OTTAWA INTERVIEW 2020 DISCUSSION

[Himynameis1234]

1 minute ago, DrOtter said:

Yup lots of people left their snowshoes next to their bags/luggage while interviewing.

Awesome, thank you! 

[Maggie19]

On 2/24/2020 at 8:39 PM, Himynameis1234 said:

Does anyone know Ottawa’s rules for interviews if there is bad weather and you are coming from out of town?

Not sure if you got your answer or not yet but when I interviewed 2 years ago there was a big snowstorm and I was told nothing could be done if I miss the interview since I was on the last day. I ended up being late to my interview because my flight got cancelled the day before then delayed the next morning I don't know if they can accommodate if there are more interview dates after though.

[Neuroresearch]

15 hours ago, slimduck said:

Thanks for your response! Did you declare bilingualism and not get tested on it?

I did declare bilingualism (applying for English steam) and was not tested. However I think it is dependent on whether all the panelists speak French and English or not. 

[uopm608]

does anyone know how long i should be aiming to talk for each question? will there be follow-up questions and should i leave room for those? also is there a clock in the room? :/ 

[DrOtter]

1 hour ago, uopm608 said:

does anyone know how long i should be aiming to talk for each question? will there be follow-up questions and should i leave room for those? also is there a clock in the room? :/ 

From my experience, I just tried to make ALL of my points at once in my monologue, including the rebuttals... I'm going to guess about 5 mins each. But then if they're not satisfied with the points I made or wanted to press for more then they asked 1 follow-up question. But definitely not hammering on one question over and over. 

[FriendlyApple]

Does anyone know if ottawa takes into account the variability between panels when providing applicants with an interview score? For example, I'm having trouble understanding how applicants are compared when certain panels seem friendlier or colder than others.

[takasugi]

2 hours ago, FriendlyApple said:

Does anyone know if ottawa takes into account the variability between panels when providing applicants with an interview score? For example, I'm having trouble understanding how applicants are compared when certain panels seem friendlier or colder than others.

I don't think they can really account for that. My panel was a little aggressive. It felt like an interrogation more than a conversation.... UofT interviewers were much more pleasant and probed in a more respectful way imo...

[rmorelan]

most schools (in fact all that I have experience with) do have a checks to prevent on group from performing statistically worse than any other. If it is out of line they adjust. 

Also it is important to remember that whether they are nice or aggressive may not have much correlation with their scoring. Some people are just "nice" to everyone, and some are "colder" - I have people in either camp in my interviewing score either way without any real pattern I can see. 

[chxiel]

1 hour ago, takasugi said:

I don't think they can really account for that. My panel was a little aggressive. It felt like an interrogation more than a conversation.... UofT interviewers were much more pleasant and probed in a more respectful way imo...

same, mine felt pretty serious as well - one of them was especially interrogatory but overall they seemed quite neutral. Don't know what to take from this as most other people seemed to have really friendly/jokey panels

[Himynameis1234]

1 hour ago, chrsyjun said:

same, mine felt pretty serious as well - one of them was especially interrogatory but overall they seemed quite neutral. Don't know what to take from this as most other people seemed to have really friendly/jokey panels

I had the same experience! But from what I’ve heard in the past, the type of panel you have is not indicative of getting in or not 

[med97]

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[takasugi]

18 hours ago, med97 said:

Did anyone else feel they couldn't do their best on the ethical scenarios - especially as we aren't given 2 mins how it's given in MMI? Feeling little bummed after 3 scenarios + roleplay.

Yes. I agree and feel the same way as you do. 

[Zuk]

On 3/4/2020 at 8:00 PM, rmorelan said:

most schools (in fact all that I have experience with) do have a checks to prevent on group from performing statistically worse than any other. If it is out of line they adjust. 

Also it is important to remember that whether they are nice or aggressive may not have much correlation with their scoring. Some people are just "nice" to everyone, and some are "colder" - I have people in either camp in my interviewing score either way without any real pattern I can see. 

How is this possible? Im having trouble believing that each panel interviews enough candidates to gather meaningful statistics. For example, If each panel were only interviewing 5 candidates, i feel like the scores that they give would have to be very low or very high to achieve a statistically significant difference. 

 

[rmorelan]

1 hour ago, Zuk said:

How is this possible? Im having trouble believing that each panel interviews enough candidates to gather meaningful statistics. For example, If each panel were only interviewing 5 candidates, i feel like the scores that they give would have to be very low or very high to achieve a statistically significant difference. 

 

They would check intra-interviewer ratings, and overall rating vs the other groups. Gives a bit more to work with.

Not going to be perfect - it is a subjective process so no way to make it perfect really - and you are 100% the bigger the difference the easier it is to detect so if a panel is just a bit less than the rest it would be hard to figure out. Always luck involved in this process. One of the reasons for the development of MMIs was to combat these issues. 

(I would say again that this doesn't mean colder or more aggressive panels necessarily score harder. Hard to make that jump. I have seen some really nice panels destroy people ha.)

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by rmorelan

[Zuk]

2 hours ago, rmorelan said:

They would check intra-interviewer ratings, and overall rating vs the other groups. Gives a bit more to work with.

Not going to be perfect - it is a subjective process so no way to make it perfect really - and you are 100% the bigger the difference the easier it is to detect so if a panel is just a bit less than the rest it would be hard to figure out. Always luck involved in this process. One of the reasons for the development of MMIs was to combat these issues. 

(I would say again that this doesn't mean colder or more aggressive panels necessarily score harder. Hard to make that jump. I have seen some really nice panels destroy people ha.)

 

Yeah that makes sense.  With the inter-interviewer ratings it's not hard to believe that there would be some utility to doing the statistical analysis. There isn't ever going to be a perfect way to do this without being able to look into the future. It's nice to see that ad coms are taking this step.

[MedD]

I know it's in a while, but I was wondering about the day offers are sent out. In the past, the email has come around 7am, but I read that someone checked OMSAS during the night and it was up. Does that mean it goes up midnight on OMSAS?

[SnowmanTheSWOMEN]

18 minutes ago, VanD said:

I know it's in a while, but I was wondering about the day offers are sent out. In the past, the email has come around 7am, but I read that someone checked OMSAS during the night and it was up. Does that mean it goes up midnight on OMSAS?

That was a mistake that happened last year. Supposed to be up in the morning.

[Premed050]

Im wondering if you guys know whether ABS and/or references are used when ranking candidates for post-interview score. I read this on the website: "Following the interview, preliminary rank order lists are prepared based on a combined score using the WGPA and the interview performance (a poor interview may not be ranked). In the event of ties in the final scores, candidates with the highest WGPA will be ranked higher. The admissions committee may take other factors into consideration when ranking each candidate", and was wondering what other factors could mean.

 

[Himynameis1234]

2 hours ago, Premed050 said:

Im wondering if you guys know whether ABS and/or references are used when ranking candidates for post-interview score. I read this on the website: "Following the interview, preliminary rank order lists are prepared based on a combined score using the WGPA and the interview performance (a poor interview may not be ranked). In the event of ties in the final scores, candidates with the highest WGPA will be ranked higher. The admissions committee may take other factors into consideration when ranking each candidate", and was wondering what other factors could mean.

 

I would assume that means that if two people are tied based on GPA and interview score then they would look at things like ABS, etc.

However, considering the panel has your ABS during the interview, if they look at it during their scoring it is possible that it could influence how the score you (this is completely my own guess and not necessarily right) 

[HighAltitudeMedicine]

Does anyone who's done their interview recall whether interviewers are shaking hands?  I heard Western is explicitly instructing applicants to not shake hands with interviewers due to COVID-19.  

[cubes868]

22 hours ago, HighAltitudeMedicine said:

Does anyone who's done their interview recall whether interviewers are shaking hands?  I heard Western is explicitly instructing applicants to not shake hands with interviewers due to COVID-19.  

I interviewed this past week and I shoke their hands! Best of luck! 

[whatdoido]

On 3/8/2020 at 2:57 PM, HighAltitudeMedicine said:

Does anyone who's done their interview recall whether interviewers are shaking hands?  I heard Western is explicitly instructing applicants to not shake hands with interviewers due to COVID-19.  

I interviewed on Feb 29th and they all offered me their hands. Queens explicitly told us not to shake hands with anyone though

[hiheyhi]

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[Sutherland]

4 hours ago, ABCD13 said:

Got a lot of nodding and smiles (not sure if this was common -- any insight?)

Of course that's common. You think blank stares are the default reaction from interviewers?

[jgdiff]

one day post-interview and i have no idea how to feel  time to let the worry set in

best of luck to everyone who still has yet to interview!!!