9391, I'm right there with you.
I've got very similar pre-req/cummulative/2yr. GPAs along with really good experience, letters, consultation form(s) etc...
Yes, I really really really wish I had a higher GPA, but the fact of life is that not everything is going to go perfect, every single time. Those type of people only come around about 1 in a billion. The rest of us sometimes just have to let the chips fall and see if it works out.
Last year I was waitlisted and didn't make the cut. Never really got any feedback on where I was on the waitlist, how my letter was, absolutely nothing. Just a generic rejection letter at the end of Sept. The problem is for UofA that we really don't know EXACTLY how applicants are accepted as most of that information seems to be kept in the dark for some reason. This in comparison to almost every other school such as UBC, Toronto, etc. where everything is scored, added up, and a final score is determined from PCAT score, pre-req gpa, cumulative gpa, references, MMI interivew, etc.
Then the acceptance, wait, and rejection lists are determined and everyone is notified asap. Every pharmacy school in Canada lists all of this information in detail on their website, and some even have their own "calculate your own unofficial score" option, that is of course except for UofA.
Unfortunately I have a really hard time believing that without an interview system in addition to the application process, that all the extracurricular stuff, references, etc. make as much of a difference at UofA vs. what it would at other schools. This tells me that they definately rely heavily on GPA unfortunately, but in a business setting (which is what a university is
) this makes sense: to find the applicants that will be guaranteed 100% to finish and complete the program, score highest on the National Board exam, which not only means a top notch reputation, but also the increased grant money, etc. for achieving such high standards.
With this in mind, I'm not stating at all that UofA has a bad program. In fact it has been proven time and time again that it is the BEST in Canda. I think the belief could be that they go for the smartest people intellectually, and then they assume that they can more or less shape those people into anything.
Now onto the LOI. I don't think this letter is actually officially scored. I believe that it is most likely on a pass/fail basis. If it was scored, why are we given absolutely no information about what its score was? Every other school does. However, what I think they take from the LOI, is stuff that makes you stand out. Something that perhaps no other applicant has. Something that just absolutely "jumps" off the page. I think that they look for certain things like that. But again, almost* no one REALLY knows what specifics they want. * To you few lucky people who have inside connections....
Regardless of all the information above, I think you just need to do the very best you can; in fact, do everything you can. Once your application is in and finished, it is completely out of you hands and there is nothing more that can be done. It'll work out the way it is supposed to, either yes or no. (Sound familiar anyone?
#5 LOI)
