FAQ Graduate Admissions

Students must apply using the eVision online portal:

Students must check if they are eligible before applying. Please visit the link below:

Each program (MENg, MASc, PhD) may require different documents and/or GPA. The list below is a general guideline:

• Copies of All Post-Secondary Transcripts

• Recent Curriculum Vitae (CV)

• Statement of Interest: maximum 2 pages.

• English Proficiency Exam (if required)

• GPA Calculation (if not included in your official transcript)

• Reference Letters

• Other documents: Copy of Passport or PR card

For the specific requirements for the SBME program you are applying to, please consult the section “Gather Supporting Documents” under the links below:

Each program has specific requirements. Please consult the section “Steps for Application” under the links below:

Applicants who apply and submit all required documents early on may have an increased opportunity to be reviewed by a potential supervisor. In addition, we recommend that you watch the videos posted on the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral website.

• How to reach out to a prospective supervisor

• How to write a strong statement of interest

No, the statement of interest must be no longer than two pages. You may adjust the margins of the document, if needed. Statements of interest longer than two pages will be rejected.

If your GPA is close to the minimum requirement you are welcome to apply. If your GPA is much lower than the minimum requirement, unfortunately, you will not be given admission to UBC, and your application will be closed.

Please view the specific grade requirements for each country:

MASC and PhD:

Students with slightly lower grades may be given an exception if a supervisor feels that you would be able to successfully pursue full time studies in a graduate program and make a good contribution to the UBC community. In this case, the supervisor needs to submit a Low GPA rationale to the Advisory Committee and to the Faculty of Graduate Studies (G+PS). The committee and G+PS will assess the student’s potential and provide a final decision. Please note that these requests may be denied.

MEng:

Students with slightly lower grades may be given an exception if their full application provides an explanation for the lower grades (such as references), and the personal statement addresses the grades and confirms how prepared the student is to attend graduate school.

Applicants can apply until the portal closes and we recommend applying early. Applicant profiles are available to potential supervisors as soon as all documents are received. So, the earlier your profile is complete, the higher the chances of being seen by a prospect supervisor. We noticed that late applicants often tend to be missing final transcripts, references, or proof of English, so their profiles will not be made available to supervisors

Applicants can apply until the portal closes and we recommend applying early. Late applicants are often not able to secure final transcripts, references, or proof of English, so they will not be placed in the adjudication pool of MEng students (and cannot be offered a spot in our program).

It depends. If the admission portal will be closing soon (5 weeks or less) you may not have time to take the exam and submit your ESL results. If you have time to take the English Proficiency Test and submit your results before the portal closes, you may still apply. Please check the local testing centres at your current country of residence, to ensure that there are spots available. Students who require and are missing ENGLISH PROFICIENCY results will not be admitted to our program.

Tests must have been taken within the last 24 months at the time of submission of your application.

If your test is older than 2 years on the date you submit your application, a new test will be required.

Applicants from Canadian or US institutions may be eligible for direct admission to our doctoral degree program. Prospect students must hold a bachelor’s degree with an overall average in the A grade range and their application must include details on how the student has demonstrated advanced research ability.

Students admitted to the MASc program have until 24 months of their program start date to transfer to the PhD program. Please consult our website for more information:

Having an academic background in a field other than Biomedical Engineering does not preclude you from applying to our graduate program. We have students from a wide range of backgrounds.

In cases where students might want to pivot from another field into BME, it would be helpful to describe your motivation and future career plans in the Statement of Interest (that is part of the application package). The review committee (MEng) or research supervisors (MASc/PhD) will look at the overall package, including the statement and reference letters, when making decisions.

We do not require the GRE for admission.

An applicant with a research supervisor confirmed, may be considered for late application, on a case-by-case basis. All applicants are encouraged to submit their application in advance of the application deadline. If you do not have a confirmed research supervisor, we instead encourage you to apply for the next intake.

For the initial stages of application, you may scan and upload digital files (.pdfs) through the online application system. Only copies of “official” transcripts will be accepted at this stage. We will not validate your file until all of the official documents copies, official English Proficiency results, and Letters of Reference are received.

If you have documents that are issued in a language other than English, then, in addition to uploading digital copies of the documents in their original language, you must also upload a certified literal English translation of your transcripts from your home university’s translation service or a certified English translator.

Applicants who are offered admission will be required to provide official copies of their transcripts. Please visit the following website for more information:

The transcript you upload to your application as your “unofficial copy” must be the scanned copied of an official paper transcript. We do not accept self-reported grades.

Each transcript must be scanned as an individual PDF file. Applicants must include both sides (front and back) of the transcript and/or degree certificate where there is information, notations, or stamps from the issuing institution. Each transcript must be uploaded as a single file (including all of its pages).

For Canadian applicants: Users of the “MyCreds | MesCertif” digital service have to download the documents as PDF and self-upload to the application system.

Documents sent via secure electronic delivery to UBC as receiving organization directly will not be accepted for initial application purposes! Our office does not have access to these transcripts.

No. The Masters of Engineering (MENg) is a professional program, and it does not involve a thesis. Students in this program will not have a research supervisor.

No, you do not need a research supervisor secured at the time of application. Many supervisors prefer to see a complete and validated application before committing to an applicant.

Please review our faculty and identify faculty members with whom you are interested in working with. We recommend that you reach out to those supervisors to see if they are accepting students into their lab and if you would be a good fit. This will bring attention to your application.

Faculty who is approved to supervise students can be found under “Faculty” or “Associate Faculty” on our website.

Yes. Applicants can apply to the MASc and/or PhD programs without a supervisor. However, they will only be accepted to our programs if a supervisor matches with you.

This program is for students who are interested in experiencing working at different labs before choosing their final placement and research topic. This is the only PhD program that allows admission without securing a supervisor, and therefore, it’s highly competitive.

During the first three “rotations” students will be taking courses and doing a small research project with a different supervisor. During this time, the student will be registered as a MASc students. After their rotations are done, students must secure the commitment of a permanent/thesis supervisor. Transfer to the PhD will happen as soon as the supervisor accepts to work with the student (and no later than two years after admission to UBC).

When students are selected for the PhD Rotation program they will need to identify (and confirm the agreement of) three supervisors for their rotations prior to the start of their program. After receiving the admission offer, you should begin contacting faculty members in the School of Biomedical Engineering whose

research is of interest to you regarding your lab rotations. Rotation students can do rotations in the laboratories of both core Faculty as well as Associate Members in the School of Biomedical Engineering.

More details about the PhD Rotation Program can be found here:

Students can find information about tuition fees in the links below.

MEng: please search for “Master of Engineering (full-time)”.

MASc: please search for “Standard Master’s Degree Programs” (at the bottom of the page).

PhD: please search for “Standard Doctoral Degree Programs” (at the bottom of the page).

• MEng students do not receive funding from a supervisor.

• MASc students receive a minimum stipend of $27,000 per year, for two years. *

• PhD students receive a minimum stipend of $35,000 per year, for four years. *

• Please note that $5,000 of the $35,000 will be provided by SBME to students who meet the eligibility criteria for the PhD SBME Award.

*Funding support provided to the student depends on the satisfactory academic and research progress AND the research supervisor’s continued grant support. Students pay tuition and fees from their stipend. The stipend may come from the Research Supervisor’s research grant and/or Awards, Scholarships.

Students may also apply for awards and scholarships. For more information, please visit:

MEng, MASc, or PhD degrees alone do not form an acceptable basis for application to Associations of Professional Engineers in Canada. To apply for registration as a professional engineer (P.Eng.) with Engineers and Geoscientists BC you must meet academic, experience, law and ethics, language, and good character requirements.

Please visit the website below for more information on eligibility.

Once you submit your application, only limited edits can be made to your online application. You may replace each referee once, change referee email addresses, and send reminders to referees through the application system. For changes to your personal information (such as citizenship, date of birth, or name, please contact graduate.apply@ubc.ca and include the appropriate documentation to support your request.

You can upload documents up to the document deadline for that application period. After the document deadline you are unable to add additional documents to your application.

For security reasons, references cannot be submitted by e-mail. Referees are contacted by UBC via email with detailed instructions about how to submit a reference. If your referee has questions, please ask them to review these instructions or contact graduate.apply@ubc.ca for more information.

Our priority is ensuring that your application is processed into the system. Applicants can view the status of their documents in eVision (validated or not). Our office will contact you only if further information is required or if your application documents are incomplete / incorrect. We are unable to respond to individual inquiries concerning application status.

Applicants must obtain an official transcript for every post-secondary institution they have attended (other than UBC).

• Scan both sides of the transcript and/or degree certificate where there is information, notations, or stamps from the issuing institution.

• Each transcript must be scanned as an individual .pdf file and uploaded to the application system. Please include all of the pages!

• We must receive the grading scale for each transcript. If your post-secondary institution’s transcript does not have this information printed on one of the pages, you will need to contact their registrar’s office to request that information, and upload it to the eVision portal.

Please see an example of a “grading scale” or “grading key” in the following website:

MEng: Normally, the first round of decisions will be made in mid-late March and the second round will be made in mid-late April. Admission offers continue into the summer as offers are declined and additional spaces open up.

MASc/PhD: Generally, admission recommendations will be made by supervisors starting in January and will be ongoing until available spaces are filled. Offers of admission begin early February and continue throughout the spring and summer.

For September admission, recommendations continue into the spring and summer as funding becomes available or other admission offers are declined. If you have not heard anything regarding the status of your application AND your application is complete (all documents have been validated in eVision), it means that a supervisor has not selected you (MASc / PhD), or the MEng intake is not finalized, or you are in the waitlist.

For MASc and PhD applications, we suggest that you contact faculty members you’d be particularly interested in working with to see if they are still accepting any students and to draw attention to your application. All decisions will be communicated to applicants via email, around June/July.

The following website has videos on how to reach out to a prospective supervisor:

Each year, many good applicants are declined admission to the University of British Columbia. Common reasons for declining applicants include unavailability of appropriate faculty advisors and/or funding for the applicant, an applicant’s less competitive academic record, and simply the limited number of spots available in graduate programs. Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we are unable to provide applicants with specific explanations for being declined.

The application process for MASc and MEng are separate and an applicant must submit two separate applications if they want to be considered for both. We are unable to transfer applications between programs.

No. If you want to bring attention to your application, we suggest that you contact the faculty member yourself and invite them to view your application. Please note that if your application is incomplete it will not be available for supervisors to view. Incomplete applications (missing a reference, and/or a transcript, etc.) will only be published to supervisors after ALL pending documents are received.

The following website has videos on how to reach out to a prospective supervisor:

If you cannot find the information you need in this document or in the link below, please contact the SBME admission’s team. Due to the high volume of inquiries we will not respond to questions that are covered in these documents. Thank you for your understanding.