Chances at McMaster as OOP

[vibey]

I'm wondering what my chances are at McMaster as an OOP? I have a very low cGPA of 3.3 and have yet to write my MCAT and Casper. I will be completing a master's program this year, but I don't know how much that will help me out. I'm also confused about how many OOP students McMaster will take in each year? Is there anything I can do to help myself out? 

[bearded frog]

1 hour ago, vibey said:

I'm wondering what my chances are at McMaster as an OOP?

Very low.

1 hour ago, vibey said:

I have a very low cGPA of 3.3 and have yet to write my MCAT and Casper.

There have only been 11 people accepted in the last 3 years with a GPA less than 3.5 and we should assume they were >3.4 and were >90% for MCAT/Casper or alternate stream, so unless your low GPA is a huge fluke and not at all indicative of your potential MCAT performance you're not going to get far.

1 hour ago, vibey said:

I will be completing a master's program this year, but I don't know how much that will help me out.

If you have fully completed your master's by time of application you will have a bonus 1% added to your score.

1 hour ago, vibey said:

I'm also confused about how many OOP students McMaster will take in each year?

Of their ~450 interview invites, they dedicate 90% to Ontario applicants and 10% to out of province applicants. So you will have to be in the top 45 applicants applying from outside of Ontario to get an interview. After interview everyone is appraised equally.

1 hour ago, vibey said:

Is there anything I can do to help myself out? 

Do more undergrad courses to get your GPA up. Mac doesn't do any GPA weighing so you just need to keep getting 4.0s in undergrad courses to bring your GPA up past 3.6, and even then you're competing with 4.0s across the country. How many courses this will take depends on how many credits you currently have making up your GPA. If you're really set on mac, you would move to Ontario to take 3 years more of undergrad and then qualify for in-province status.

[offmychestplease]

-

[MedicineLCS]

Using the research study data linked below with your 3.3 you'd need to score at least a 128 on CARs, and even then, you're going to need to score very well on CASPer. It's not impossible but it's not easy, and guesstimating at this point without a CARS score is not very useful. I wrote this up for OOP chances and I think it applies here:

On 7/27/2020 at 12:20 PM, MedicineLCS said:

75% of applicants are from Ontario in Mac's pool each year when averaged over the last couple years (not including the most recent years):

https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-020-02126-0/tables/1

Since it's a "maximum of" rather than "10% of" rule you need to be inside the Mac interview score range AND, find yourself in the top 10% of OOP who would get interviews, if that pool is more competitive than the general Ontario pool. It probably is with stronger stats people feeling more comfortable applying OOP and the OOP interview yield rate (assuming that all 10% is used up, if the Ontario IP pool is really competitive one year it may not be, and 5500 applicants and 550 interviews) is ~4%, while the IP yield rate (Removing OOP and same assumptions) is ~12%.  

One thing I would add is that the impact of repeat OOP guaranteed interviews is probably less than the impact on IP interviews. 13/50 OOP interview invites this last year were accepted at Mac this year, higher than typically seen. When you consider that a high GPA/CARS/CASPer also makes OOP invites competitive at other schools, and many may chose to go to their IP schools or other Ontario schools, it wouldn't be a far stretch to imagine there really isn't that much of a change in competitiveness this year. 

[vibey]

Wow okay thank you for this! If you don't mind me asking what was you GPA and CARS score? Also, do you mind sharing what your strategy was to study for Casper? Maybe I could use your course of action and potentially by some miracle land an interview

[MedicineLCS]

Sure, feel free to PM me, just note that paragraph (which I now removed since I didn't notice it the first time), was directed at the OP in that thread, sorry for any confusion this caused! If it's any consolation, OOP applicants can get invites with below average stats, it's just harder. 

[Psych]

Not to get your hopes down- but all I can say (anecdotally) is that I have a good friend with a 4.0 GPA, 130 CARS, and IP who didn't get an interview- so take from that what you will. Competition is tough, and unfortunately it's an uphill battle with your stats and being OOP- I wish you the best of luck though!

[bearded frog]

23 hours ago, Psych said:

Not to get your hopes down- but all I can say (anecdotally) is that I have a good friend with a 4.0 GPA, 130 CARS, and IP who didn't get an interview- so take from that what you will. Competition is tough, and unfortunately it's an uphill battle with your stats and being OOP- I wish you the best of luck though!

Wow they must have utterly bombed casper.