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May 12 Countdown Thread 2020


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5 minutes ago, premed1995 said:

I saw a Facebook thread on “spotted at Mac” with over 250+ comments from students saying they should have applied to Mac & Medical school and could have gotten in “I could be a doctor then too”. I think this is really horrible of Mcmaster to make those who do get admission this year to feel like they were just selected randomly and that they aren’t deserving. 
 

other students saying they should have applied makes it really hard to feel proud of saying you gained admission - I would have rather them just keep it closed honestly. 

I agree. Honestly I rather not know or it have just been Prescore rankings. And I’m saying this as someone who had a below average gpa and cars.

I've always felt I would never get into med school and felt like a fake premed  (and still might not) and  now I’ll know I’ll feel still like a fake if I get in. 

 

its going to take away this accomplishment 

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Very true - just a frustrating feeling many of us probably share. Everyone saying they “should have applied to Mac this year” is really frustrating. 
maybe someone can post the link? It’s a Facebook page called “spotted at Mac” and the post is called “Mcmaster Medical School is Selecting Future Physicians through random lottery.” 
Many current Mac students are on it. 

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1 minute ago, takasugi said:

Its still an accomplishment though. There were still 5000 applicants. Its not like the 552 who got interviews just walked through the pre-interview selection process. 

A lot of those people saying that stuff probably wouldn't even be able to handle the CARS section on the MCAT....

Exactly.

Anyone who is saying that doesn't understand the application process.

Being ranked 250 or 550 for getting to the interview stage, is already splitting at alot of hairs. Maybe you had a 4.0 instead of a 3.9 to move up 50 spots in ranking. Sadly it is meaningless. There is no meaning. It is only a metric to stratify applicants due to supply/demand, not true "merit".    It has never been about true "merit". All 550 from a "on paper" perspective are all very likely to have the potential be successful in medical school and be great doctors. 

Premeds on online forums or facebook threads, have no idea what they are talking about.

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9 minutes ago, premed1995 said:

I saw a Facebook thread on “spotted at Mac” with over 250+ comments from students saying they should have applied to Mac & Medical school and could have gotten in “I could be a doctor then too”. I think this is really horrible of Mcmaster to make those who do get admission this year to feel like they were just selected randomly and that they aren’t deserving. 
 

other students saying they should have applied makes it really hard to feel proud of saying you gained admission - I would have rather them just keep it closed honestly. 

McMaster: we're randomizing a subset of the applicants who were already in the 90th percentile this year, due to a global health pandemic.

Facebook morons: oMg I sHoUld'Ve AppLieD toO :lol:

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4 hours ago, justamom said:

so far I see 3.80/129 then 3.73/130 then 4.0???? Man if only I knew all I had to do is keep posting here and my stats would go up 

Noooo he really got me. I thought it was TWO different people and was actually motivating me to improve my CARS so I too can interview at Mac with a mediocre cGPA.

What ends y'all think he's from?

 

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6 minutes ago, SoftTings said:

Or just send offers to the top ~250 with the best spots, which is a more logical solution, that allows them to be upfront with the criteria without pissing nearly as many people off. The idea of a lottery is simply ridiculous

Sure, but then that would piss off the bottom 250, who could have theoretically improved post-interview and secured their earned seats.

Anyone saying "just give it to the top 250 pre-interview rank, is conveniently ignoring the fact that alot of those people wouldn't get in post-interview, and be pushed down the list by some in the bottom 250 who performed better in the interview.  Neither is right or wrong, just "is". 

 

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2 minutes ago, supadupafly said:

McMaster: we're randomizing a subset of the applicants who were already in the 90th percentile this year, due to a global health pandemic.

Facebook morons: oMg I sHoUld'Ve AppLieD toO :lol:

Yes, most don't understand that its splitting hairs at the top 500/600. And that ultimately, patients are unlikely to notice a difference.  


Saskatchewan was once a school where GPA after 81% didn't factor in anymore. Then went purely on MCAT rank. Then over time it went up to 83% ...then 85% because of supply and demand.

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I truly feel that saying nothing would have been better or saying based on CASPER since it’s more of a closed ranking system. Telling everyone (including current med students & premeds) that it’s a lottery really undermines their applications & students that year. 
Although I understand why they chose this method, have Facebook forums & people thinking it’s a random lottery feels embarrassing to post an admissions now & feel proud. I feel like it takes away some of that excitement about getting an offer because all your peers know you could have just been picked from a hat. 

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4 minutes ago, premed1995 said:

I truly feel that saying nothing would have been better or saying based on CASPER since it’s more of a closed ranking system. Telling everyone (including current med students & premeds) that it’s a lottery really undermines their applications & students that year. 
Although I understand why they chose this method, have Facebook forums & people thinking it’s a random lottery feels embarrassing to post an admissions now & feel proud. I feel like it takes away some of that excitement about getting an offer because all your peers know you could have just been picked from a hat. 

thats what I don't get they had casper and no one knows what their casper score was. They could have weighted Casper whatever they needed to get the class they needed in terms of diversity. 

Yes people might be mad that casper was chosen but I think most would understand and at least there is no lottery system making everyone feel like shit and other thinking we got in just becuase of luck. 

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20 minutes ago, takasugi said:

That means next year would be even harder........ Imagine losing the lottery this year and then next year having to compete with 750 people.

I think they should keep it to 552 interviews. Maybe bump it up a little to 600ish. The people who got interviews this year would have a pretty high probability of getting them again next year anyways... 

Yeah, so now this cycle got screwed, and any new applicants next cycle will also get screwed. 2 batches of applicants affected by the decision to completely cancel all interviews

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8 minutes ago, SoftTings said:

Or just send offers to the top ~250 with the best spots, which is a more logical solution, that allows them to be upfront with the criteria without pissing nearly as many people off. The idea of a lottery is simply ridiculous

See the issue is, all 552 interviewees are for the most part equally deserving of an acceptance since they already make up the top 10% of applicants. By automatically offering the top 205 (ish) spots to the top pre-interview scorers, it gives applicants 206-552 no chance of receiving an acceptance upfront. Mac realizes that this is unfair because these applicants aren’t necessarily less deserving of a spot than applicants 1-206.

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4 minutes ago, wolverine123 said:

See the issue is, all 552 interviewees are for the most part equally deserving of an acceptance since they already make up the top 10% of applicants. By automatically offering the top 205 (ish) spots to the top pre-interview scorers, it gives applicants 206-552 no chance of receiving an acceptance upfront. Mac realizes that this is unfair because these applicants aren’t necessarily less deserving of a spot than applicants 1-206.

Someone will receive the short end of the stick, in my mind it makes more sense for it to be somewhat merit-based than a complete lottery. Of course it won't be perfect in selecting the best candidates, but I think it makes more sense to split hairs and take the person with the slightly higher GPA, CARS. and CASPer than make it 100% luck

An interview is absolutely ideal. But if I was hiring and the two candidates in front of me both had great GPAs and performed well on an ethics exam, and that was all I had in front of me, I wouldn't throw my hands in the air and flip a coin. I would choose the one who performed slightly better in these two areas because that's all I have to go on. Of course maybe the other candidate is in fact better, but I find it impossible to believe that anyone in that hiring position would do a coin flip

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1 minute ago, William Osler said:

They shouldve weighed CASPer 70% like the MMI was. 

I agree. They could have played around with the weight of CASPer until they got a class that would be diverse enough and had simular stats to the previous class. It would be merit based, with no luck involved. It would not look bad on the school, there would be no luck involved and it would make those accepted feel like fakes and those rejected pissed off. 

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Just now, MDLD said:

I agree. They could have played around with the weight of CASPer until they got a class that would be diverse enough and had simular stats to the previous class. It would be merit based, with no luck involved. It would not look bad on the school, there would be no luck involved and it would make those accepted feel like fakes and those rejected pissed off. 

They definitely considered this, I implore the applicant class to find out why this was not done

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