Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
If you have a question and it is not answered here, feel free to contact me.
I'm getting an error message during the calcuation even though I entered everything correctly!
Most error messages come with instructions on how to solve them. If you followed the instructions and are still unable to clear the error message, please contact me.
What does the 'special' category mean?
Courses like COOP that are counted towards the GPA calculation regardless if they were taken during the school year or the summer. For simplicities sake, MDbuddy treates special courses as FALL_WINTER courses.
Does MDbuddy take into account things like pass/fail courses and summer courses into the calculation?
Yes! Depending on the medical school, MDbuddy either uses or discards courses depending on their type, giving you an accurate list of GPAs of your course portfolio. Note that MDbuddy will calculate your total weight with PASS/FAIL courses, however, it will not include their weights when dividing for the averaged GPA.
Due to COVID-19, X University stopped counting winter 2020 courses in their GPA calculation. Does MDBuddy know this?
Technically no, however, this is a workaround! To calculate your wGPA with the above changes placed by COVID-19, follow these steps. (1) Change your 2020 winter term course grades to PASS, (2) save, (3) recalculate your GPA! Now, this new wGPA will be available for all universities. Once you have seen your changed wGPA, make sure to change your courses back to your original grades so that you get accurate GPA calculations for everything else.
Where did the MCAT section go?
I decided to remove it so that I can spend more time focusing on the core feature of this webiste, calculating GPAs. Plus that info was outdated.
There is a mistake in reference table. X university no longer does Y.
Please send me an email, with a link to the correct source and I will get to it.
There is a mistake in in the GPA calculation for X university. Fix it!
Please double check your back-of-the-envelope calculations before deciding to contact me for these. Only contact me if you are 100% certain that the calculator is wrong. It would also be helpful if you know where the mistake went (sometimes the university changes their wGPA formula).
MDbuddy never claims to be 100% accurate. MDbuddy is an automated GPA calculation based on my interpretation of the GPA calculation formulas that universities provide on their websites. There is always a possibility that the information I have is outdated, or that my interpretation of a GPA formula is incorrect (e.g. counting summer courses when I shouldn't be). Use MDbuddy at your own discretion. MDbuddy is not responsible for any incorrect, misleading, or outdated information provided on the app. MDbuddy is not affliliated with any university or medical school.
My university isn't found here, help!
There is only so much I can do here. If your university isn't found on the OMSAS GPA table, I can't provide a calculation for you. What you often can do is chose a university that does exist on MDbuddy that has a similar grading schema as your university and go from there.
Does MDbuddy work for international students?
MDbuddy assumes all its users are permenant residents or Canada citizens. Therefore, MDbuddy does not take into account any discrepencies for international students if there are any.
Does MDbuddy work for Masters / PHD students?
MDbuddy assumes all its users are undergrad. The reason for this is that many students do their post-graduate studies in different universities. Couple this with the fact that some medical schools have different GPA formulas for post-graduate students, and you have one complicated system!