The unfortunate reality of being less than perfect

“Have you heard back yet?” “Ugh, I got rejected with my 4.0cGPA.“Oh my god! I finally got an interview to med school!!” With the last four years of McGill coming close to an end, everyone around me has been saying sentences similar to these for the past few weeks, causing a cloud of constant anxiety lingering around us. Graduate school, medicine school, dentistry, jobs and so on. The fear of rejection, the excitement of an acceptance, the relief of an interview. These are the only thoughts that have been on my mind and on the minds of many of my peers.

Yet, for people like me, who doesn’t have a spectacular cGPA from my almost four years at McGill, we have an underlying fear: if people who have a perfect cGPA applying to the top of the top university programs are not getting accepted, then what chances do we have? Our chances of getting into our dream program or dream job are significantly lower as we are getting pushed to the bottom by the many 4.0s. As many post undergraduate degrees and future careers require applicants to at least meet their cGPA requirement, the life after completing an undergraduate degree becomes something more like survival of the best cGPA. Does have an amazing cGPA translate to performing impressively on a surgery or being able to complete audits more efficiently?

Sure, having a higher cGPA might mean having a smarter brain as in a higher IQ but what kind of smarts do universities or employers actually need? Just because I am unable to take exams properly does not translate completely to incompetence in the topic I am studying. It most certainly doesn’t mean that I will not be able to remove a tumor from a body capably. Our possible futures rely on these so-called tests that students are being subjected to on a daily basis. Of course, I do understand the need to weed out people with significantly low cCGPAs but right now even students with 3.8 cGPAs are getting kicked to the curb. What will happen to the students with 3.3 cGPAs (which I think is not a low cGPA)?

I wish that the world would come up with better ways of determining our future instead of relying on these stats. I will cross my fingers and hopelessly wait for a day like that to come.

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