University of British Columbia

To apply, you should have 90 university-transferable graded credits completed by April 30 of your application year. UBC uses its own credit system, so do not convert this requirement to 30 FCEs. The minimum GPA to reach a file review is 75% for BC residents and 85% for out-of-province applicants.

How UBC scores you:

Before interviews, your file gets boiled down to a Total File Review score out of 100:

• AQ (out of 50): your Overall GPA (OGPA), or your Adjusted GPA (AGPA) if you're eligible, converted to a 50-point scale. The AGPA drops up to 30 credits from your worst academic year, as long as you still have 90 graded credits left afterward.
• NAQ (out of 50): your non-academic score (see the Essays / Activities section), as graded by "trained" UBC evaluators.

AQ and NAQ carry equal weight in deciding who gets an interview. MCAT is not weighted pre interview.

MCAT:

Required. You need a minimum total of 496 on a single exam. There are no section-score minimums, and UBC won't mix sections from different sittings. UBC uses your best MCAT.

Residency:

Preference goes to BC residents, and up to 10% of seats go to out-of-province Canadians. You count as a BC resident if you hold a valid BC Services Card with active MSP coverage by the deadline, and Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut residents are treated as BC residents too. Residency is waived for PhD, or if you're a supported Indigenous, Black, or MD/PhD applicant. International students aren't considered.

Recent class stats:

• Interview OGPA/AGPA: 89.1% IP, 92.93% OOP
• Mean OGPA/AGPA: about 89.6%
• Mean MCAT: about 513 to 515 (513.15 for the 2024 entering class)

For more stats see UBC Admissions Statistics page

Required prerequisites (phasing in by cycle):

UBC no longer has one full year English required.

• 2026/2027 and 2027/2028 cycles: either two English courses (two literature, or one literature and one composition), or one English course (literature or composition) plus one Canadian Indigenous Studies course.
• 2028/2029 cycle onward: one English course (literature or composition) and one Indigenous Studies course, 3 credits (0.5 FCE) each.

All prerequisite courses have to be graded (no Credit/D/Fail). For 2026/2027 they can still be in progress when you apply, but they need to be done by April 30, 2027. From 2027/2028 on, you have to finish them before you apply. Keep in mind that UBC's English prerequisite is a separate thing from UBC's general English-language competency requirement.

See the official page for the full details: Admission Requirements

Strongly recommended (not required):

General biology, general/inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry (6 credits each). Physics, statistics, social sciences, humanities, anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology are also recommended to help you prep for the MCAT and for med school.

There are no traditional personal essays in the general stream.

Non-Academic Activities (the core of your NAQ):

For 2026–27, you can include up to 10 paid employment entries, 5 volunteer or unpaid entries, 3 life experiences, and 3 hobbies. At least one hobby is required. These are maximums, not targets, so you do not need to fill every space.

• Leadership
• Service Ethic
• Capacity to Work with Others
• Diversity of Experiences
• High Performance in an Area of Human Endeavour

Each entry has a free-text description box and needs a verifier (not you, and not a friend or fellow volunteer) who can be contacted at any time. If what you wrote doesn't match what your verifier says, it can seriously hurt your file. UBC scores how involved you were, your level of responsibility, the significance, and how long you did it. Keep your entries focused on your specific responsibilities and level of commitment, not on the lessons or skills you took away. They're explicit that you should not tailor entries to the CanMEDS competencies, as those are meant to be built during med school, not before.

Separate sections (don't lump these into Activities):

• Awards: up to 5 of your most significant, from grade 11 onward, with a verifying link.
• Research Publications: anything published by the cutoff date, with a DOI or URL. Your research experience, posters, and talks go under Non-Academic Activities instead.

Northern & Rural Pathway (optional, opt-in):

Scored separately, includes a 50 to 500 word essay, a Lived Experiences in Canada timeline, and up to 16 Rural Capacities entries (10 Relevant Activities, 3 Ties, 3 Mentor). You have to complete it to be considered for the NMP (all 40 seats) and the designated rural positions at the SMP (up to 14), IMP (up to 4), and the VFMP's Fraser Learning Community (up to 4).

References:

You'll be asked for two references only after you get an interview invite. Have your referees ready to respond once invites go out.

Official Criteria:

• Academics (AQ) and non-academics (NAQ) carry equal weight before the interview. Don't try and stretch your activity descriptions to frame yourself as a leader, advocate, scholar or whatever other CanMEDs competency. They can and will see right through it and you'll end up coming off as ingenuine.
• If you opt into the Northern & Rural Pathway, real interest in and suitability for practice across BC, including Northern and rural communities.
• While the MCAT is used as a cutoff for interview invites, it is used competitively post-interview. The weighting is unclear and not disclosed by admissions. See the admission averages for insight on what score might place you in a good spot. That being said, you should obviously aim for as high of a score as you can get if you haven't written yet. Score averages are subject to go up or down year to year depending on what UBC decides it wants to value more.

Key 2026–27 dates:

• Application opens: June 30, 2026.
• Application deadline: September 15, 2026 at noon PT.
• Last accepted MCAT sitting: September 12, 2026.
• MCAT scores must be received by October 15, 2026.

After file review, a subset of applicants is invited to interview through the OAS. Your reference letters get requested at this stage, so make sure your referees know this timeline difference vs. OMSAS for example.

Offers start in mid-May and go out in waves as the waitlist moves, and waitlist movement can keep going into late August. Each offer is tied to a specific site and is binding, and you'll put down a $1,000 deposit (applied to your tuition) when you accept.

2025–26 Interview Dates (last cycle):

Invitations: December 2025.

Interviews: February 2026. Exact assigned dates were communicated through the OAS and were not published as one public schedule.

Your interviewers come from all over BC and usually include clinicians, academics, community representatives, and 3rd- or 4th-year UBC medical students.

UBC uses an interview in its selection process, but the exact 2027 platform, station count, timing, and format are TBD. Don't carry prior-cycle MMI details forward.

UBC tells you not to pay for "real questions" from prep companies, and says there's no required formula or vocabulary; they're looking at how you think and who you are. You only indicate your site preferences after you get an interview offer, and the committee doesn't see them while evaluating you.

For the full format, visit the UBC MD Interviews page . For interview tips and resources, see our curated Interview Guide.

UBC has dedicated pathways for equity-deserving applicants, a Northern & Rural pathway, and an accommodation process if you have a disability. You can apply through a pathway on top of the general process.