surgeonhopeful Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 No need to refer to any specific posts or names in this topic. Good luck to both: the ones who were invited (in their interview) and the ones who received a regret (in their other/future applications.) However, some published statistics raise a concern about McMaster admission process. The following are four examples I selected to make my point, two invited and two rejected: GPA / CARS / Result: 3.91 / 131 / Rejected 4.00 / 130 / Rejected 3.59 / 127 / Invited 3.18 / 126 / Invited McMaster says they have a formulae (we all know of) for invitation to interview; to me (although not a mathematician), even if the ones who were rejected have ZERO on their CASPer, and those who were invited have FULL mark on their CASPer plus a MS or PhD degree, the outcome would be different than the above; this is regardless of pool averages or calculation method (z score or other). I might be wrong somewhere, or there might be something I am missing or do not understand. If so, please correct me. The only way to clear any doubts applicants might have is to publish CASPer scores (at least in statistics released annually). Until then, the argument made by 'criticalthinker' remains valid to me, and the response by 'vigovirgo' to that argument lacks substantiation. By the way, I have been invited, with average stats, but I feel with those who were not. I repeat good luck to all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aloeplant Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 8 hours ago, Nik- said: Yes I always understood this. Who would even be a credible source? Med students who have gotten into a Casper heavy school with low stats. Prep companies may count too, but their approach is very for formulaic and one size fits all, also $$$. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justamom Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 1 hour ago, aloeplant said: Med students who have gotten into a Casper heavy school with low stats. Prep companies may count too, but their approach is very for formulaic and one size fits all, also $$$. McGill will give you feedback on your Casper. If you don't get in this time , that might be good to try for the next attempt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikki97 Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 Invite/Reject: Reject GPA: 4.0 CARS: 128 Casper: slow typer, was only able to answer first question for each but what I typed felt ok. Was pretty disappointed since this means uOttawa and uAlberta is off the list for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikki97 Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canadianguy7 Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 4 hours ago, surgeonhopeful said: No need to refer to any specific posts or names in this topic. Good luck to both: the ones who were invited (in their interview) and the ones who received a regret (in their other/future applications.) However, some published statistics raise a concern about McMaster admission process. The following are four examples I selected to make my point, two invited and two rejected: GPA / CARS / Result: 3.91 / 131 / Rejected 4.00 / 130 / Rejected 3.59 / 127 / Invited 3.18 / 126 / Invited McMaster says they have a formulae (we all know of) for invitation to interview; to me (although not a mathematician), even if the ones who were rejected have ZERO on their CASPer, and those who were invited have FULL mark on their CASPer plus a MS or PhD degree, the outcome would be different than the above; this is regardless of pool averages or calculation method (z score or other). I might be wrong somewhere, or there might be something I am missing or do not understand. If so, please correct me. The only way to clear any doubts applicants might have is to publish CASPer scores (at least in statistics released annually). Until then, the argument made by 'criticalthinker' remains valid to me, and the response by 'vigovirgo' to that argument lacks substantiation. By the way, I have been invited, with average stats, but I feel with those who were not. I repeat good luck to all. Red flags/Indigenious/Trolls Goodluck to everyone on their interviews! IMislove and bonezMD 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EP2MD Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 Time Stamp: 9:03 AM (EST)Invite/Reject: Invite GPA: 3.93CARS: 129Casper: Felt okay, but must have gone better than I expected since Manitoba invited as well.Geography: OOP Really grateful for the opportunity to interview here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
criticalthinker Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 10 hours ago, VigoVirgo said: I don't understand the point of this post. You're already a medical student, why bother? It reads like someone who still holds a bitter grudge. McMaster have been doing things their way for decades and are a pretty revolutionary school (for example, they were the first to implement PBL which is used all over the world now, probably at your school too). CARS tests deductive reasoning which is a crucial skill to possess in medicine (it's not just memorization) and Casper is more of a filter test. They want to get a general idea of what the applicant is like. It makes lying on an application harder because they don't care if you created some charity or pumped out 100 research articles before the end of 1st year (I'm looking at you son of that rad onc). Also FYI academic institution rankings don't mean anything. It is more to do with the research they pump out. I know of people currently studying medicine at the University of Melbourne & University of Sydney in Australia, both great schools that are ranked as being 17th & 18th in the world for med by QS World University rankings. But they are there because they could not get into a Canadian school with their lower (albeit still fine) stats. I know for a fact they would have been grateful to get into Saskatchewan or Manitoba (which ranks waaaay further down, something like between 400-450 I think). They are shelling out over 350k to attend big name institutions that do a lot of research and are more forgiving to international applicants with lower stats because they are full fee paying. So again, ranking doesn't mean anything. Bashing McMaster for being ranked 77th really isn't doing you any favours. Also the fact that you think applicants with a 4.0 and 520 MCAT are entitled to an interview is concerning. No one is entitled to an interview. People with a wide variety of stats and life experiences bring a lot to medicine. I do not want to bash anyone, I was stating facts. Do you think saying McMaster is 77th and among the top100 medical schools in the world bashing? I don't thinks so. The point is I am concerned for my friends who have been rejected by this school, whom I know are outstanding scholars, great communicators, phenomenal scientists, and kind human beings. I wrote my post to ignite some critical thinking and discussion on the topic. In addition, you have not addressed any of my points. You are giving examples of people who go to medical school in Australia. I like it how people say rankings don't matter and research output doesn't matter! lol. Times Higher Education and US world News ranking are prestigious ranking groups and residency directors of top specialities in Top 10 universities pay close attention to these rankings when they are selecting their students. Research output is a sign of how many research opportunities will be available for students! Yes I think people who have 4.0 gpas and 520 mcats are entitled to interviews, especially in schools that do not look at any extracurricular and research activity of applicant. Let me reverse the question on you: are you saying people with low MCATs and GPAs with good casper tests deserve to get an interview, when more qualified applicants are not? How is that meritocracy? Also in our class most students who are academically very strong think of PBL/GBL as useless for education but good for fun and hanging out with your friends and colleagues. So I am gonna give this to you, PBL/GBL are really good at that! Going back to my points: - Financial Conflicts of Interests (there seems to be a consensus on this topic) - Design of the exams are unfair to certain populations - Extracurricular and research activities are not considered - By paying money to Prep companies you can improve your scores on SJTs (contrary to the claims of the SJTs) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theevilsloth Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 6 hours ago, surgeonhopeful said: No need to refer to any specific posts or names in this topic. I'll say it then. The 3.18/126 applicant is either 1.Indigenous 2. The holder of a pHd, or 3. A troll. Those are really the only 3 options. McMaster provide a pretty simple and transparent pre-interview formula, there's no black box EC score calculator like with Queens. Based on stats from accepted applicants from last cycle, there were 6 accepted applicants with a CARS of 126 or lower, and 2 accepted applicants with a GPA of 3.49 or lower. Even though these accepted stats are likely a bit higher than the applicant stats, they are likely close enough for rough comparisons. Having a 3.18 and 126 must put you in the lowest quartile for each. Even with a 100th percentile casper score, this would only give you a final percentile score of 50th percentile of all applicants, not enough to get an interview (0.25/1.00 + 0.25/1.00 + 1.00/1.00 = 1.50/3.00). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VigoVirgo Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 1 hour ago, criticalthinker said: I do not want to bash anyone, I was stating facts. Do you think saying McMaster is 77th and among the top100 medical schools in the world bashing? I don't thinks so. The point is I am concerned for my friends who have been rejected by this school, whom I know are outstanding scholars, great communicators, phenomenal scientists, and kind human beings. I wrote my post to ignite some critical thinking and discussion on the topic. In addition, you have not addressed any of my points. You are giving examples of people who go to medical school in Australia. I like it how people say rankings don't matter and research output doesn't matter! lol. Times Higher Education and US world News ranking are prestigious ranking groups and residency directors of top specialities in Top 10 universities pay close attention to these rankings when they are selecting their students. Research output is a sign of how many research opportunities will be available for students! Yes I think people who have 4.0 gpas and 520 mcats are entitled to interviews, especially in schools that do not look at any extracurricular and research activity of applicant. Let me reverse the question on you: are you saying people with low MCATs and GPAs with good casper tests deserve to get an interview, when more qualified applicants are not? How is that meritocracy? Also in our class most students who are academically very strong think of PBL/GBL as useless for education but good for fun and hanging out with your friends and colleagues. So I am gonna give this to you, PBL/GBL are really good at that! Going back to my points: - Financial Conflicts of Interests (there seems to be a consensus on this topic) - Design of the exams are unfair to certain populations - Extracurricular and research activities are not considered - By paying money to Prep companies you can improve your scores on SJTs (contrary to the claims of the SJTs) Actually yes. There really is no point in you saying you're at a top 5 prestigious medical school while McMaster is ranked at 77th. If you didn't intend to minimize McMaster's standing you would not have even mentioned this. It is completely irrelevant. Additionally you consistently bring up how prestigious these ranking groups are without any consideration for the fact that they might be biased. There is actually a fair amount of controversy over how they rank universities. Just google it there are plenty of articles and a few studies out there. Your point that "residency directors of top specialities in Top 10 universities pay close attention to these rankings when they are selecting their students" is also irrelevant. It actually showcases how they themselves are a bit biased haha. Yes just pick the applicants whose parents paid for their $400,000 USD medical school tuition right? So at least to the vast majority of the people on this forum who are Canadian, this is not something that matters. The top 10 medical programs in the world are mainly American. Additionally a lot of medical students are not going to be interested in highly competitive residencies at Ivy league institutions. Many opt to go into primary care specialties anyway. Your belief that someone with a 4.0 and 520 MCAT is entitled to an interview is just where we are going to have to agree to disagree I'm afraid. Just because someone has a 4.0 and 520 does not actually mean they are "more qualified" to go into medicine. If you truly think that you must have perfect academic scores to be qualified to go into medicine I think that is worrisome. There is a lot more that goes into what makes someone a good physician. MCAT performance isn't really a good predictor of clinical skills/residency performance. From the research I have read on the topic, the MCAT is a weak predictor of performance on USMLE Step 1. Overall I have no issue with McMaster's admissions process. If you look at the statistics they release you would see that many of the people they admit have GPA's of 3.8+ which is very good.Those with lower GPA's usually compensate with a higher CARS score and solid Casper performance. It is fair. This segues well into one of your other points. By omitting EC's and research from the assessment criteria, McMaster is actually creating a more equal process. Not everyone (especially those from lower SES backgrounds) have the same opportunities to pursue impressive feats like volunteering for a noble cause abroad or creating a charity to help impoverished children. It also prevents someone fabricating activities and inflating their hours which absolutely does happen. CARS is the section that non native English speakers struggle with no doubt. But there have been candidates admitted to McMaster who were in the same boat as you. So it's not impossible at all. But yes it's true that one will need to work harder to improve their score. This would be the equivalent of me going to France for medical school. Despite speaking ok French (as it is my second language that I learned in school) I would struggle with their admissions tests. Would I claim that their tests are unfair? Probably not, I'd just have to work twice as hard to better my language skills. Again, CARS tests deductive reasoning/logic. Casper is more of a suitability measure that tests emotional maturity and people skills. A lot of prep companies (but not all) capitalize on the fears and insecurities of students. You can probably find a prep company for any test. Whether an applicants improved scores can really be attributed to a prep company or the sheer amount of extra time they put in studying themselves is debatable. I have known people who hired prep companies and still did not improve much. Your last point about the financial conflict of interest has some merit but does not negate the validity of Casper. One of the people who founded Altus, Harold Reiter is also the man who helped create the MMI process. He's an expert when it comes to creating assessment tools for applicant selection. To an extent Casper is sort of like that. Its job is to filter people who possess characteristics that could be problematic in medicine. McMaster is not the only school to use it. More and more schools are adopting the Casper, and with good reason. wakedywack and RPN-RN-MD 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 ha - we have to move all this discussion to another thread. We keep these clean so people can quickly skim the results each year. Feel free to create another ones to discuss whatever. I will be cleaning this up shortly, and go from there! thanks everyone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
criticalthinker Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 46 minutes ago, VigoVirgo said: Actually yes. There really is no point in you saying you're at a top 5 prestigious medical school while McMaster is ranked at 77th. If you didn't intend to minimize McMaster's standing you would not have even mentioned this. It is completely irrelevant. Additionally you consistently bring up how prestigious these ranking groups are without any consideration for the fact that they might be biased. There is actually a fair amount of controversy over how they rank universities. Just google it there are plenty of articles and a few studies out there. Your point that "residency directors of top specialities in Top 10 universities pay close attention to these rankings when they are selecting their students" is also irrelevant. It actually showcases how they themselves are a bit biased haha. Yes just pick the applicants whose parents paid for their $400,000 USD medical school tuition right? So at least to the vast majority of the people on this forum who are Canadian, this is not something that matters. The top 10 medical programs in the world are mainly American. Additionally a lot of medical students are not going to be interested in highly competitive residencies at Ivy league institutions. Many opt to go into primary care specialties anyway. Your belief that someone with a 4.0 and 520 MCAT is entitled to an interview is just where we are going to have to agree to disagree I'm afraid. Just because someone has a 4.0 and 520 does not actually mean they are "more qualified" to go into medicine. If you truly think that you must have perfect academic scores to be qualified to go into medicine I think that is worrisome. There is a lot more that goes into what makes someone a good physician. MCAT performance isn't really a good predictor of clinical skills/residency performance. From the research I have read on the topic, the MCAT is a weak predictor of performance on USMLE Step 1. Overall I have no issue with McMaster's admissions process. If you look at the statistics they release you would see that many of the people they admit have GPA's of 3.8+ which is very good.Those with lower GPA's usually compensate with a higher CARS score and solid Casper performance. It is fair. This segues well into one of your other points. By omitting EC's and research from the assessment criteria, McMaster is actually creating a more equal process. Not everyone (especially those from lower SES backgrounds) have the same opportunities to pursue impressive feats like volunteering for a noble cause abroad or creating a charity to help impoverished children. It also prevents someone fabricating activities and inflating their hours which absolutely does happen. CARS is the section that non native English speakers struggle with no doubt. But there have been candidates admitted to McMaster who were in the same boat as you. So it's not impossible at all. But yes it's true that one will need to work harder to improve their score. This would be the equivalent of me going to France for medical school. Despite speaking ok French (as it is my second language that I learned in school) I would struggle with their admissions tests. Would I claim that their tests are unfair? Probably not, I'd just have to work twice as hard to better my language skills. Again, CARS tests deductive reasoning/logic. Casper is more of a suitability measure that tests emotional maturity and people skills. A lot of prep companies (but not all) capitalize on the fears and insecurities of students. You can probably find a prep company for any test. Whether an applicants improved scores can really be attributed to a prep company or the sheer amount of extra time they put in studying themselves is debatable. I have known people who hired prep companies and still did not improve much. Your last point about the financial conflict of interest has some merit but does not negate the validity of Casper. One of the people who founded Altus, Harold Reiter is also the man who helped create the MMI process. He's an expert when it comes to creating assessment tools for applicant selection. To an extent Casper is sort of like that. Its job is to filter people who possess characteristics that could be problematic in medicine. McMaster is not the only school to use it. More and more schools are adopting the Casper, and with good reason. Hey bud, I don't have the time to argue with you. I am assuming you are a Mac Student and as such you are defending your alma mater, which is fair. Critical thinkers out there can see my points. This serves as my last response and I will just write bullet points: (its not comprehensive because I have to study) - MCAT is a relatively good predictor of USMLE performance (Gauer et al. 2016 Medical Education Online) - Using casper for selecting interviewees is not holistic, how can they learn about someone's difficult personal journey without an essay or an other considerations??? - Saying casper is good because MMI is good lacks any logic. (both exams have similar biases) - In my opinion medicine is losing its focus from having very competent highly knowledgable individuals to only focusing on behavioural factors. (Behavioural factors are just as important but not more important.) If my mom needs surgery I dont want a very nice surgeon who did an art major, did not take any science courses in undergrad, and did mediocre in medical school, albeit he/she has perfect people skills. I rather the doctor be both highly knowledgable and socially competent but if I had to choose I would choose knowledgable any day over an individuals who does good in CAsper and MMIs because they are social extroverts with great people skills and a good command on language. - (FYI you can get full scholarships at top US schools not necessary have to pay 400,000) 26 minutes ago, rmorelan said: ha - we have to move all this discussion to another thread. We keep these clean so people can quickly skim the results each year. Feel free to create another ones to discuss whatever. I will be cleaning this up shortly, and go from there! thanks everyone Sorry i wrote it already Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VigoVirgo Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 16 minutes ago, rmorelan said: ha - we have to move all this discussion to another thread. We keep these clean so people can quickly skim the results each year. Feel free to create another ones to discuss whatever. I will be cleaning this up shortly, and go from there! thanks everyone Of course, this isn’t a discussion for the thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted January 9, 2020 Report Share Posted January 9, 2020 NP - it is an important discussion of course, just belongs one thread down on the list ha criticalthinker and PizzaTime 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlight2 Posted January 10, 2020 Report Share Posted January 10, 2020 Time Stamp: 10:06 AM (EST)Invite/Reject: Reject GPA: 3.23 (cGPA OMSAS, With an upward trend, 3.87-3.9 in the last 3 years, not that McMaster cares necessarily though!)CARS: 132Casper: Felt okay, I prepped for a few weeks and didn't feel too bad about it.Geography: OOP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Verdigris Posted January 10, 2020 Report Share Posted January 10, 2020 Time Stamp: Jan 8, 2020 06:14 AM Invite/Reject: Waitlisted GPA: 3.92CARS: 132Casper: Evidently my Casper was weak -- I knew it was going to be a struggle for me because I'm not a very speedy typist (or written communicator in general tbh). I felt good about the responses that I did write, but I only managed to answer 1-2 qs for almost every prompt. Geography: OOP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowGPA Posted January 11, 2020 Report Share Posted January 11, 2020 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PizzaTime Posted January 13, 2020 Report Share Posted January 13, 2020 Time Stamp: Jan 8 9:05 amInvite/Reject: Invite GPA: 3.99CARS: 127Casper: Must have been decent considering my CARSGeography: IP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itookaphoto Posted January 15, 2020 Report Share Posted January 15, 2020 Time Stamp: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChocolateMed Posted January 15, 2020 Report Share Posted January 15, 2020 Time Stamp: 9:35 AMInvite/Reject: Regrets GPA: 3.97CARS: 127 - upsetting because I did all the practice questions and took a course. This was my second time doing the MCAT, and I did it again just because of CARS. stupid CARS. Casper: idk I guess not that good, even though I prepped a decent amount. I read 'Doing Right' and did a bunch of practice questions. Geography: IP mdplsacceptme 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peggynova Posted January 15, 2020 Report Share Posted January 15, 2020 Time Stamp: Jan 8th, 9:07AM (EST)Invite/Reject: Invite! GPA: 3.83CARS: 128Casper: felt pretty good! there were maybe 1-2 questions I felt like I tanked, 1-2 questions I felt really good about, and the rest I felt like I did an okay job. Geography: IP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
takasugi Posted January 16, 2020 Report Share Posted January 16, 2020 Did anyone who emailed them the response form hear back? I emailed it but never got a confirmation email back so I don't know if they received it or not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rinzler Posted January 16, 2020 Report Share Posted January 16, 2020 29 minutes ago, takasugi said: Did anyone who emailed them the response form hear back? I emailed it but never got a confirmation email back so I don't know if they received it or not? I got confirmation. It took a few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheesecake21 Posted January 20, 2020 Report Share Posted January 20, 2020 Very late but here it is! Time Stamp: 9:10 AMInvite/Reject: Regrets GPA: 3.95CARS: 131Casper: I felt very okay about the whole thing and got cut off A LOT! Geography: IP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newmy88 Posted January 21, 2020 Report Share Posted January 21, 2020 Time Stamp: 10:12 AMInvite/Reject: Reject GPA: 3.93CARS: 126 (lol)Casper: Ugh idk it felt okay but I really wish we got a score back because now I'm doubting myself for Ottawa Geography: IP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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