When do you expect the average to jump because of online?

[Deleted]

Hi everyone,

I've compared course averages for my courses last semester with one's from previous years, and there is definitely a big jump thanks to online school.

I was just wondering when do you think this will affect admission averages?

Assuming most students applying this year are in 3rd year and have already completed their prereqs, I don't think the average will increase too much this year.

But for 2022 admissions I imagine there will be a huge jump as students will have completed their last 2 full-time semesters and all their prereqs online. I wouldn't be surprised to see a 94-95% median...

Any thoughts?

[tilac]

This is an interesting question. I'd say a 93 or 94 wouldn't be unreasonable. But at the same time, also remember there is a flip side to this, as many people also struggled with online. Also, were the courses you were in pre-requisite courses? I find it somewhat hard to believe that cell biology, molecular biology/genetics or statistics all got outstandingly high averages - but if they did then maybe an even higher average than above could be realistic. Also, how do you know the averages from your courses? Guelph doesn't display course medians/averages, and exam averages are almost never known. Regardless, we can estimate the average based on trends from previous years (not accounting for potential online changes). I started in 2014 (first w/out MCAT):

Year (Entry)	Interviewed Median	Admitted Median	Difference Between
2014	N/A	87.06	N/A
2015	N/A	88.3	N/A
2016	87.85	88.94	1.09
2017	88.88	90.38	1.5
2018	89.43	90.21	0.78
2019	90.39	90.89	0.5
2020	90.56	92.2	1.64

*N/A because interview medians were not given in 2014 & 2015

Based on this this the year over year average increase for admitted applicants was about 0.86. Interviewed which is a better reflection of who actually applies was about 0.68 year over year. However the most recent year (w/out MMIs) showed the largest increase between interviewed and admitted by far (which suggests that marks were a better predictor than normal of who would get in.

Therefore on average (w/out accounting for differences from online) we'd be expecting 93.06 admitted and 91.24 for an interview based on previous trends. It would be difficult to predict any more than this because we don't have the medians for other classes and other schools. Also keep in mind that these marks only include 1.5 semesters of online AND that some people had already locked in their pre-req averages in previous non-online years meaning they will not get a boost. 

Lastly, a good or bad reference can make or break your interview. My guess is that for a sizeable subset of applicants, there was probably less time to meet with all of their referees and get as good, personal references as they would have been able to get otherwise. This could make admitted people a bit more random. 

Although this is all just my speculation. 

[Deleted]

Oh that's too bad it would've been interesting to hear how averages at Guelph changed. My university does publish course averages, and they have gone up by 2-3 grades (e.g., what used to be a C+ is now a B or B+)...

This doesn't necessarily mean the best students are getting better grades though. A lot of classes have switched from exams to assignments, where it's probably easier to do pretty well, but more difficult to get a really great grade. So the shift in averages might be due to lower grades increasing, not higher grades.

But yes I agree, based on the trends it looks like median will be 93% next year, and 94-95% the year after...

[hopefuldvm]

I'm not sure about other universities, but I know for a lot of Guelph courses the exams are still proctored (so no cheating) and there isn't much of a switch from exams to assignments. So I don't think there would be a significant jump in averages, just because our course load is equivalent or even heavier than in person classes and having it online isn't really making it much easier.