marauder4life Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 Each school has its own policy regarding reference letter dates. Directly from this years application guide, U of T states: "OMSAS must receive reference letters by November 1, 2014, for consideration in our assessment. This is a strict deadline. Failure to comply with any admission requirements and deadlines will result in your application being cancelled." So if your friend's reference got there post Nov 1st, it could be the reason, though I'd hope they would mention the application being cancelled instead of sending regrets. Yep his letter got there after the Nov 1 deadline. I am not sure if the email mentioned his application being cancelled or rejected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swell9 Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 I don't, haha. I was joking. The blog post completely answers all of the theorycrafting that was going on in here. So unless people have been phoning them up to ask them about these theories, which is possible, then they probably looked at the thread. It has happened in the past. A few schools read premed101. Haha yeah I thought it was a joke after I submitted my comment. But could very well be true like you said. Yep his letter got there after the Nov 1 deadline. I am not sure if the email mentioned his application being cancelled or rejected. Could you possible ask him? I'm worried what if some of us have been making a (same) mistake with our applications year after year of applying that automatically invalidates them without ever knowing :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marauder4life Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Haha yeah I thought it was a joke after I submitted my comment. But could very well be true like you said. Could you possible ask him? I'm worried what if some of us have been making a (same) mistake with our applications year after year of applying that automatically invalidates them without ever knowing :/ So the email didn't specify why (i.e. it didn't say anything about it being incomplete due to the late reference letter). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablo_yike Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Each school has its own policy regarding reference letter dates. Directly from this years application guide, U of T states: "OMSAS must receive reference letters by November 1, 2014, for consideration in our assessment. This is a strict deadline. Failure to comply with any admission requirements and deadlines will result in your application being cancelled." So if your friend's reference got there post Nov 1st, it could be the reason, though I'd hope they would mention the application being cancelled instead of sending regrets. My situation is a bit messed up. OMSAS received all my reference letters by the first week of October, but the one that was not received pre-Oct. 1 did not get forwarded on to McMaster or U of T (or was lost in the communication some how). I'm afraid U of T threw out my application because the reviewer saw that it was received at U of T in January and may not have been aware that OMSAS received it in early October. Thank you for your post, P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peace2014 Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 My situation is a bit messed up. OMSAS received all my reference letters by the first week of October, but the one that was not received pre-Oct. 1 did not get forwarded on to McMaster or U of T (or was lost in the communication some how). I'm afraid U of T threw out my application because the reviewer saw that it was received at U of T in January and may not have been aware that OMSAS received it in early October. Thank you for your post, P That is horrible. I cant believe this matter is not dealt with appropriately. This is someone's future and the university or OMSAS should take this very seriously! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medhope15 Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 That is true and with so many qualified applicants there needs to be some way to limit who gets interviews. Unfortunately those who are very capable of being physicians sometimes will get left behind because of others who have higher GPAs (sometimes for being more intelligent sometimes not). No admission system can be perfect and there will always be people left behind and people who are not and should have been. I would think it would still be holistic to have a GPA cutoff of 3.85, MCAT of 9 9 9 and then use essays and extra curricular from there. Anyone making those cut offs is likely intelligent enough to be a physician, no? But as you say this may not be realistic with so many applicants having similar extracurricular experiences. I'm sure its a tough job to make these decisions. Agree. You will never really know if someone has the capacity to work in a demanding health care environment until you put them in the environment. Would you rather have a doctor who can memorize and regurgitate a whole textbook but is unable to collaborate with people or has an ego so large they never admit wrong doing or not knowing? or a doctor who might honestly admit he is unsure, refer to someone else or go look something up but work well with his team to obtain the best outcome? Minute 0.01 or 0.05 GPA differences to me are a joke. You're saying that somewhere along the line in undergrad someone maybe had a more difficult lab TA marking their labs or reading their essays and they got a B+ (3.3) instead of an A- (3.7) and a couple of these incidents make the difference between who gets interviewd and accepted? I would suggest they should interview MORE people. Meet these future med wannabes. Give them some scenarios to work through. Interview twice as many then use other stats like GPAs and MCATs. I really think there would be much better success in finding the most creative and most genuinely desiring MD students if more emphasis was placed on interview + standardized test (MCAT), over minute GPA differences as cut-offs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
generated_obvious Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Do you know if they had any red flags? I got regrets today too and I find it strange because I didn't receive regrets last year until the mass mailing in late March, and I think my application is better this year. Ohh... I forgot about this until you asked but yes, verbal was flagged for one of them. I don't really know much about the other person. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swell9 Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 My situation is a bit messed up. OMSAS received all my reference letters by the first week of October, but the one that was not received pre-Oct. 1 did not get forwarded on to McMaster or U of T (or was lost in the communication some how). I'm afraid U of T threw out my application because the reviewer saw that it was received at U of T in January and may not have been aware that OMSAS received it in early October. Thank you for your post, P This is quite unfortunate. How did you know it was not received on time at U of T? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablo_yike Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 This is quite unfortunate. How did you know it was not received on time at U of T? Just because McMaster was unbelievably kind and e-mailed me to let me know they hadn't received one. I coordinated between McMaster and OMSAS and they sorted it out and I received my (only) interview invite the very next day. Realizing this could be a problem, I contacted U of T, and they confirmed that they had not received it from OMSAS and were able to get them to send a new copy. I'm afraid that the stamped date on it could have been January rather than the actual October date OMSAS received it and that my file reviewer may have simply discarded my application out of hand. I have only heard of flagged applicants getting regrets letters so far which is part of the reason I am curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArchEnemy Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Just because McMaster was unbelievably kind and e-mailed me to let me know they hadn't received one. I coordinated between McMaster and OMSAS and they sorted it out and I received my (only) interview invite the very next day. Realizing this could be a problem, I contacted U of T, and they confirmed that they had not received it from OMSAS and were able to get them to send a new copy. I'm afraid that the stamped date on it could have been January rather than the actual October date OMSAS received it and that my file reviewer may have simply discarded my application out of hand. I have only heard of flagged applicants getting regrets letters so far which is part of the reason I am curious. I'm sorry to hear about your rejection. I am fairly certain that IF the fault does indeed lie with OMSAS not forwarding a reference letter, the Office of Admissions will NOT penalize you for this. I can assure you that rejections are not made light-heartedly. Instead of speculating here, I would suggest that you contact the Office to try and see if they can provide more information regarding your rejection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablo_yike Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Thanks, for your message, ArchEnemy. I posted here because I wanted to know if others had heard about regrets letters going out to anyone without a clear red flag in this first batch. So far, everyone who has replied seems to have indicated that the only people they know of (VERY small sample size) seem to have been disqualified for missing a cutoff or not getting all materials submitted on time. If others had responded that they knew of people receiving regrets without disqualifying possibilities, I would have seen no reason to question or follow-up with U of T. My intention was to look into it a bit myself before bothering the admissions staff at such a busy time. I didn't mean to speculate or imply fault. I just have a very awkward (and I assume rare) circumstance this year with the problems in delivery of my full application between OMSAS and the schools I have applied to. I believe strongly in taking rejection with dignity and perspective. At the same time, I feel it is important to advocate for yourself when there are exceptional situations. I have nothing but respect and appreciation for those who put in tireless hours processing and reviewing applications. Best wishes, P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablo_yike Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 I also want to make it clear that while serious, I don't think my situation implies that someone in the chain has been neglectful. With such huge numbers of applications to process, it is not unreasonable to have a few isolated glitches. Please do not take anything I have written as criticism of the process or staff involved. It is serious when problems arise, but every staff member at OMSAS and the Ontario Schools I have had to be in touch with have been open and worked hard to correct the situation. Best wishes to all, P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swell9 Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Just because McMaster was unbelievably kind and e-mailed me to let me know they hadn't received one. This has got to be one of the nicest thing I've heard all year, particularly with the number of applications they receive. Anyway best of luck on Mac interview! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MD2015:) Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 @pablo_yike The gpa cut-offs are pretty brutal so you might have needed at least 3.9 with weighting to have a good shot this year at an interview. Good luck at mac! great school great program Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
med-dream Posted February 13, 2015 Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 Savac, Do you know how U/T rolling invite works? For other schools, they don't send out invite/reject until all applications are reviewed & the cutoff is set up. Does it mean U/T doesn't have any interview cutoff? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leon Posted February 13, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 UofT assesses the GPA, MCAT, ABS, ref letters and essays holistically before making a final decision. There are strict MCAT cut offs (9/9/9) and your GPA has to be competitive and, naturally, above the published cut off (ideally, well above). Decisions to interview are based on a complete assessment of all of that. It's possible they have a "cut off" for the cumulative score they may assign for the applicant, considering it's a rolling basis, but this is just speculation- nothing concrete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
med-dream Posted February 13, 2015 Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 Thanks Leon. What is this cycle's published cutoff? UofT assesses the GPA, MCAT, ABS, ref letters and essays holistically before making a final decision. There are strict MCAT cut offs (9/9/9) and your GPA has to be competitive and, naturally, above the published cut off (ideally, well above). Decisions to interview are based on a complete assessment of all of that. It's possible they have a "cut off" for the cumulative score they may assign for the applicant, considering it's a rolling basis, but this is just speculation- nothing concrete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swell9 Posted February 13, 2015 Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 The published cutoff is 3.6. Average accepted GPA, on the other hand, was 3.94 for the 2014 entering class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1919 Posted February 13, 2015 Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 The published cutoff is 3.6. Average accepted GPA, on the other hand, was 3.94 for the 2014 entering class. To clarify 3.94 was the average not the cutoff of entering class in 2014 Nevermind I misread that, it is entirely clear haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leon Posted February 14, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 Yea the 3.6 isn't very helpful- considering the avg incoming GPA is so high, I would aim for a 3.8+ wGPA to be competitive (though there are still people who get in with less, if you want to feel reasonably confident about your chances, I would aim for 3.8+) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
med-dream Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 Thanks Leon. What about after interview? Is there any formula used for final selection, like: %GPA+%interview score+%MCAT+%others? Yea the 3.6 isn't very helpful- considering the avg incoming GPA is so high, I would aim for a 3.8+ wGPA to be competitive (though there are still people who get in with less, if you want to feel reasonably confident about your chances, I would aim for 3.8+) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Organomegaly Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 Yea the 3.6 isn't very helpful- considering the avg incoming GPA is so high, I would aim for a 3.8+ wGPA to be competitive (though there are still people who get in with less, if you want to feel reasonably confident about your chances, I would aim for 3.8+) I think for an undergrad 3.9+ is more realistic these days, but I wouldn't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PurpleS Posted February 15, 2015 Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 Thanks Leon. What about after interview? Is there any formula used for final selection, like: %GPA+%interview score+%MCAT+%others? I asked the admissions blog, they said they don't release the final selection formula. People here speculate it's not very heavily weighted on the interview (unfortunately). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1919 Posted February 17, 2015 Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 Have any invites for the second weekend gone out yet? It seems so far like they haven't which is surprising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baseball101 Posted February 17, 2015 Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 Have any invites for the second weekend gone out yet? It seems so far like they haven't which is surprising. Why is that surprising? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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