Organomegaly

To be fair a higher proportion also choose less competitive specialties, and the highest proportion of students that chose family medicine 1st are from McMaster https://www.carms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019_r1_tbl38e.pdf

Speaking as a senior resident in a medicine program that has also been involved in CaRMS selection. Your evaluators will NOT care the process by which you were selected for medical school. They will barely even recognize that. What will matter is your interpersonal skills and clinical competence. Period. All medical schools will be adversely affected by COVID. This is not a Mac unique problem, Mac being a year shorter wont matter because all schools will have to contend for overlapping cohorts contending for experiences. There is only so much clinical availability for opportunities.

School. And no, the housing page is not school specific. Ask your classmates/upper years for a link to it.

Also, when it comes time for electives and CaRMS (a large hidden cost of medical school): use the medical student housing FB page instead of AirBNB. AirBNB can be a rip off...

Make sure you are proactive about applying to medical school grants! There are often many hidden gems. I applied to this relatively hidden bursary which I thought would be for a tiny amount by writing a small one page essay. Ended up getting $20,000 from the bursary. Some colleagues have had similar luck.

Where did they already announce the rate hike for the fall? I didn't see that anywhere...

Rates are still the lowest they've been in many years. With the economy doing so well recently its not a surprise the rates are coming up, however the trade disputes with the USA are probably going to dampen the rate of increase over the year so most likely it wont increase every quarter as it has recently https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2018/07/fad-press-release-2018-07-11/

Thank you - I didn't study super intensely before the exam but studied fairly consistently over all of clerkship which I think paid off the most.

Will help for U of T if you have the publications to show for it

The grade inflation aspect is true across Ontario for sure. However, the averages are not the same at health sciences compared to life science programs. The average is probably closer to ~96% in a typical first year entry BHSc class. It is definitely lower than that in other life science programs. High school GPA is not a perfect metric, but it has been shown to reliably correlate with success in university. Another aspect that differentiates the health sciences cohort is the supplementary application: this is the bigger factor, in my opinion, as it requires solid communication skills to succeed on this aspect. To have beat out 95% of your competition and write a top 5% essay takes being an excellent communicator. I find these skills translate well into success on other written tasks, CASPer, interviews, etc. This, in my opinion, is the biggest determinant of success in future professional programs after GPA -- your communication! People will say there is a luck component on getting a good supp app mark. There is, for sure. But I have also marked these essays and think there is a clear gradient in how original people's ideas are and the degree to which they can sell them. I do think this means something That said, I do believe that the program itself is easier than other programs. Not a complete joke like others on here would have you believe, but I do think we get more courses with subjective assessment criteria that sometimes make it easier to achieve an 'A' grade. The program also has a more collaborative environment that promotes people's success moreso than other programs. And I do believe some people that would not have been successful otherwise in applying to medicine are because they had the fortune of being accepted to health sciences. In hind sight, I look at some courses that I took that were part of the program and consider them a huge waste of time. However, there was also a mix of other courses that have really made medical school a bit easier for having took them (anatomy, epidemiology and critical appraisal of literature being the main ones). I would not change my decision to attend the program knowing all this. People will love to give galvanized views on the issue: on the one hand that the program is a joke and serves to funnel students to medicine, and on the other that the success of the students is due solely to the skill of the cohort. Like most things -- the truth is somewhere in between! If you get an offer, I still think it is wise to accept it, not just because it will give you the best shot at medicne, but because of the merits of the program itself for someone interested in health care.

Good luck to everyone. Please try and get some sleep tonight. No matter the outcome, some sleep will make tomorrow a better day. If anyone receives an offer to McMaster and has questions about the program feel free to DM me. And remember that you are worth more than an admissions offer!!! Keep your heads up high.

Not 40% after 3rd year. Around 30/200 of my class got in after third year which is replicable from year to year. It's a lot more that get in after 4th year. But yes, overall your statistic of ~70% of the class going to medical school is correct. The other factor not often discussed is that the program fosters good professionalism and communication skills as part of its curriculum, which also contributes heavily to the success of graduates getting into medical school. There are mandatory reflection courses, patient SP encounter communication courses, an emphasis on group work and resource access.There is more to it than just the GPA. If you have an offer to health sciences definitely take it barring some other life factors (need to be near family due to extenuating circumstances etc).

Yes, they were easier. The Step 2 has a large emphasis on internal medicine (probably 40% of the test is IM) and understanding physiology and pathophysiology. There are also a lot of diagnosis and management questions. The scope is broad like the LMCC, but it is definitely not equal amount of say paediatrics and family medicine with internal medicine. I also found the questions more integrative and required you to know multiple steps of information to arrive at the answer. The MCC felt more like it emphasized population health and primary care with a lot fewer acute medicine questions. That said, I don't have my Step 2 mark back, nor have I written the LMCC. So who knows?

I just finished writing the USMLE Step 2 CK by the time I wrote the MCC practice test so to be honest I was already studied up for it! The style of questions on the MCC is definitely different though and there is far more emphasis on primary care topics compared to the USMLE.