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Is there any info anywhere on why the classes have a male majority? Usually (for the past 5 years at least) the ratio has been around 60:40 M:F. From the stats that UofT has released, theirs has been around 50:50, and McMaster has been around 46:54 for the past two years. Do more males apply to Western? Are there more males who meet the CARS cutoff? Do males generally do better in the interview? I just found it kind of odd that it was such a large difference compared to other schools (though, I do realize I've only looked at 2, and only the past 2-3 years for each of those). Just genuinely curious. 

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Is there any info anywhere on why the classes have a male majority? Usually (for the past 5 years at least) the ratio has been around 60:40 M:F. From the stats that UofT has released, theirs has been around 50:50, and McMaster has been around 46:54 for the past two years. Do more males apply to Western? Are there more males who meet the CARS cutoff? Do males generally do better in the interview? I just found it kind of odd that it was such a large difference compared to other schools (though, I do realize I've only looked at 2, and only the past 2-3 years for each of those). Just genuinely curious. 

The Dean's report doesn't break down the statistics of the applicants by gender, so there really is no objective answer that anyone outside of adcom can give you. It might just be statistical noise though that's probably unlikely seeing as how it seems to be a persistent trend over the years. For example I found it interesting that 2016 had around 2500 applicants whereas there were close to 3000 applicants in 2015. 

 

Western has a pretty high CARS cutoff so i'd be interested to know if there is a statistical breakdown based on gender for high CARS MCAT scorers. I'm not home right now so I can't search to see if that type of information is accessible to the public. 

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I remember reading something about how many people who interview at Western tend to interview at Mac too (high CARS) and that females who got accepted to both institutions were more likely to choose Mac (in favour of the 3-year program).

 

That could be PART of it? 

 

might be part of the explanation but keep in mind Mac receives about 2x more applicants than Western so that can't explain it entirely. 

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The Dean's report doesn't break down the statistics of the applicants by gender, so there really is no objective answer that anyone outside of adcom can give you. It might just be statistical noise though that's probably unlikely seeing as how it seems to be a persistent trend over the years. For example I found it interesting that 2016 had around 2500 applicants whereas there were close to 3000 applicants in 2015. 

 

 

My assumption on this is that the high CARS cutoff from the previous year dissuaded a lot of people from applying. But maybe I'm getting my years mixed up. The 2016 application may have been the first year they accepted the new 2015 MCAT, correct? 

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So I did a quick google search to see what I could come up with. Average CARS scores in the US for 2016-2017 applicants are 125.3 (men) and 125 (women). I also came across an old study from 2004 that found males have higher MCAT scores than females, and females have higher GPA scores, though I'm not sure how applicable that is to modern times. 

 

If I were to venture a guess I'd say Western's gender breakdown is probably because of their posted entry requirements but I honestly don't know. Western de-emphasises an area that women excel in (uGPA) and emphasises an area in which men tend to perform better (MCAT). 

 

This is based on no real data though, I don't have access to the school's statistics beyond the Dean's report. my guess is as good as yours.

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So I did a quick google search to see what I could come up with. Average CARS scores in the US for 2016-2017 applicants are 125.3 (men) and 125 (women). I also came across an old study from 2004 that found males have higher MCAT scores than females, and females have higher GPA scores, though I'm not sure how applicable that is to modern times. 

 

If I were to venture a guess I'd say Western's gender breakdown is probably because of their posted entry requirements but I honestly don't know. Western de-emphasises an area that women excel in (uGPA) and emphasises an area in which men tend to perform better (MCAT). 

 

This is based on no real data though, I don't have access to the school's statistics beyond the Dean's report. my guess is as good as yours.

I think I was just looking at the same AAMC site that you were looking at, and reached the same conclusion you did haha. Thanks!

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Western accepts the same number of females and males. Girls just are choosing not to attend western. I heard the administration is doing research to find out why so hopefully the Schulich ratio will no longer be a thing for future classes. haha....

Awesome, thanks for the input!

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Western accepts the same number of females and males. Girls just are choosing not to attend western. I heard the administration is doing research to find out why so hopefully the Schulich ratio will no longer be a thing for future classes. haha....

 

 

I have heard that before from them as well - the affect might be the pseudo reverse of what someone mentioned about. Assuming women are getting the higher GPAs then they are very likely more likely to be accepted at many other schools (TO for instance). Schools that the lower GPA men couldn't get into. The ones that Western is interviewing have BOTH the mcat (or they wouldn't get an interview) and logically speaking most likely a high GPA as well. 

 

The most direct answer seems to be that the women applicants may simply have more options to go to other schools. After all no one is going to turn down an acceptance if they have no other options (well ha not no one actually - we have seen that before actually. sacrificing a year to try to get into a particular school). Anything that provides women with more options to go somewhere else over the men will result in a gender bias in Western's acceptances (even if Western is a highly respected school - which in my rather biased opinion admittedly it is). 

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Is there any info anywhere on why the classes have a male majority? Usually (for the past 5 years at least) the ratio has been around 60:40 M:F. From the stats that UofT has released, theirs has been around 50:50, and McMaster has been around 46:54 for the past two years. Do more males apply to Western? Are there more males who meet the CARS cutoff? Do males generally do better in the interview? I just found it kind of odd that it was such a large difference compared to other schools (though, I do realize I've only looked at 2, and only the past 2-3 years for each of those). Just genuinely curious. 

Western is literally the only school in Canada to have a male majority - and even then not by a massive margin.  McMaster most years is 60-65% female, and UofT is 50-55% female.  OTtawa is closer to 65% consistently, and the quebec medical schools are around 70%.

 

Western is the only school in the country that has a clear objective criteria to interview.  The GPA cutoff (which is not that severe, allowing people in very difficult programs a chance) and a relatively high and spelt out MCAT cutoff.  Males score higher in virtually all aspects of of the MCAT, including CARS.  Not by a massive margin, mind you, but enough.  So many bright men, that don't get interviews elsewhere because of challenging undergrads that men generally choose (like engineering, or hard sciences at Toronto) get one at Western.  And being the only med school they may get an interview - have no choice so end up staying at Western.

 

Other medical schools that have 'subjective' criteria tend to strongly favour women - generally preferring essays written by women or the extracurricular activities women tend to prefer.  AT the interview level, women consistently perform better - even at Western.

 

If you want to see how many more women are in medical schools in Canada - please review the CARMS data for the last 15 years.  

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Western is literally the only school in Canada to have a male majority - and even then not by a massive margin. McMaster most years is 60-65% female, and UofT is 50-55% female. OTtawa is closer to 65% consistently, and the quebec medical schools are around 70%.

 

Western is the only school in the country that has a clear objective criteria to interview. The GPA cutoff (which is not that severe, allowing people in very difficult programs a chance) and a relatively high and spelt out MCAT cutoff. Males score higher in virtually all aspects of of the MCAT, including CARS. Not by a massive margin, mind you, but enough. So many bright men, that don't get interviews elsewhere because of challenging undergrads that men generally choose (like engineering, or hard sciences at Toronto) get one at Western. And being the only med school they may get an interview - have no choice so end up staying at Western.

 

Other medical schools that have 'subjective' criteria tend to strongly favour women - generally preferring essays written by women or the extracurricular activities women tend to prefer. AT the interview level, women consistently perform better - even at Western.

 

If you want to see how many more women are in medical schools in Canada - please review the CARMS data for the last 15 years.

 

Hard sciences aren't unique to men. But you do bring up a couple of valid points:

 

-Since women aren't well represented in what some may consider the typically more challenging "stem" fields, are they getting higher GPAs than their men counterparts? I wonder what adjusting for program difficulty would yield.

 

-Men are typically raised in a way where they're more resistant to expressing their feelings. This is the reverse for women. Does that allow them to come across as more empathetic/better fit to be a physician? Possibly.

 

I do think you sound too overconfident in your claims though. You almost make it seem as if some of these women don't deserve the spot, whereas the men do. Which I disagree with.

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follow up question is exactly how important and reliable is all of that subjective stuff you mention. Assuming that their subjective testing is accurate in measuring the traits they want, and those traits are actually associated with being a better doctor, then are on average do the women in the selection pool actually make better doctors in the end? Putting aside if possible the emotional content such a statement would carry (if at all possible ha)  is there really a gender bias in terms of what makes a better physician (or more correctly in our our society with our cultural norms and training do we then as a by product bias things in a way ultimately towards making women better doctors. I am assuming that at birth there would be no particular bias either way). I mean subjective isn't the same thing as being wrong after all. 

 

Some students in the US have suggested that - large scale study in JAMA for instance. End result statistically speaking is better health with a female doctor as least in that study. 

 

Is it possible that Western in its drive for purely objective criteria is actually ignoring important applicant characteristics? Do all the other schools have it more "correct"? Subsequent evaluations of those accepted in Western and everywhere else for that matter would persist in ignoring things as well - the match rate, LMC testing etc aren't going over any subjective traits as an example. We don't and cannot really evaluate med students for patient outcomes etc - which would be the end result that matters.  

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  • 9 months later...

Hi!

Western Med Class of 2020 here. I'd like to reiterate what rmorelan is saying above. No one in my class (from the latest Dean's report) has any idea why this ratio exists. There are many theories for as to why this is, but no one know for sure so I'll spare you. We're pretty sure that the number of accepted men and women is equal. The 2021 class seems to have a more equal ratio though--maybe we just did a better job recruiting women at the interview? Anyways, look out for those stats and come to Western! We <3 badass female docs.

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On 3/22/2017 at 8:38 PM, hero147 said:

Western accepts the same number of females and males. (...)

This is bandied around a lot, but no one ever seems to have a source. I'm skeptical that an adcom would adopt hard quotas on acceptances just because of the possibility, however remote, that they would be forced to accept a mediocre candidate over a preferred candidate. Besides, if quotas did exist, it doesn't make much sense to me that they wouldn't extend to the waitlist, as well. And since OMSAS currently lists title and gender as optional fields in the application, how would such a policy deal with a candidate who was non-binary or didn't disclose a gender? My suspicion is that Western just interviews more men vs women because of the reasons others posted above and the matriculants are a representative sample of that pool.

Probably an academic discussion anyway, since NDAs assure that anyone that knows the answer won't give it to us and anyone that gives us an answer doesn't know.

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On 1/8/2018 at 6:29 PM, Neunundneunzig said:

This is bandied around a lot, but no one ever seems to have a source. I'm skeptical that an adcom would adopt hard quotas on acceptances just because of the possibility, however remote, that they would be forced to accept a mediocre candidate over a preferred candidate. Besides, if quotas did exist, it doesn't make much sense to me that they wouldn't extend to the waitlist, as well. And since OMSAS currently lists title and gender as optional fields in the application, how would such a policy deal with a candidate who was non-binary or didn't disclose a gender? My suspicion is that Western just interviews more men vs women because of the reasons others posted above and the matriculants are a representative sample of that pool.

Probably an academic discussion anyway, since NDAs assure that anyone that knows the answer won't give it to us and anyone that gives us an answer doesn't know.

There won't be any publicly-accessible sources out there, but I can confirm being told directly by individuals who were in positions to have knowledge of this information and the authority to reveal it that Western has made offers of acceptance to roughly equal numbers of male and female applicants over the last few years. The main difference in enrollment has been in who has accepted those offers, with male applicants accepting more frequently than female applicants.

Those are the facts as I've been told, and I have no reason to believe they are false. They come directly from individuals who would have inside knowledge of Western's admission program, revealed to my entire class, and I was not told to keep it secret, so I'm sharing that account, for what it's worth.

The reasons behind this disparity I can only speculate about. I would be highly doubtful that it has anything to do with quotas and have good reason to think this isn't the case (here's where NDAs prevent me from comfortably saying more). Quotas for gender would be legally questionable in any case. Western is an MCAT-heavy school and, as noted, that may tilt things towards male applicants, though it should be noted that other MCAT-heavy schools (Queen's, for example), have more even splits. Availability of alternative options may be a factor as well - women tend to get accepted to other Ontario medical school more often than men, so it's feasible that female candidates offered admission to Western are more likely to accept other offers simply because they can. Lastly is the possibility of reputation. Western has been more male-heavy for some time and that alone can deter female candidates with other options, creating a bit of a cycle that is hard to break. I know the school looked into whether there are other reputational factors pushing accepted female applicants away from Western, though I have no idea about the results of such investigations.

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