Exciting new volunteer opportunity, but with frustration

Since I had moved back to Vancouver Island in August of 2015, I had not participated in any extracurricular activities (EC's). I had been in touch with the volunteer manager of a children's hospital one town over from me (my town is a small town so there is no dedicated children's hospital) who said she would email me the descriptions of the volunteer opportunities so that I can decide which one I want. I saw her on October 29th and I never heard from her and I sent her multiple emails and voice-mails and I had still never heard from her. The other week, I tried phoning her line in the off-chance that I can get in touch with her to see what was going on. Surprisingly, I actually got her at a good time because she answered her phone. Anyways she said they are definitely still looking for volunteers and she told me about an opportunity that I'm very excited about. It is a pilot project that needs help, and the reason I'm excited about it is because with a pilot project, I can potentially take on more responsibility than a traditional role.

Anyways I was supposed to meet with her on Wednesday, but she was sick. She had emailed me that morning saying she was sick that day (her first email that I received from her) but I never checked that email address that morning. It takes about an hour and 10 minutes to get from my house to the children's hospital, plus I went early and was just waiting. So I wasted about 3 hours of my time that day. Now I am waiting for her to email me back about re-scheduling, but she hasn't got back to me. I know she was in at work on Thursday and I'm assuming she was in on Friday.

I'm trying to be as patient as possible but I am feeling really frustrated. I was hoping to get started before Christmas and now January is almost over and I still haven't even scheduled a shift yet. With the way things have gone, I probably won't be able to get in touch with her for a few weeks or longer. It has happened before and I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again. But the thing is that this opportunity is worth any amount of difficulty in obtaining it. I actually heard students who volunteer with pilot projects usually get in to medical school. Obviously an applicant needs everything else to be at a high level, but if an applicant has a really good volunteer experience with a pilot project where the volunteer took on a lot of responsibility and really showed results in the effort he/she put in, then that would likely put that applicant over the other applicants without said experience, assuming that every other aspect of the application was at a high baseline level.

I guess I could think of it as a good thing that I haven't started yet so I can work on my schooling. As always, there is a lot to do and I need time to do it at a high level. The stakes are higher now that I might just be able to apply to UBC Med this summer.

Good news, Bad news

Ok the good news is more like unbelievably amazing news and the bad news is not super bad but just kind of annoying.

The good news is that I got all of my failed courses removed (due to medical reasons). So yeah that is pretty great right? So what is the bad news? The bad news is my new AGPA for UBC Med is only 0.2% different than my new overall GPA. This is possible because during my year off I took a 1 credit chemistry lab and did poorly on it, but still passed, so it remains on my record and would mean that UBC will simply remove that 1 credit course from my GPA, hardly denting my GPA.

But I didn't fully explain the good news. My overall GPA did go up from what my AGPA would have been. My new overall GPA is ......73.9%! 1.1% away from applying to UBC med. I am still below the GPA mark for McMaster because only my failed courses were removed, I still have C's and D's from my first few years of school that is bringing my average down. But I'm trying to focus on the good for now. It really truly feels like I have a new lease on life, with not much holding me back. I'm at 73.9 and I can guarantee it won't ever go any lower than that.

So what are my chances of applying to UBC medicine this year? I have an absolutely excellent chance as long as I get marks in the A range (85-89). Anything over that would be a plus. I don't want to celebrate too early yet, but I am just in a really good mood right now. As you can tell from my last few posts, it is has been an up and down ride as to whether or not I'll be applying to UBC med this summer.

But now, I'm licking my chops like a hungry wolf. I'm not sure what kind of analogy that was, but I think it suits this. There is almost no way that I won't be able to apply to UBC this summer. My marks are only going to be higher than my average, not lower. It would take some serious setbacks for that to happen. But I just realized, the next university couruses I might be taking are organic chemistry. If there was ever something to stop me from my goals, organic chemistry would be it.


I'll post later about which university courses I'm taking next. For now, I'm going to feel good about my new average.