Achieving a high undergraduate GPA is one of the most important prerequisites to gaining admission to medical school. Despite outstanding accomplishments in other components of one’s application, a poor GPA may severely curtail any candidate’s chances of success. A strong, consistent GPA is the ideal way to exhibit your competence among the numerous qualified candidates you will be competing against – increasing your chances of acceptance to the medical school of your choice.

The Calculation

Universities utilize a variety of scales to evaluate students on a course-by-course basis. Most schools then convert the course grades into a GPA, which represents a student’s academic performance over a certain period of time and/or courses completed (per session and/or overall), usually conforming to a 4.0 scale. A GPA at one university may not necessarily be comparable to a GPA at another university due to differing values assigned to each course by each institution.

In order for Canadian medical schools to evaluate candidates in a consistent manner across different universities, most medical schools convert a student’s grades to conform to a standardized scale, such as the one utilized by OMSAS (Ontario Medical Schools Application Service). This enables admissions committees to comparatively evaluate applicants in an objective manner. The correspondence of grades to GPA depends on the undergraduate school attended and the medical school where one seeks admission.

OMSAS releases a grading system conversion table, updated yearly, to inform applicants about how their overall GPA will be calculated for that cycle. The OMSAS Grade Conversion Table, used for Canadian university students applying to medical schools in Ontario, illustrates how percentage or alpha (i.e., letter) course grades correspond to OMSAS Values.

Learn More about GPA including:

• • Example GPA Calculation
  • Points to Consider
  • How GPA is Used
  • A ‘Good GPA'
  • Courses
  • Disclosing Your GPA
  • Tips on GPA