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Interview Invite Stats (4Yr Ip)


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Another good and realistic point. This probably would save a lot of (wo)man-hours. To be more specific, however, I think the references we were talking about were the ones you write down for every activity you perform, and not your main letters of reference.

 

 

Does anyone know how main ref letters are evaluated? In the past,  it was pass or fail. Is it still the case? I heard that most people pass the reference letter check. Is that right?

Does anyone know if it is now read in the pre-interview stage? 

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I see. If references are, in fact, pass/fail AND they don't actually evaluate you on your content presentation, all that is left is EC/MCAT/GPA without as much subjectivity as I was reading into their grading system. I think that this comes from being much more familiar with the whole top-10 system (UofC), in which your content and presentation are clearly similarly important.  As mentioned, I would try to meet with someone from admissions to go over why their score was not deserving of an interview. 

As mentioned previously, you cannot meet with admissions as of this year. 

 

The U of A ECs are scored just like any other written piece for any other school. Both the activity and the way it was written surely factor into the score. They aren't going to give someone points for being an English tutor if they spell half the words wrong in their description, for example. I'm lost on why you think they only look at the activity quality and not the entry as a whole. My guess is that they also read the verifier feedback while scoring your EC entries, since they would clearly have an impact on the numerical score they could potentially be assigning to what you have claimed to do. 

 

I was talking about actual references (not verifiers). Perhaps they are read after interviews, I just thought that it may be another possibility in addition to a flag. 

 

 

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I was talking about actual references (not verifiers). 

 

Doubly busted. 

Regardless, however, I can see them being read beforehand as well. Would you really continue on with an applicants evaluation if his reference letters were lukewarm or worse?

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Doubly busted. 

Regardless, however, I can see them being read beforehand as well. Would you really continue on with an applicants evaluation if his reference letters were lukewarm or worse?

 

In the past, U of A used to read ref letters post interview. However, they are changing almost everything this year ( so who knows ?) 

 

I have heard that U of A only failed one reference letters out of hundreds of ref letters... but who knows how it works now

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If they have average stats for interviewed people doesn't that mean that quite a few people got way above average and some got interviews with below  average scores?

Well, above and below each section yes, but not below a certain cutoff for the entire calculation. Someone can get above average in GPA and below average on MCAT but still be around or above the cutoff point for interviews. If 50/70 is an interview cutoff mark, no one below that, except in very special circumstances outlines by the school (which often the students themselves are not privy to so that they never know they were put in by some different standard), will be given an interview.

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I see. If references are, in fact, pass/fail AND

 

  

Don't they read the reference letters post interview? or do they  now read the reference letters before the interview?

 

I feel that for applicants who are rejected pre-interview-- their ref letters don't get read by the reviewers.

  

Does anyone know how main ref letters are evaluated? In the past,  it was pass or fail. Is it still the case? I heard that most people pass the reference letter check. Is that right?

Does anyone know if it is now read in the pre-interview stage?

 

Reference letters are read post-interview. And it's is definitely pass fail. And everyone passes, really. The only way you could fail is if your reference thinks you're incompetent. Content is not important for reference letters.

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I think we are assuming that they use the above mentioned formula -- when they may not be using this formula at all..

Exactly. I would very, very highly doubt they're using the aforementioned formula. They seem to be changing a lot of stuff this year, with CASPer, interviews becoming like the U of C, academic average dropping, etc. Remember, the formula is very simply linearly weighted, while I would think that admission to med school is much more complex than that. Even if this cycle was like any other, I'd doubt they'd use the formula.

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My stats with NO invitation for interview:

 

GPA: 3.85

EC: 7.00

MCAT: 127.25

 

Working on course-based masters, GPA is going to increase. I'm thinking where I need to improve is my EC? They are really strong, I'm thinking I just need to work on the writing more?

Any insight?

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I believe that the presentation of your ECs to display how you've grown through them to tackle medicine is half the battle, yes. Also, your GPA will increase, albeit likely only by very little due to your master's. I would consider redoing your MCAT as well, if you think you could improve on it.

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My stats with NO invitation for interview:

 

GPA: 3.85

EC: 7.00

MCAT: 127.25

 

Working on course-based masters, GPA is going to increase. I'm thinking where I need to improve is my EC? They are really strong, I'm thinking I just need to work on the writing more?

Any insight?

Yea, re-writing your EC's to paint a better picture could definitely help, but without context as to what "really strong" is, its hard to say how much is due to the presentation of the EC's and how much of it is due to just the EC's themselves.

 

We have to keep in mind that what you personally may think of "strong ECs" may be considered average for the U of A.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My stats with NO invitation for interview:

 

GPA: 3.85

EC: 7.00

MCAT: 127.25

 

Working on course-based masters, GPA is going to increase. I'm thinking where I need to improve is my EC? They are really strong, I'm thinking I just need to work on the writing more?

Any insight?

 

I am not sure how U of A looks at ECs, but I believe I scored high because I received an interview despite a low GPA. Although how you write your EC section is really important, it is also important that you have impactful activities that you can describe.  Please feel free to PM me if you have questions about how to write your activities.

 

Best of Luck :)

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