May 12 Countdown Thread 2020

[sprite4524]

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[rinzler]

3 minutes ago, pureblue said:

when the minimum MCAT score is like a 522, and minimum GPA to get an interview is similarly high just to get an interview, i imagine that yes you do need a very good CASPer score

The Max Rady College of Medicine requires the English CASPer® test. Applicants to the Manitoba applicant pool and the Out of Province applicant pool must achieve a threshold CASPer® score greater than 1.5 standard deviations below the mean for their respective applicant pool in order to maintain their eligibility.

Sounds like it's simply used as a screening tool.

[sprite4524]

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[Ontario have mercy]

1 minute ago, pureblue said:

that's just the minimum to even be considered! it's worth 20% of the pre-interview score (someone correct me if I am wrong)

30% actually

[rinzler]

3 minutes ago, Ontario have mercy said:

30% actually

The CASPer® score shall contribute 30% of the composite score used in the selection of applicants for the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI). The CASPer® score shall contribute 10% to the composite score weighting in the final selection of interviewed applicants for admission.

Seems weird to me that the manitoba OOPs don't have the button in that case

[mdhopefullyidk]

9 minutes ago, pureblue said:

when the minimum MCAT score is like a 522, and minimum GPA to get an interview is similarly high just to get an interview, i imagine that yes you do need a very good CASPer score

I get what you’re saying for sure, and I agree most probably do have outstanding Caspers. But if you look at admission stats last year they interviewed someone OOP with only (haha) a 516 MCAT, so that person we can probably say had a superb Casper to get an interview invite. So then by rule those people with a 522/523 MCAT who also got invites could have had more mediocre Caspers

[redbeanbun]

1 hour ago, theevilsloth said:

Mac really doesn't care about giving everyone a fair chance, they care about getting the best med school class possible. 

Exactly. I always thought of their "working with colleagues across Canada" was more about having input on deciding their criteria. In the very slim chance that they do take into consideration who has multiple offers, they definitely would not purposely give offers to those without other offers. If anything, they'd give offers to those WITH multiple offers since they are more guaranteed to be strong candidates. I absolutely agree that most who received an interview can probably get in if they persevere and reapply/will make great physicians, but that's not the point. This is about Mac's credibility and reputation. What would it say about Mac if, while other schools are putting in tons of effort to ensure they select the best candidates possible, Mac is choosing candidates that don't have other offers (or using a lottery system)? 

[LowGPA]

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[MedicineLCS]

Everyone trying to use different schools to gauge your overall CASPer score should remember that schools like using percentiles and different methods (cutoff vs. competitive) and that pools differ between schools. Ottawa and Mac are likely decently similar, but even there, a bunch of people would get autoscreened by Ottawa, creating a different pool. Comparing McGill to Mac is hardly a straight across comparison, top 5% at McGill may be top 15% at Mac, who knows? 

It's also worth noting, if you look at the interview thread for Mac, that plenty of people with great stats get rejected preinterview each year because of CASPer. It truly is a question mark, that only gets bigger the higher your stats are going in. Have a 4.0 and 132? Congrats, you have flex room on CASPer, which means your CASPer result could be great, or it could have been pulled up by your stats and you were the last person in the interview que. We. Simply. Don't. Know. 

EDIT. One final note, Mac's "average" GPA of 3.87 is deceptive. The plurality of the class is above a 3.9, it's just that people lower than 3.8 pull the average down. So being in the 3.9x range for Mac isn't actually all that spectacular as it may seem at first based on the average. 

[Rabeprazole]

Okay this may be far fetched but hear me out. What if Mac realizes that they would be undermining the credibility of their interviews in the future and they get cold feet this cycle? Instead of results on decision day, they send out that interviews will actually be held later this summer... 

[MedicineLCS]

They start in August. Waitlist movement needs to happen NOW (9 schools are apparently releasing results next week). People need to rearrange their lives.

If they wanted to have interviews their window has long passed. It's CASPer or nothing for interviews at this point. 

[lizaloo223]

Just now, Rabeprazole said:

Okay this may be far fetched but hear me out. What if Mac realizes that they would be undermining the credibility of their interviews in the future and they get cold feet this cycle? Instead of results on decision day, they send out that interviews will actually be held later this summer... 

With other schools already sending out offers I don't think it would work in their favour...the only people that would want to interview are those with no offers elsewhere or people from Hamilton maybe 

[SoftTings]

1 minute ago, Rabeprazole said:

Okay this may be far fetched but hear me out. What if Mac realizes that they would be undermining the credibility of their interviews in the future and they get cold feet this cycle? Instead of results on decision day, they send out that interviews will actually be held later this summer... 

Then almost anyone with another offer would just accept the other one, undermining their whole process lol

[short_stack]

4 minutes ago, Rabeprazole said:

Okay this may be far fetched but hear me out. What if Mac realizes that they would be undermining the credibility of their interviews in the future and they get cold feet this cycle? Instead of results on decision day, they send out that interviews will actually be held later this summer... 

Ok I'm sorry but we have to relax here. They have to release results along with the other schools on May 12. Mac starts the program early, in August, how can they afford to do this?

We still aren't allowed to have big groups meeting in public. There's no way to know when public health will allow schools to open either, so when will Mac realistically be able to hold MMIs? It's impossible at this point.

[premed1995]

I definitely think that they are going to use CASPER as 70% replacing the MMI.

Both were started at Mcmaster and they probably think that not is the time to put Casper to work in place of the MMI. What else in our applications really shows our ethical decision-making and differences amongst us. 
 

I also think this is why some who have mid-level Stats are seeing the button - their Casper gave them the interview spot and must be really high. 

[LetsTryThisAgain19]

Ive been following this post for a couple days but didn't have an account so I was doing a lot of reading. 

There's just something I want to make note of very quickly to offer some additional insight. I understand that MCAT and GPA are huge factors. But there is a reason why they're only worth 15% each when it comes to the final decision (in typical years). Having been through an MMI for a different health profession program successfully, Im confident that they'd be looking for a few things in the mmis (personality and critical thinking) because while good MCAT and CARS will get your through the early parts of med school, it's the skills you demonstrate in the interview that will demonstrate your ability to handle and manage clinical rotations etc.

In my personal case I've got a solid GPA and a below average CARS score. I think I did quite well on the CASPER. But beyond that, I've practiced in the real world as a registered health care provider. Would that not make me a good candidate as a med student and future physician (having worked thousands of hours in health care)? I recognize that they wouldn't look at the ABS, but I've seen a lot of people on the thread making it seem that it would be preposterous to take a chance on someone with lower scores on MCAT or a lower GPA. I don't necessarily think that's the case. Experience counts for something, typically that would come out in the interviews but their only real way to get that information right now is to look at Casper.

Who knows what they ultimately ended up doing. It's all speculation at this point, and understandably so. We're all nervous and on edge. That being said we've all worked out butts off for this so let's just wish for the best for each other and hopefully Tuesday brings good news to a lot of people.

 

Peace and love 

 

P.S. I do also have the button, whatever that means

[seewhathappens]

35 minutes ago, LowGPA said:

I think it's safe to assume that 1) McMaster wants to pick the best possible class based on factors that they believe are vital to becoming a good physician, 2) They would want to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on the application process, and 3) Similar to how no applicant knows their final cumulative MMI score, as an admission committee they would want to have some sort of blackbox objective number in their decision formula that cannot be contested by applications and cause an uproar because no one is aware of that number

Assumption 1: As a public medical school, is it not your mission to provide a random chance to all your interviewees of being accepted. By implementing a lottery system, you are failing your moral obligation to the community of selecting the best possible class, based on values you have determined (i.e. historically GPA, CARS, and CASPer). I agree that the differences in stats between the 550 interviewees are probably minute, but McMaster clearly seems to believe that GPA, CARS, and CASPer are important factors that determine the quality of an applicant and therefore they would consider those factors in their new selection formula even if the differences between all the interviewees are minimal. Basically, I highly doubt they would implement a lottery system.

Assumption 2: Again, as an educational institution, your goal is to pick classes of students, year after year, that are similar to the classes that preceded them and the classes that will be chosen after them. You can measure this by comparing the statistics of each class against each other. Based on the discrepancies in the data seen on this forum, I think it is possible that McMaster divided the 550 interviewees into subsets based on GPA. So essentially all interviewees would fall into subsets of: 3.00-3.49, 3.50-3.59, 3.60-3.69, 3.70-3.79, 3.80-3.89, and 3.90-4.00. Within each subset, it makes sense to determine the number of seats you will offer students based on previous data and apply whatever new formula you determined (perhaps CASPer 70%, GPA 15%, and CARS 15%). This would ensure that the class is similar to stats in previous years and also explain the discrepancies in scores we have seen on this forum where insanely high stats somehow don't have a button and some individuals with lower stats do. Of course this is predicated on the assumption that the button isn't a random glitch and actually indicates a potential future offer on the 12th. 

Assumption 3: I think McMaster would have to incorporate CASPer, or LORs, or ABS review into their final decision. Otherwise it becomes too easy for students to calculate their own chances of being accepted and argue that they should have been picked over another candidate. That opens up a whole can of worms that I don't think any school would want to be involved in. It makes sense to have some sort of blackbox element (in my mind probably CASPer and maybe LORs if peoples references actually didn't give them all 5's).

TLDR: Mac probably didn't use lottery, the discrepancies in scores between button and no button may be able to be explained by creating subsets of individuals with the same stats, and Mac probably used CASPer in their final decision formula

I think this has legs. They mentioned that they wanted to keep the same, high level of diversity in their class as in previous years, and this is a reasonable (given the circumstances) way of achieving this. 

Furthermore, this is somewhat complicated to explain through a mass email, which may explain why they're holding their cards close to their chest, until decisions are out, to avoid a flood of emails. 

[James Nystead]

How many ppl have the button - Ive seen a couple dozen but Mac interviewed 550 ppl - why such a low # if it is indicative of an offer - I would imagine esp at a time like this that many will check the forums

[DrOtter]

3 minutes ago, William Osler said:

How many ppl have the button - Ive seen a couple dozen but Mac interviewed 550 ppl - why such a low # if it is indicative of an offer - I would imagine esp at a time like this that many will check the forums

I mean the ratio between haves and haven-nots of buttons for people interviewed at Mac is roughly 50:50, which makes sense given their offer rate? 

[lakeshore]

4 minutes ago, William Osler said:

How many ppl have the button - Ive seen a couple dozen but Mac interviewed 550 ppl - why such a low # if it is indicative of an offer - I would imagine esp at a time like this that many will check the forums

You can check the poll results and try to extrapolate from the total vs button. Although, pm101's sample is probably not representative of the actual applicant pool. 

[BernieMac]

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[Anon_9]

Hey guys! I just asked OMSAS live chat as well, and they also said it is a glitch that has no bearing on our application. So we can all just ignore it for now and wait until May 12.

[chxiel]

On 5/8/2020 at 3:16 PM, Anon_9 said:

Hey guys! I just asked OMSAS live chat as well, and they also said it is a glitch that has no bearing on our application. So we can all just ignore it for now and wait until May 12.

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[NotYourTypicalPreMed]

A glitch that applies only to students who got interviews at Mac, and  accepted MD/PhD student? I really doubt it's a glitch... 

[DanKeith]

I talked to OMSAS live chat earlier today and asked about the button extensively. All they said was to ignore the button, but they were also very evasive when asked directly if it was confirmed a glitch and wasn't related to an offer being registered to our OMSAS accounts. They deferred to SAM when the questions were direct. I don't know how much we can trust the transparency and forthcomingness of those poor OMSAS live chat workers swamped with our button questions.