 group.

I am not very clear how the French Stream works, but the French Stream wait list not seem to move very much.

In terms of timing, usually most of the spots in the English Stream will be filled by mid-June, but every year is different, you never know. However, I do advise you to make other plans if you have waited passed June. In terms of pattern, you should expect to see two waves. The first wave happens in mid or late May, when people who received offer declines their offer. Most people in the 3.5 group will be called in this wave. The second wave will be much smaller. These are people who have already accepted offer from somewhere else, but they haven't yet removed their name from the waiting list, when they get called, they are likely to decline the offer.

The facebook group for Class 2015 has already been created: University of Ottawa Medicine Class of 2015. This year we did not allow second years to join the facebook group (except 2 admin people) until a month later, so you may use the facebook group as a tool to guesstimate how much the wait list will move.

A word of advice, the best thing to do is to not think about it and just move on with your life. I know it is hard, because I couldn't do it last year. This is why I did all these research just to ease my nerve. But as you mature, you will start to realize once you have tried your best and gave all you have, the result doesn't mean as much. If you look back it's really the experience that matters whether or not it leads to success or failure. Don't get depressed when you fail, see it as an opportunity to improve yourself. None of us are perfect, I think we have all experience failures in the past, and we should expect to experience defeats in the future as well. Learn to reflect on your failures and you will become a better person. By the way, you will do a lot of self reflection here at uOttawa. I know this may sounds corny to you, as you may think "whatever, you are already in, so you can talk about all this." Please don't think this way. Once again, I know it's not easy, and I know exactly how you feel, but try your best.

I hope these information helps. Best of Luck!

[hopelessWaitlister]

Sorry, I forgot to mention. Please post your wGPA, so we can track the movement of the wait list. Since posting here is pretty much anonymous, I encourage all the lurkers to step up and post your wGPA, if you get called. Thanks!

[hopelessWaitlister]

Please post the following info:

wGPA:
Stream: English or French
From Ottawa: Yes/No (Apparently it makes a difference, but I am not sure.)

[Larrivee]

thanks for the info H,
wGPA: don't know how to calculate OMSAS = 3.97
English
No, OOO and OOP

[hkm91450]

Originally Posted by hopelessWaitlister

Please post the following info:

wGPA:
Stream: English or French
From Ottawa: Yes/No (Apparently it makes a difference, but I am not sure.)

Whether you're from Ottawa or not only matters pre-interview; applicants from Ottawa have a lower wGPA cut-off. After that, everyone is on even ground.

[sp1nz]

wGPA: 3.91
English stream
IP, OOO

[purpleflower]

wGPA: 3.96
English
OOO and IP

[peachlover2011]

wGPA : 4.00
stream: English
OOO, IP

[duncan]

good waitlist
wGPA : 3.99
stream: English
OOP

[sp1nz]

HOLY look at the monster GPAs in this thread... I'm never gonna get off the waitlist =(