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2016 Entering Stats, Verifiers, And The 2018 Cycle


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So here are the stats for those accepted in 2016:

 

Mean GPA 2/3: 3.95

Mean GPA 4th+: 3.88

Mean MCAT 2/3: 129.98

Mean MCAT 4th+: 128.44

 

Good lord... For the 2/3 IP, the average is a 520, or 98th %ile. For 4th year, its like 93th%. This is actually unreal. Do EC's mean nothing? Or are the numbers here skewed somehow? But unless its a typo, its pretty hard to skew a 520 average...

 

Verifiers: Out of curiosity, how many verifiers have contacted you guys and said that they were contacted? I've only had 2 people I know tell me that the U of A contacted them, one back in November, and one at the start of January. But another applicant I know said that the large majority of his verifiers were contacted.

My MCAT was a 513(which IIRC was average for 2015), but I think my EC's are quite good(not "write an international book" good, but lots and lots of solid volunteer work). The other applicant I know has a 517, but his EC's aren't as good. I'm just wondering if I should take it as a good or bad sign that my verifiers aren't being contacted(as far as I know).

 

Finally, apparently, for the U of A, for the 2018 cycle(or entering year), an undergraduate degree is going to be needed, according to this link: https://thegatewayonline.ca/2016/12/degree-med-school-req/. Which I think is pretty crazy.

The part that I want to point out is this:

"She added that close to 90 per cent of medical students at the U of A have already completed four or more years of post-secondary before entering the program."

Which is an exaggeration, cause according to the Entering Statistics for 2016 site, the number gives a 77%. Thoughts on this?

Personally, I really don't like this change. I'm in the 2/3 IP pool, and I dislike how it forces more years of school. If you don't get in after your degree, do you keep taking more classes past your degree to get in(cause IIRC you need a full 5 courses a semester the year before you apply)?

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Good lord... For the 2/3 IP, the average is a 520, or 98th %ile. For 4th year, its like 93th%. This is actually unreal. Do EC's mean nothing? Or are the numbers here skewed somehow? But unless its a typo, its pretty hard to skew a 520 average...

ECs mean the same for this pool as they do any other. The difference is that the 2/3 year pool is more competitive. You have no reason to believe the EC scores of accepted applicants in this pool are "bad" and their academic scores brought them up. On the contrary, it seems more likely that their EC scores are just as excellent as the rest of their metrics. If applicants needed a 98th percentile score for the MCAT (worth 13% overall) to be competitive, imagine what their scores would need to be for a section worth 30%... 

 

Finally, apparently, for the U of A, for the 2018 cycle(or entering year), an undergraduate degree is going to be needed, according to this link: https://thegatewayonline.ca/2016/12/degree-med-school-req/. Which I think is pretty crazy.

The part that I want to point out is this:

"She added that close to 90 per cent of medical students at the U of A have already completed four or more years of post-secondary before entering the program."

Which is an exaggeration, cause according to the Entering Statistics for 2016 site, the number gives a 77%. Thoughts on this?

Currently there are four cohorts of medical students at the U of A. The class of 2020 may not be representative of all 4 current cohorts or those from the past, so I'm not sure why you would immediately jump to "the dean is exaggerating". 

 

 

Personally, I really don't like this change. I'm in the 2/3 IP pool, and I dislike how it forces more years of school. If you don't get in after your degree, do you keep taking more classes past your degree to get in(cause IIRC you need a full 5 courses a semester the year before you apply)?

You do not need a full 5 course semester the year before you apply.

If you don't get in you can work, upgrade your GPA, or get another degree. If you're upgrading you will need to take what the universities you're applying to consider a full-load (4 courses per semester) for that year to count in your GPA calculation (for most schools). If you don't need to increase your GPA and you're not committed to getting another degree, taking more classes would be an enormous waste of time. 

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ECs mean the same for this pool as they do any other. The difference is that the 2/3 year pool is more competitive. You have no reason to believe the EC scores of accepted applicants in this pool are "bad" and their academic scores brought them up. On the contrary, it seems more likely that their EC scores are just as excellent as the rest of their metrics. If applicants needed a 98th percentile score for the MCAT (worth 13% overall) to be competitive, imagine what their scores would need to be for a section worth 30%... 

 

Currently there are four cohorts of medical students at the U of A. The class of 2020 may not be representative of all 4 current cohorts or those from the past, so I'm not sure why you would immediately jump to "the dean is exaggerating". 

 

 

You do not need a full 5 course semester the year before you apply.

If you don't get in you can work, upgrade your GPA, or get another degree. If you're upgrading you will need to take what the universities you're applying to consider a full-load (4 courses per semester) for that year to count in your GPA calculation (for most schools). If you don't need to increase your GPA and you're not committed to getting another degree, taking more classes would be an enormous waste of time. 

 

To add on to this..... there's a good number of people below the average GPA and MCAT ... so I depended on my ECs and stellar interviews to be accepted. 

 

As a statistician.... I can tell you my GPA and MCAT were... significantly below the average (eyyyyyy)

 

- G

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> You have no reason to believe the EC scores of accepted applicants in this pool are "bad" and their academic scores brought them up.

 

Of course EC's do matter; I just often see old threads that make fun of similar trends to this. I guess I'm just parroting past sentiments and making a fool of myself. I would think that an applicant's pool of EC scores don't change much from year to year(within like 2-3 years), while a 129.98 from what was IIRC a 128.5 for 2015(based on my dodgy memory and old threads/stats) is a pretty decent jump.

 

> Currently there are four cohorts of medical students at the U of A. The class of 2020 may not be representative of all 4 current cohorts or those from the past, so I'm not sure why you would immediately jump to "the dean is exaggerating".

 

You're right, forgive me. I was only thinking of the 90% figure in the context of the 2016 entrance stats, not of the U of A's history as a whole.

 

> 520 is not a typo, back when they had the old MCAT, it was a similar % to get an invite

 

Fair enough. I was just thinking that IIRC the 2015 entrance stats were like 128.5, instead of 129.98. To me, everything looks exactly like the older 2015 stats from what I can recall, except for that 2/3 IP MCAT score.

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Of course EC's do matter; I just often see old threads that make fun of similar trends to this. I guess I'm just parroting past sentiments and making a fool of myself. I would think that an applicant's pool of EC scores don't change much from year to year(within like 2-3 years), while a 129.98 from what was IIRC a 128.5 for 2015(based on my dodgy memory and old threads/stats) is a pretty decent jump.

 

I believe you are incorrect about the 2015 entering stats. They would have still been using the old MCAT scores since their applications would have been submitted in October 2014 before the new MCAT rolled out in April of 2015. So I think you are getting the 128.5 number from something else. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

if you don't get in after you finish your undergrad, then you should have a back up plan- masters, working, travel, etc while re-applying. You shouldnt structure your life around your med app, most people take 3 tries to get in.

 

how would you do a masters while reapplying, don't most master programs take more than one year to complete, also wouldn't you need to sign up for a program much before you found out you were rejected?

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