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11 Vr But 130 Cars?


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So you'd rather have an 11 VR as your surgeon vs. a 13 VR as your surgeon, all other things held equal?

 

I guess I get where you're getting at, since all other things AREN'T held equal, so I don't actually understand Western's logic in placing such heavy importance on the mcat.

 

I think it has to do with western itself knowing it's somewhat of a bird school/program so they know about gpa inflation. But yeah, ridiculous cutoff anyhow

I personally don't give a shit about an 11 or 13 VR for my surgeon. It's literally a 2 question difference. 

 

I care if they care about me, I care if they know what they're doing. I care if they're smart. But a getting 2 more multiple choice questions on plato correct doesn't make someone smart. It means they got a 13 VR. 

 

I don't know about you, but I'm not going to go about picking a family doctor by asking their VR score, as I am quite confident that it has  zero relevance to their abilities to practice medicine

 

Every school as cutoffs, they need to. We each meet some, most don't meet them all. But it doesn't mean people who meet a given set of criteria are in any way 'better' than those who don't. I'd argue someone with a 10VR, but extensive life experience and involvement shows more of the canMEDS criteria than an 11VR who has done very little outside of school 

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So you'd rather have an 11 VR as your surgeon vs. a 13 VR as your surgeon, all other things held equal?

 

I guess I get where you're getting at, since all other things AREN'T held equal, so I don't actually understand Western's logic in placing such heavy importance on the mcat. I think it has to do with western itself knowing it's somewhat of a bird school/program so they know about gpa inflation. But yeah, ridiculous cutoff anyhow

Haha. Please ask a surgeon that question when you get in to med school. And video tape it.
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  • 1 month later...

I feel bad about all of the people who rewrote the MCAT only to be cutoff by the new 130 in CARS with the drop to 11 in VR. It is an unfortunate situation. However, the selection process is not that black and white.

 

The difference between an 11 and 12 is much larger than a 1 point change on the new MCAT. It is likely even though the "cutoff" was changed to 11, that an 11 in VR meant you had to have other aspects of your application that made up for having a relatively low VR/CARS score. It is likely the school couldn't make the cutoff 12 because then they would be eliminating a lot of applicants whom they deemed very competitive, or they would be eliminating too many applicants in general (it could just be that many people had 11 and very few >11).

 

As for the very high cutoffs: this is what Western values.

 

They have specific criteria for choosing the types of students they want and who will flourish in their learning environment. They put more emphasis on critical thinking than memorizing and GPA because that is the kind of student that they want. 

 

Again, I am really sorry for those who rewrote the MCAT only to be rejected again. The process is going through large changes with the new MCAT which we all hope to make it more effective in the future. 

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I feel bad about all of the people who rewrote the MCAT only to be cutoff by the new 130 in CARS with the drop to 11 in VR. It is an unfortunate situation. However, the selection process is not that black and white.

 

The difference between an 11 and 12 is much larger than a 1 point change on the new MCAT. It is likely even though the "cutoff" was changed to 11, that an 11 in VR meant you had to have other aspects of your application that made up for having a relatively low VR/CARS score. It is likely the school couldn't make the cutoff 12 because then they would be eliminating a lot of applicants whom they deemed very competitive, or they would be eliminating too many applicants in general (it could just be that many people had 11 and very few >11).

 

As for the very high cutoffs: this is what Western values.

 

They have specific criteria for choosing the types of students they want and who will flourish in their learning environment. They put more emphasis on critical thinking than memorizing and GPA because that is the kind of student that they want. 

 

Again, I am really sorry for those who rewrote the MCAT only to be rejected again. The process is going through large changes with the new MCAT which we all hope to make it more effective in the future. 

Well, instead of setting the cutoff at 12 and eliminating a lot of old MCAT applicants, they set the cutoff at 130 and eliminated a lot of new MCAT applicants...

 

It's sheer insanity. Again, I scored at the 98th percentile and I almost didn't pass their cutoffs. Think about that... it is almost criminal that one applicant pool is subjected to a 11 VR cutoff, and the other to a 130 CARS. There is no reason that old MCAT applicants should be favoured over new MCAT applicants, and I could tell you a million reasons why but you've probably heard all of them. What's next, are the CR cutoffs going to be 10 and 131 next cycle, so we can cater to applicants who don't want to write the new MCAT and give enough of them interview spots? There has to be a breaking point here. 

 

Again, if you're going to accept the old MCAT, you have to be fair... you can't just screw a sizeable portion of your applicants to please old MCAT test takers. If they're going to accept the old MCAT next cycle too, i don't know what's going to happen given the old MCAT pool will be even less competitive, but hopefully I won't be an applicant next year so I don't have to worry about it.

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Well, instead of setting the cutoff at 12 and eliminating a lot of old MCAT applicants, they set the cutoff at 130 and eliminated a lot of new MCAT applicants...

 

It's sheer insanity. Again, I scored at the 98th percentile and I almost didn't pass their cutoffs. Think about that... it is almost criminal that one applicant pool is subjected to a 11 VR cutoff, and the other to a 130 CARS. There is no reason that old MCAT applicants should be favoured over new MCAT applicants, and I could tell you a million reasons why but you've probably heard all of them. What's next, are the CR cutoffs going to be 10 and 131 next cycle, so we can cater to applicants who don't want to write the new MCAT and give enough of them interview spots? There has to be a breaking point here. 

 

Again, if you're going to accept the old MCAT, you have to be fair... you can't just screw a sizeable portion of your applicants to please old MCAT test takers. If they're going to accept the old MCAT next cycle too, i don't know what's going to happen given the old MCAT pool will be even less competitive, but hopefully I won't be an applicant next year so I don't have to worry about it.

You know what they probably did? They probably just compared percentiles between the two tests directly, that's it. I anticipate that the new MCAT cutoff will be 129 once the old one is phased out.

 

The school doesn't have an obligation to please you or anyone else complaining. They've done what they've perceived to be most fair, will best predict performance in med school, and still meets their interview space limitations. Yes the uneven cutoffs suck but a lot of things in this process sucks.

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You know what they probably did? They probably just compared percentiles between the two tests directly, that's it. I anticipate that the new MCAT cutoff will be 129 once the old one is phased out.

 

The school doesn't have an obligation to please you or anyone else complaining. They've done what they've perceived to be most fair, will best predict performance in med school, and still meets their interview space limitations. Yes the uneven cutoffs suck but a lot of things in this process sucks.

 

an 11 VR, from 2012-2014, corresponds to 84-95th percentile (https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/5f/16/5f169a91-12b7-42e0-8749-a17f3bebe7a4/finalpercentileranksfortheoldmcatexam.pdf)

 

a 130 CARS, in 2015, corresponded to 93-97th percentile

 

a 129 CARS corresponds to 87-93rd percentile, which would indicate it is STILL a harder score to achieve than a 11 VR from 2012-2014. 

 

16% of test takers got atleast 11 VR from 2012-2014. 7% of test takes got 130 CARS. 

 

I don't know what they did, or why they did it, but they definitely did not compare percentiles "directly". For one reason or another, they decided to artificially give an increased number of interview spots to old MCAT test takers, which is pretty weird given that the new MCAT is in every way a more challenging and comprehensive test. Check the invites/regrets page, overwhelming majority of people who got an interview and posted there wrote the old MCAT.

 

Now I don't know what's going on, or why they made this decision, but i'm interested to know what they'll do next year. At some point they'll have to do what Alberta did and stop accepting the old MCAT. Hopefully that's next year. And if not, hopefully they don't artificially lower the old MCAT cutoffs again to give a sizeable quantity of interview spots to old MCAT people. The thing that attracted most people do Western used to be that they had a fair quantitative system that was transparent about what you needed to do to get an interview. But for some reason a sizeable number of people were cheated from that fairness this year to accept the old MCAT. 

 

And I hope people who got 129 CARS and didn't get an interview continue to be vocal about the fact that they were cheated from an interview spot, and get their voices heard. Like I showed you above, a 129 CARS is a more impressive score than a 11 VR, there is no logical reason that a person scoring 10/10/11 VR on an outdated exam should be given an interview spot over a person who scored higher on a more challenging exam.

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an 11 VR, from 2012-2014, corresponds to 84-95th percentile (https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/5f/16/5f169a91-12b7-42e0-8749-a17f3bebe7a4/finalpercentileranksfortheoldmcatexam.pdf)

 

a 130 CARS, in 2015, corresponded to 93-97th percentile

 

a 129 CARS corresponds to 87-93rd percentile, which would indicate it is STILL a harder score to achieve than a 11 VR from 2012-2014. 

 

16% of test takers got atleast 11 VR from 2012-2014. 7% of test takes got 130 CARS. 

 

I don't know what they did, or why they did it, but they definitely did not compare percentiles "directly". For one reason or another, they decided to artificially give an increased number of interview spots to old MCAT test takers, which is pretty weird given that the new MCAT is in every way a more challenging and comprehensive test. Check the invites/regrets page, overwhelming majority of people who got an interview and posted there wrote the old MCAT.

 

Now I don't know what's going on, or why they made this decision, but i'm interested to know what they'll do next year. At some point they'll have to do what Alberta did and stop accepting the old MCAT. Hopefully that's next year. And if not, hopefully they don't artificially lower the old MCAT cutoffs again to give a sizeable quantity of interview spots to old MCAT people. The thing that attracted most people do Western used to be that they had a fair quantitative system that was transparent about what you needed to do to get an interview. But for some reason a sizeable number of people were cheated from that fairness this year to accept the old MCAT. 

 

And I hope people who got 129 CARS and didn't get an interview continue to be vocal about the fact that they were cheated from an interview spot, and get their voices heard. Like I showed you above, a 129 CARS is a more impressive score than a 11 VR, there is no logical reason that a person scoring 10/10/11 VR on an outdated exam should be given an interview spot over a person who scored higher on a more challenging exam.

Here is the order of percentiles:

 

13-15, 132 = 100th percentile

131 = 99th percentile

12 = 98th percentile

130 = 97th percentile

11 = 95th percentile

129 = 93rd percentile

 

You can spend all day comparing small differences in percentile ranges but the reality is that the AAMC reports the upper end of the percentile range with your MCAT scores and they claim that is the most accurate way of comparing the new to the old MCAT. 

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Here is the order of percentiles:

 

13-15, 132 = 100th percentile

131 = 99th percentile

12 = 98th percentile

130 = 97th percentile

11 = 95th percentile

129 = 93rd percentile

 

You can spend all day comparing small differences in percentile ranges but the reality is that the AAMC reports the upper end of the percentile range with your MCAT scores and they claim that is the most accurate way of comparing the new to the old MCAT. 

 

11 = 95th percentile? You do realize that's absolute upper range, right? a person scoring in the 84th percentile will also score a 11... to your other point, in what world is a 9% difference in the bottom range of a score a "small difference"...

 

It's absolutely amazing how you ignored everything I said, and at the same time managed to show your lack of understanding of how percentile ranges work. If you're just going to close your eyes and spew nonsense like what you said above, I see no reason to keep replying to you. That's not how percentiles work. Also, show me where "they claim" that the absolute highest percentile of each score is the most accurate way of comparing the MCATS... 

 

I'm going to repeat what I said earlier because I think it's an important point, and it shouldn't be buried because some old MCAT test taker is trying to derail the conversation. I hope people who got 129 CARS and didn't get an interview continue to be vocal about the fact that they were cheated from an interview spot, and get their voices heard. a 129 CARS is a more impressive score than a 11 VR, there is no logical reason that a person scoring 11 VR (84-95th percentile) on an outdated exam should be given an interview spot over a person who scored higher on a more challenging exam (129 = 87-93rd percentile). a 130 CARS score (93rd-97th percentile) is 9% higher than the bottom range of a 11 VR (84-95th). This 9% difference is ABSOLUTELY NOT INSIGNIFICANT, despite what individuals like the poster above will have you believe. As a percentage of the total number of people who write the MCAT on a yearly basis, this means that the 2014 MCAT has 9000 more people that qualify for western's verbal cutoff compared to the 2015 MCAT (9% of 100,000). People that were cheated  from an interview for absolutely no reason at all, other than to accommodate old MCAT test takers.

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11 = 95th percentile? You do realize that's absolute upper range, right? a person scoring in the 84th percentile will also score a 11... to your other point, in what world is a 9% difference in the bottom range of a score a "small difference"...

 

It's absolutely amazing how you ignored everything I said, and at the same time managed to show your lack of understanding of how percentile ranges work. If you're just going to close your eyes and spew nonsense like what you said above, I see no reason to keep replying to you. That's not how percentiles work. Also, show me where "they claim" that the absolute highest percentile of each score is the most accurate way of comparing the MCATS... 

 

I'm going to repeat what I said earlier because I think it's an important point, and it shouldn't be buried because some old MCAT test taker is trying to derail the conversation. I hope people who got 129 CARS and didn't get an interview continue to be vocal about the fact that they were cheated from an interview spot, and get their voices heard. a 129 CARS is a more impressive score than a 11 VR, there is no logical reason that a person scoring 11 VR (84-95th percentile) on an outdated exam should be given an interview spot over a person who scored higher on a more challenging exam (129 = 87-93rd percentile). a 130 CARS score (93rd-97th percentile) is 9% higher than the bottom range of a 11 VR (84-95th). This 9% difference is ABSOLUTELY NOT INSIGNIFICANT, despite what individuals like the poster above will have you believe. As a percentage of the total number of people who write the MCAT on a yearly basis, this means that the 2014 MCAT has 9000 more people that qualify for western's verbal cutoff compared to the 2015 MCAT (9% of 100,000). People that were cheated  from an interview for absolutely no reason at all, other than to accommodate old MCAT test takers.

 

It's a frustrating situation this year, especially for the many people who had good reason to think they'd get an interview, but when you throw around phrases like "people were cheated from an interview for absolutely no reason at all" you go way too far.

 

First, no one is owed an interview, ever, at any school. This is far from the first year people who thought they were in good shape to get an interview at Western did not get one, nor will it be the last. Years ago the GPA cutoff jumped up, a difference from the years before and the years after, eliminating some applicants who would otherwise have gotten an interview. My year the old Writing Section cutoff went up, eliminating some applicants. The year after, the Bio Section score jumped up from 10 to 12, eliminating quite a number of applicants. In each of these cases, applicants who would have met the previous year's cutoffs but not the cutoffs that year were understandably disappointed, if not outright angry. However, no one was cheated from an interview. Western is more transparent than most in stating its pre-interview criteria, including what the cutoffs for an interview are each year. That transparency gets it into trouble in these cases because applicants get lulled into a false sense of security - if anything, this should be a reminder to potential applicants that while Western does try to keep its cutoffs consistent, ultimately these are decided based on the applicant pool and, as a result, applying to Western is essentially a competition of MCAT scores.

 

Secondly, there's an underlying assumption being made here that Western intentionally sheltered writers of the old MCAT at the expense of new MCAT writers, and further, that such a decision may have been malicious in nature. The cutoffs for the old MCAT are pretty close to what has traditionally been the cutoffs for the MCAT. For the longest time, it was 9/11/10, which rose to 9/11/12 in the last few years, both of which are close to the 10/11/10 of this year. Note especially that the VR cutoff has been consistent. Western wasn't giving a break to old MCAT writers - with regards to the VR section, it was using a cutoff that, to my knowledge, has been used for over a decade. What about the new MCAT though? As you point out, the percentile cutoff was much higher and that's absolutely true. However, that doesn't mean any alternative scenarios were viable or would have been any more fair. Western sets its cutoffs in order to get the number of interviews within a fairly tight range, usually around 425 or so. Reducing the new CARS cutoff to 129 would have certainly meant too many interviews. Increasing the old VR cutoff to 12 would have certainly caused there to be too few. Doing both would have resulted in a discrepancy in percentiles nearly as large in the other direction (95 vs 87, or an 8% difference), and also would have likely resulted in too few interviews given the higher overall percentile cutoffs. As objectionable as the current cutoffs appear, they may have been the best arrangement given Western's stated approach to choosing those cutoffs and the constraints inherent in that approach. That's hard to know for sure without inside knowledge - which I don't have - but having met many of the admissions committee members by this point, I can say for certain that they do not make key decisions like this casually.

 

I agree that it's going to make sense in the near future for Western to stop accepting the old MCAT. I argued they should have done that this year, for this exact reason. I also agree with previous posters statements that small differences in the MCAT score probably aren't that meaningful when it comes to selecting good future physicians, and that high, absolute cutoffs may be a hindrance in finding the best candidates. I'll still take Western's admissions process over the crazy-high GPA cutoffs like U of T's or Ottawa's, but there are certainly be areas where Western's admissions process could improve.

 

However, saying that the admissions process could be better is a far cry from saying "people were cheated from an interview for absolutely no reason at all". There were reasons for this year's cutoffs being what they were and while there were no doubt many good applicants who unexpectedly did not receive an interview invite to Western this year, no one was cheated out of an interview.

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It's a frustrating situation this year, especially for the many people who had good reason to think they'd get an interview, but when you throw around phrases like "people were cheated from an interview for absolutely no reason at all" you go way too far.

 

First, no one is owed an interview, ever, at any school. This is far from the first year people who thought they were in good shape to get an interview at Western did not get one, nor will it be the last. Years ago the GPA cutoff jumped up, a difference from the years before and the years after, eliminating some applicants who would otherwise have gotten an interview. My year the old Writing Section cutoff went up, eliminating some applicants. The year after, the Bio Section score jumped up from 10 to 12, eliminating quite a number of applicants. In each of these cases, applicants who would have met the previous year's cutoffs but not the cutoffs that year were understandably disappointed, if not outright angry. However, no one was cheated from an interview. Western is more transparent than most in stating its pre-interview criteria, including what the cutoffs for an interview are each year. That transparency gets it into trouble in these cases because applicants get lulled into a false sense of security - if anything, this should be a reminder to potential applicants that while Western does try to keep its cutoffs consistent, ultimately these are decided based on the applicant pool and, as a result, applying to Western is essentially a competition of MCAT scores.

 

Secondly, there's an underlying assumption being made here that Western intentionally sheltered writers of the old MCAT at the expense of new MCAT writers, and further, that such a decision may have been malicious in nature. The cutoffs for the old MCAT are pretty close to what has traditionally been the cutoffs for the MCAT. For the longest time, it was 9/11/10, which rose to 9/11/12 in the last few years, both of which are close to the 10/11/10 of this year. Note especially that the VR cutoff has been consistent. Western wasn't giving a break to old MCAT writers - with regards to the VR section, it was using a cutoff that, to my knowledge, has been used for over a decade. What about the new MCAT though? As you point out, the percentile cutoff was much higher and that's absolutely true. However, that doesn't mean any alternative scenarios were viable or would have been any more fair. Western sets its cutoffs in order to get the number of interviews within a fairly tight range, usually around 425 or so. Reducing the new CARS cutoff to 129 would have certainly meant too many interviews. Increasing the old VR cutoff to 12 would have certainly caused there to be too few. Doing both would have resulted in a discrepancy in percentiles nearly as large in the other direction (95 vs 87, or an 8% difference), and also would have likely resulted in too few interviews given the higher overall percentile cutoffs. As objectionable as the current cutoffs appear, they may have been the best arrangement given Western's stated approach to choosing those cutoffs and the constraints inherent in that approach. That's hard to know for sure without inside knowledge - which I don't have - but having met many of the admissions committee members by this point, I can say for certain that they do not make key decisions like this casually.

 

I agree that it's going to make sense in the near future for Western to stop accepting the old MCAT. I argued they should have done that this year, for this exact reason. I also agree with previous posters statements that small differences in the MCAT score probably aren't that meaningful when it comes to selecting good future physicians, and that high, absolute cutoffs may be a hindrance in finding the best candidates. I'll still take Western's admissions process over the crazy-high GPA cutoffs like U of T's or Ottawa's, but there are certainly be areas where Western's admissions process could improve.

 

However, saying that the admissions process could be better is a far cry from saying "people were cheated from an interview for absolutely no reason at all". There were reasons for this year's cutoffs being what they were and while there were no doubt many good applicants who unexpectedly did not receive an interview invite to Western this year, no one was cheated out of an interview.

 

Thank you for your response. I can agree with everything you said with a clear conscience, and retract my statement about 129 CARS scorers being "cheated out of a spot". I was being too melodramatic. I have a few minor points of contention with some of the things you said, such as the 9% difference in the bottom range of a 130 CARS and a 11 VR being not a big deal, but I believe I've made my self clear on that front already, and can now understand why perhaps it was an unavoidable evil. However, I hope i've successfully communicated why it's a necessity to stop accepting the old MCAT after this year. In all the examples you brought up, such as the jump from 10 to 12 in Bio, the same rules were applied to every single applicant. This year was unique in that one group of applicants were subjected to what I believe are more relaxed goalposts, and the other to more extreme. 

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Thank you for your response. I can agree with everything you said with a clear conscience, and retract my statement about 129 CARS scorers being "cheated out of a spot". I was being too melodramatic. I have a few minor points of contention with some of the things you said, such as the 9% difference in the bottom range of a 130 CARS and a 11 VR being not a big deal, but I believe I've made my self clear on that front already, and can now understand why perhaps it was an unavoidable evil. However, I hope i've successfully communicated why it's a necessity to stop accepting the old MCAT after this year. In all the examples you brought up, such as the jump from 10 to 12 in Bio, the same rules were applied to every single applicant. This year was unique in that one group of applicants were subjected to what I believe are more relaxed goalposts, and the other to more extreme. 

 

as we go forward it definitely will become very much so more difficult to continue to use the old MCAT - we are progressively reducing the number of people with an old mcat but are not yet in medical school (as they will be accepted etc).

 

What will be very interesting to know is how many people actually applied to Western with the old test - whatever the number it will definitely decrease rather quickly going forward in any case.

 

Not sure if Western can drop the old version for next year - generally like to give a bit of notice before doing things like that - (ie you could happen to have a very high MCAT but aren't using it yet because you are in graduate schools and just want to finish - not "kind" to make that person completely rewrite the test when the school as consistently said they accept tests up to 5 years old in the past). Whatever the case they should examine how they are equating the two. There are some strong arguments for some form of mismatch this time around. 

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Thank you for your response. I can agree with everything you said with a clear conscience, and retract my statement about 129 CARS scorers being "cheated out of a spot". I was being too melodramatic. I have a few minor points of contention with some of the things you said, such as the 9% difference in the bottom range of a 130 CARS and a 11 VR being not a big deal, but I believe I've made my self clear on that front already, and can now understand why perhaps it was an unavoidable evil. However, I hope i've successfully communicated why it's a necessity to stop accepting the old MCAT after this year. In all the examples you brought up, such as the jump from 10 to 12 in Bio, the same rules were applied to every single applicant. This year was unique in that one group of applicants were subjected to what I believe are more relaxed goalposts, and the other to more extreme. 

 

For sure, it's a frustrating situation and there is definitely a discrepancy between the scores. I wouldn't say the difference between 130 CARS and 11 VR isn't a big deal. However, the discrepancy isn't quite as great as it might look at first glance (a 12 VR is further away from an 11 VR than a 130 CARS) and as I said, I'm not sure there was a better option - one way or another, some people were going to be justifiably upset with the cutoffs.

 

Again, I agree about no longer accepting the old MCAT next cycle, considering I was expecting they wouldn't accept it this cycle. We'll see what next year brings, I suppose.

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I agree with most of the points that have been brought up but in addition to considering the percentiles, even the nature of the new MCAT (longer sections, removal of science based VR passages) would suggest it is more difficult than the old MCAT when comparing between the two. I realize that due to the acceptance of using both exams the admissions committee would have had to set separate cutoffs and decide how many individuals they would invite from each MCAT pool, but no matter how I look at it I cannot understand the logic in favouring the old exam.

 

An applicant pool that would not have been competitive at Western in the several application cycles leading up to this one was favoured when the admissions committee could have maintained or raised the old cutoffs and adjusted the cutoffs for the new MCAT appropriately. That way, anyone who did not meet the cutoffs with the old exam but feels they are deserving of an interview could put their money where their mouth is and write the new one. In my opinion this is much fairer considering one obviously can't opt to write the older, easier MCAT. What is sad is I know several individuals who would have met the cutoffs but decided to write the new one and sadly (lol) only got a 129 CARS. 

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Since a large number of people writing the new MCAT are in 3rd year now, and not eligible to apply to western, i think the pool of applicants with new MCAT scores was artificially reduced in size leading to the higher cutoff since they take a proportional amount from each pool. It sucks, but if they took 20% from each pool to interview and the top 20% was cut with a 130 CARS then that's that. What bugs me though (as someone with a 129; which means I WOULD have an 11 by percentile if I wrote the old one) is that the didn't choose to raise the bio score, which could have let them easily drop CARS a point.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What you guys aren't seeing is that there are people that wrote the MCAT only 1.5 years ago. Is it fair to take away their MCAT when Western assured it would be good for 5 years? Probably not. They should raise the scores, but taking it away completely is unfair to those that wrote the old one.

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What you guys aren't seeing is that there are people that wrote the MCAT only 1.5 years ago. Is it fair to take away their MCAT when Western assured it would be good for 5 years? Probably not. They should raise the scores, but taking it away completely is unfair to those that wrote the old one.

I have a feeling they're trying to give all of the old MCATs a reasonable chance at admission before transitioning to the new one fully.
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What you guys aren't seeing is that there are people that wrote the MCAT only 1.5 years ago. Is it fair to take away their MCAT when Western assured it would be good for 5 years? Probably not. They should raise the scores, but taking it away completely is unfair to those that wrote the old one.

 

well a lot of schools said 5 years for the mcat, but some have already started to switch with notice. They also can and do change the rules all the time. The addition of a new test is a rather unusual event and can require changes as a result. Plus anyone that wrote the test 1.5 years ago had to know the new test coming would potentially be disruptive - it wouldn't be a complete surprise that some places would be making adjustments. 

 

Reasonable chance as doriancaravan says is probably their main goal - they may not stretch this out to the very end :)

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If CARS does drop for the next round, do you guys think itll go as low as a 128 or probably 129 if psych is also considered and fewer applicants with the old MCAT apply.

 

Don't think there's any way to know of course, but if I was a betting man, I would wager that it would likely be 129.

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Don't think there's any way to know of course, but if I was a betting man, I would wager that it would likely be 129.

 

I don't think it will drop to 129 as long as the old MCAT is still being considered. From conversing with people who interviewed this cycle on my university's campus, and also what I generally observed on my interview day, the significant majority of people interviewing are doing so with their old MCAT score. I'm personally aware of 4 applicants other than my self who interviewed for Schulich this cycle with their new MCAT score. If they set aside the same number of seats for the old MCAT next cycle, there is just too many people with a 129 compared to a 130 for it to drop.

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I don't think it will drop to 129 as long as the old MCAT is still being considered. From conversing with people who interviewed this cycle on my university's campus, and also what I generally observed on my interview day, the significant majority of people interviewing are doing so with their old MCAT score. I'm personally aware of 4 applicants other than my self who interviewed for Schulich this cycle with their new MCAT score. If they set aside the same number of seats for the old MCAT next cycle, there is just too many people with a 129 compared to a 130 for it to drop.

It wouldn't make sense to set aside the same number of seats for the old MCAT next cycle.

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It wouldn't make sense to set aside the same number of seats for the old MCAT next cycle.

 

they probably aren't setting any seats aside (?) - just dividing it up by the proportion of people that applied from each group.

 

Unless I missed something :) Western doesn't do things in advance - they are reactive school. They see what they get then make a decision.

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they probably aren't setting any seats aside (?) - just dividing it up by the proportion of people that applied from each group.

 

Unless I missed something :) Western doesn't do things in advance - they are reactive school. They see what they get then make a decision.

 

I think we've already discussed this on the thread, but the decision to accept a 11 VR and a 130 CARS instead of a 12 VR and a 129 CARS stems from wanting to interview what they perceive as an "adequate" number of old MCAT people. Ofcourse someone already raised the good point that maybe having a 12 VR would result in "too few" old MCAT interview spots, so it depends on what goalposts they want to set next cycle, i.e. how they manipulate the data from applicants next cycle. Traditionally you're right, it's a purely reactive school but this cycle it's clear to me that certain goalposts were set to fill a certain number of old MCAT interview seats. For clarity refer to my previous posts on this thread :)

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