Do Canadian students applying to dental school in the United States convert their GPA to OMSAS or the ADEA ADDSAS scales?

There are a few Universities in Canada which strictly award percentage grades with no letter grade or conversion scales on the official transcript. Fortunately, AADSAS defaults to using the OMSAS (Ontario Medical School Application Service) conversion scales for Canadian applicants IF there is NO conversion scale provided on your transcript.

OMSAS is a Canadian scale listing all major Universities in Canada and how their grading schemes convert to OMSAS GPA. Use this scale when entering your grades in the ADEA AADSAS application. Try contacting the University registrar to ask if they can attach the OMSAS tables and write a small letter indicating that they recognize the conversion. Likewise, try contacting AADSAS to see if they will write a note on your application reminding verifies to use the OMSAS scale. This should help minimize any conversion errors on AADSAS’s behalf.

Canadian students applying to dental school in the United States are strongly recommended to review their GPA following “verification” by AADSAS. You will have less than a week (sometimes only a day or two) from the time you receive your GPA verification notification to confirm AADSAS has done the proper conversion.

OMSAS scale for major Universities in Canada: http://www.ouac.on.ca/docs/omsas/c_omsas_b.pdf

By Elias Almaz

I am a dentist in Sacramento, CA. During undergrad, I served as the President of my local Pre-Dental Society and learned the intricacies of the dental admissions process. PreDents.com documents much of what I learned during that time.