Frequently Asked Questions

Admission to this program is extremely competitive. Due to limited staffing and the high number of applicants, unfortunately, the Department of Physical Therapy cannot provide individual advice either through email, phone, or in person. Please thoroughly review our detailed website for all admissions-related questions.  If you feel your question is not answered by our website, please email your question to mpt.admissions@ubc.ca. While we will respond as promptly as possible, please be aware that there may be a significant delay in replying to your email during busy periods.

No. The department will only review transcripts, qualifications, and other documentation once an applicant has submitted an online application during the admissions period

For the application process, transcripts, proof of residency documentation and prerequisite forms will NOT be accepted by mail.  You MUST upload an official copy of your transcript(s) for each post-secondary institution you have attended, your proof of residency documentation and your prerequisite form onto your online application. If you are offered a place in the MPT program you will be required to send official copies of your transcripts from all post-secondary institutions that you have attended (excluding UBC) directly to the UBC Faculty of Graduate and Post-doctoral Studies prior to commencing the program.

No. All recognized degrees that meet the requirement of 120 credits/units or equivalent are treated equally with regard to the admissions process. Admissions will be based on the calculated admission GPA, the practical experience of the applicant, and interview performance (if the applicant is offered an interview).

All applicants apply through the online application provided by the UBC Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Applications will typically open up every year on October 1st and will be closed by January 5th. Each application cycle of October 1st through January 5th will be for the following September. For further details please see the Overview and Timeline section of our website.

No. Your academic reference must be able to speak to your academic performance and abilities while you were studying at a post-secondary academic institution. References received from high school teachers, Principals, or guidance counsellors will not be accepted for any reason.

No. All references must be submitted either electronically through the online application system (for academic references) or directly by mail or courier to the Department (for practical experience references). Reference letters delivered to our offices by the applicant or the referee will be discarded.

You can find a copy of the academic reference form that your academic referees will be asked to complete on the Required Application Documents section of our website.

You can download the Practical Experience Reference Form from the Required Application Documents section of our website. Applicants should give the form to the individual who is prepared to provide a report on their 70 hours of volunteer/paid work practical experience working with individuals with physical, emotional or cognitive disabilities.

The MPT program is a full-time, 26-month program.

The MPT program accepts 140 students every year. The Vancouver campus welcomes 80 students, the UNBC campus in Prince George welcomes 20 students, the UVIC campus in Victoria welcomes 20 students, and the MPT-Fraser Valley cohort welcomes 20 students. We receive between 300-400 applications and we invite approximately 200 applicants to interview.

Application dates and deadlines may vary from year to year. Please review the Welcome and Timeline section of our website for updated important deadline dates.

Applicants who meet the minimum requirements will have their applications evaluated for interview consideration. The MPT program is highly competitive and only qualified applicants will be invited for an interview. Fulfillment of the minimum requirements does not guarantee an interview. The selection of interview candidates is based on a review of an applicant's overall application for admission as well as MPT admissions GPA ranking. If an applicant's overall application and MPT admissions GPA is deemed to be competitive, they may be invited to participate in an interview. The overall admission decision will be based on a combination of an applicant's overall application for admission and performance in the interview, which allows candidates to showcase their personal qualities and experience.

All applicants who are interviewed are ranked on a combination of their MPT admissions GPA and their interview scores to determine a final ranking. This, in combination with an assessment of an applicant's overall application for admission, will be used to determine which applicants are given a conditional offer of admission for the MPT program. Applicants offered admission to the program will be required to send official copies of their transcripts from all post-secondary institutions (except UBC or UBC-O) to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Final approval for admission will be granted by the Faculty of Graduate and Post-doctoral Studies.

We do not grant admission deferrals. Applicants are advised to apply to the MPT program during the year that they are able to attend.

Re-applicants to the MPT program are welcome and evaluated the same way as first-time applicants. However, a maximum of 3 interviews may be offered over a lifetime. If after 3 interviews, an offer of admission is not made, applicants will no longer be offered an interview with the Department, regardless of the competitiveness of the admission GPA achieved.

Please refer to this webpage for the most up-to-date information regarding program tuition fees.

Applicants being offered admission must inform the department of their intention to accept and also pay a non-refundable deposit fee of CAD $1000.00 by the offer deadline date. This fee will be deducted from the tuition following registration and entry into the program. Applicants who are offered a spot in the program will be sent an email detailing their acceptance, as well as a deadline for when they must notify the department if they plan to attend.  Applicants who do not respond by that deadline may have their offer rescinded and the spot offered to the next individual on the waitlist.

No. The MPT program begins in the Fall of year one and continues over 26 months. All students must complete all courses and advance from term to term. There is no provision for transferring into the program or for the credit of previously studied courses.

The MPT program is intensive and demanding. Each student has a personal method of time management and varying priorities. Most students in the program find it difficult to manage part-time employment.

While we do not technically have a cutoff GPA, we do have minimum admission requirements that must all be met to be considered for an interview. While an applicant’s calculated GPA is reviewed and included in the ranking, we do have a holistic approach to admissions, meaning that we look at all aspects of an individual’s application. Please note that admission to the MPT program is very competitive and meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee an interview.

No. Applicants who have graduated from or who are currently attending UBC do not have priority or preference over applicants from other post-secondary institutions within British Columbia.

If you identify with the above, you may be eligible for accommodations in the application cycle. (For example, if you have a chronic health condition and experienced a flare-up of this condition which impacted your grades in a particular term or terms, or received a diagnosis and subsequent academic accommodations or medical intervention part way through your undergraduate degree).

We want to be sure that you are aware of the resources that may support you throughout the application process and within the program. However, you do not need to disclose a disability, and doing so will have no bearing on your application.

You are advised to consult with the UBC Centre for Accessibility. The CfA’s Accessibility Advisors assess the accommodation needs for learners with disabilities. You can reach the CfA for more information by calling 604-822-5844 or emailing info.accessibility@ubc.ca. If you have further questions about disclosing your disability you may also contact the Assistant Dean, Equity Diversity and Inclusion for the Faculty of Medicine.

Please contact the Centre for Accessibility early and no later than December 1st. This will ensure enough time to process your request regarding any accommodation needs for the current admissions cycle.

Yes, advisors at the UBC’s Centre for Accessibility work with students regarding accommodations, concessions, and strategies to address their disability-related access needs. The Centre’s advisors work with the MPT program team to facilitate equitable learning experiences for students with disabilities.

We strongly encourage you to proactively contact the Centre for Accessibility if you have a disability or chronic physical or mental health condition. They can have a confidential conversation with you to discuss your questions or concerns about your access in the program.

Please visit: students.ubc.ca/about-student-services/centre-for-accessibility
Email: info.accessibility@ubc.ca
Phone: +1 604 822 5844

If you would like to apply for accommodations to your MPT application, please send the following to info.accessibility@ubc.ca with the subject line MPT admissions accommodation well before December 1^st, 2021.

• A letter describing the circumstances leading you to apply for accommodation, including any specific relevant dates. For example, if you experienced a flare-up of a health condition in June-October 2018 that negatively impacted your grades, please indicate this and include your transcripts.
• Documentation of your disability/health condition. If applicable, this should confirm the dates/timeline described in your letter.
• If you are applying related to your GPA calculation, please include a transcript with the relevant grades highlighted (unofficial transcripts are acceptable)

NOTE: any materials you send to the Centre for Accessibility are confidential and will not be shared with the MPT admissions team. Should you be eligible for Disability-related considerations, the CfA will send a letter to the MPT admissions team describing what those considerations are.

On this website, we will use the term disability to refer to a range of experiences of the human body/mind diversity. UBC’s Policy LR7 defines Person(s) with a "Disability" or "Disabilities" as persons who:

• have a significant and persistent mobility, sensory, learning, or other physical or mental health impairment;
• experience functional restrictions or limitations of their ability to perform the range of life’s activities; and
• May experience attitudinal and/or environmental barriers that hamper their full and self-directed participation in University activities

For more information about UBC’s Disability Accommodation Policy and key terminology, please visit: https://students.ubc.ca/about-student-services/centre-for-accessibility

You must be a Canadian citizen who self-identifies as Indigenous (Indigenous refers to non-status & status Indians, Treaty, First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples of Canada. Acceptable proofs of ancestry include: a photocopy of an Indian Status Card or Tribal Enrolment Card, Métis Membership/Citizenship Card, Inuit or Inuvialuit Tribal Corporation Number or Inuit Registry; or a letter from an official representative of the applicant's First Nations band, treaty, tribal or traditional council; Inuit land/territory organization; Métis settlement or community organization; or a recognized Aboriginal organization, or another form of identification that is deemed acceptable with consultation from the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health.

If you do not have any documentation as listed above, you must contact the Physical Therapy program directly, at mpt.admissions@ubc.ca, to discuss this further.

Yes. Primary consideration is given to residents of British Columbia, out-of-province applicants who have completed a Bachelor's degree or higher in BC within the last five years, and applicants who are residents of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, or Nunavut.

Multiple Mini-Interviews are usually scheduled during the first week of March. The exact date is usually posted in November on the Overview and Timeline section of our website.

MMI candidates move between 9 interview stations on a circuit. Each station is 6 minutes long and there is a 2-minute transition and reading break in between stations. Topics you may encounter include communication, collaboration, ethical and moral decision-making, self-evaluation, cultural sensitivity, health policy, critical thinking, awareness of social health issues in Canada and personal qualities.

At each station candidates will interact with a single interviewer.  Trained interviewers include clinicians, Physical Therapy department faculty members and student physical therapists.  Each applicant is awarded a global score per station which jointly results in a total MMI score. The MMI score is used in conjunction with an applicant’s admission GPA to determine an overall ranking for the selection of candidates.

Please note: The Admissions office is not able to address questions regarding MMI questions, procedures or review of evaluations associated with interviews.

Those applicants who receive an interview offer will be notified as such by email in mid-February. They will be sent the date and time they have been scheduled to interview and will need to respond by a set deadline if they plan to attend.

No. The schedule is set and applicants must attend as scheduled by the Department of Physical Therapy.

Being familiar with the format may help with battling the nervousness; however, preparing for the MMI is difficult. The interviews do not test your specific knowledge of a subject. You might ask some friends or family members to create scenarios for you based on the examples given. This will allow you to get comfortable speaking on a topic for a few minutes and organizing your thoughts quickly.

The MMI runs on a very tight schedule, and there is no ability to have someone join the circuit after it has begun. In the event that you are late, we will try our best to accommodate you, but will only be able to do so if there is an empty spot or no-show in a subsequent group. The chances of this are extremely small, although we are of course willing to try.

The interviews themselves will take 80 minutes. Candidates are given 2 minutes to read the question or scenario and to mentally prepare a response prior to entering the interview. Upon entering the station, the candidate will have 6 minutes to respond to the question. The candidate will receive a signal that it is time to move to the next station. With orientation and debriefing, please plan to be here for at least 2.5 hours.

No. The Department of Physical Therapy does not release Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) scores or provide individual feedback to previous applicants to the MPT program.   This policy is to ensure that the MMI are held in a fair and unbiased manner for all applicants offered the opportunity to interview.

Yes, an instructor will always be present in both locations.  There will be two full-time instructors, and Clinical Skills Assistants (CSAs) will also be on both sites when needed.  The ratio of instructors and CSAs to students will be equal at both sites.

Clinical skills are formally examined using an OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Exam) format.  All students will be assessed the same way, regardless of location – OSCEs will be delivered in person, not via video conference.  Informal clinical skills assessment and learning will also be delivered in person.

In addition to having full-time technical and classroom support staff at both sites for every lecture and lab, Instructors will be provided with training to teach in this format.  The student experience is designed to be very similar to traditional non-distributed classroom learning, and minimal training will be required.  Please note that the MPT Program has successfully delivered a distributed block of courses (linking classes at UNBC and UBC) each summer for the past seven years.  Additionally, the UBC Undergraduate Medical Program has been distributed across sites and using this technology/learning format for a number of years with great success.

The majority of the content will be delivered through distributed learning technologies.  In courses with a greater emphasis on clinical skills, the format will often be similar to the following: a lecture will be delivered via VC, then sites will move into small groups to practice skills learned with in-person instructors and CSAs, then all sites will return to VC to discuss questions / receive additional lecture content.

The learning experience will be equal for MPT-North and MPT-Vancouver students, classes will be structured the same at all the sites.

All lectures will be streamed so that students experience the same content/learning regardless of location.

All sites will have the same exceptionally high-quality instruction/teaching.  The CSA-to-student ratio will be equal at all sites (for example, if there are four CSAs for the 80 students in Vancouver, there will be one CSA for the 20 students at UNBC).  We do expect that the smaller class size at UNBC will create a fantastic classroom dynamic as students will have ample opportunity to interact with all their classmates.

No. Applicants should select the program of their preference.

No. While your preference is factored into the allocation of seats at both sites, it is not always possible to allocate all successful applicants to their site of preference.

Both the MPT-Vancouver and MPT-North cohorts are part of the UBC MPT Program. Therefore, you must first be accepted to the UBC MPT Program before being offered a seat in either cohort. If you are offered admission, you will receive a letter and an email. You will first receive a letter from UBC’s Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies granting you admission to the MPT Program. You will then receive an email from the UBC Physical Therapy Department confirming your acceptance into the MPT-North cohort.

Yes. MPT-North students will have the same access to university amenities and services as UNBC students.

Yes. MPT North students are eligible to apply for UNBC housing. Please visit UNBC's website for more information: https://www.unbc.ca/housing

Yes. As of 2020, the NRC has been replaced by MPT-North.

The MPT-FV cohort is at the Surrey Memorial Hospital at City Centre 1, 201 - 13737 96^th Avenue, 2^nd floor, Surrey, BC. The Surrey campus facilities feature state-of-the-art teaching and learning spaces, including plinth labs and lecture theatre with videoconferencing technology, breakout rooms, and study spaces for students.

The majority of class time will be at the Surrey campus. However, MPT-FV students should note they will occasionally have to commute to the Vancouver campus for certain program activities, such as immunization review and courses that utilize the gross anatomy lab (e.g. ANAT 392 and RHSC 420). Students can expect to travel to the UBC campus twice per week during their first semester (Block A) and on three separate occasions during their second semester (Block B). Other ad hoc activities may require students to commute to the Vancouver campus.

No. Applicants should select the program of their preference.

No. While your preference is factored into the allocation of seats at all sites, it is not always possible to allocate all successful applicants to their site of preference.

All cohorts (MPT-Vancouver, MPT-North, and MPT-Fraser Valley) are part of the UBC MPT Program. Therefore, you must first be accepted to the UBC MPT Program before being offered a seat in any of the cohorts. If you are offered admission, you will receive a letter and an email. You will first receive a letter from UBC’s Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies granting you admission to the MPT Program. You will then receive an email from the UBC Physical Therapy Department confirming your acceptance into the MPT-FV cohort.

Yes, an instructor will always be present. The MPT-Fraser Valley cohort has two full-time instructors, and Clinical Skills Assistants (CSAs) available when needed.  The ratio of instructors and CSAs to students will be equal at all sites.

Clinical skills are formally examined using an OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Exam) format.  All students will be assessed the same way, regardless of location – OSCEs will be delivered in person, not via video conference.  Informal clinical skills assessment and learning will also be delivered in person.

In addition to having full-time technical and classroom support staff at all sites for every lecture and lab, instructors will be provided with training to teach in this format.  The student experience is designed to be very similar to traditional non-distributed classroom learning, and minimal training will be required.

The majority of the content will be delivered through distributed learning technologies.  In courses with a greater emphasis on clinical skills, the format will often be similar to the following: a lecture will be delivered via VC, then sites will move into small groups to practice skills learned with in-person instructors and CSAs, then all sites will return to VC to discuss questions / receive additional lecture content.

The learning experience and structure of classes will be the same at all sites.

All lectures will be streamed so that students experience the same content/learning regardless of location.

All sites will have the same exceptionally high-quality instruction/teaching.  The CSA-to-student ratio will be equal at all sites (for example, if there are four CSAs for the 80 students in Vancouver, there will be one CSA for the 20 students for the Fraser Valley cohort).  We do expect that the smaller class size of the MPT-Fraser Valley cohort will create a fantastic classroom dynamic as students will have ample opportunity to interact with all their classmates.