May 12 Countdown Thread 2020

[MDLD 154]

1 minute ago, theinbetween said:

Oh!!! Finally!!!! One person! It's so painful that darn .55. I really hope our interviews were good enough that this tiny little 0.1 aspect of our entire life does not come into play. But the thought of it kills me especially because I finished my degree back in 2014 and there is no way to change it

We will know soon enough! But I am surprised no one with an 3.85 has gotten in. 

[Overstressed 7]

5 minutes ago, Daringderick said:

Hi All!

Let me add my info here too:

Interviewed at Mac, UoC, UBC, Queens, Uottawa and don't have a button!

CARS:132

GPA: 3.98

How did you think CASPer went?

[BernieMac 525]

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[theinbetween 38]

9 minutes ago, MDLD said:

We will know soon enough! But I am surprised no one with an 3.85 has gotten in. 

I'm sure some have received an acceptance and never posted on here, or got in somewhere else and rejected their UO acceptance. But I've seen nothing in this small little sample size on premed101  3ish more days. AH 

[Daringderick 0]

7 minutes ago, Overstressed said:

How did you think CASPer went?

I think it went well! I was even more hopeful given the Mac and Uottawa interview

[James Nystead 251]

16 minutes ago, Daringderick said:

Interviewed at Mac, UoC, UBC, Queens, Uottawa and don't have a button!

CARS:132

GPA: 3.98

So either it was a lottery or the button was meaningless

Hey we reached 40 pages!

[seewhathappens 80]

While those stats are absolutely unbelievable, they could indicate a huge Casper weight at Mac.  With that kind of MCAT and GPA, they could easily get interviews at schools, even if their Casper was just OK.  On the bright side Daringderick, I'm sure you'll get an offer somewhere haha.  

[mdhopefullyidk 16]

4 minutes ago, Daringderick said:

I think it went well! I was even more hopeful given the Mac and Uottawa interview

I mean, with those stats I think you’d get a Mac interview regardless of your Casper score haha. Crazy high

[short_stack 174]

5 minutes ago, William Osler said:

So either it was a lottery or the button was meaningless

Hey we reached 40 pages!

I really think the button was either a glitch or it's just that not everyone who is going to get offers is seeing it yet. Just like last year, everyone who saw their offers early at midnight did end up getting offers, maybe everyone with button will actually get offers. But last year there were people who never saw it early who still got offers, and maybe this year those who don't see button yet will still get offers.

I find it really hard to believe McMaster would willingly shaft so many people with incredible stats by using a lottery system. Why???

[Casablanca 5]

If you google the words "medical school admissions" and "lottery", you actually get some results.

https://www.mededpublish.org/manuscripts/2092

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4749643/

Seems like lottery systems to select medical school students isn't a completely new idea. Not saying that it is being used this year, but a lottery method might technically be "evidence-based" since it's used in other countries, particularly in Europe.

[penguin1234 4]

I think it's okay if we don't know what any of this means right now (in terms of button or the mac selection formula). We will find out in a few days and then we can see if any of our speculations are actually correct! 

[Premed050 5]

1 hour ago, RejectedAgain said:

Hey honest question here, sorry if its dumb. Does Ottawa state anywhere that they look at ABS? I thought I looked at their website and saw nothing about ABS. Again, sorry if this is common knowledge haha

On the website for Uottawa it does state that they may look at ABS/LOR for post-interview scoring.

"Following the interview, preliminary rank order lists are prepared based on a combined score using the WGPA and the interview performance (a poor interview may not be ranked). In the event of ties in the final scores, candidates with the highest WGPA will be ranked higher. The admissions committee may take other factors into consideration when ranking each candidate."

[deedee908 12]

8 minutes ago, seewhathappens said:

While those stats are absolutely unbelievable, they could indicate a huge Casper weight at Mac.  With that kind of MCAT and GPA, they could easily get interviews at schools, even if their Casper was just OK.  On the bright side Daringderick, I'm sure you'll get an offer somewhere haha.  

Also, I wonder if we can really rule out ABS/letters of reference? 

[penguin1234 4]

1 minute ago, deedee908 said:

Also, I wonder if we can really rule out ABS/letters of reference? 

If they got so many other interviews, I'm sure their ABS and LORs are good or definitely aren't bad. 

[Casablanca 5]

4 minutes ago, Casablanca said:

If you google the words "medical school admissions" and "lottery", you actually get some results.

https://www.mededpublish.org/manuscripts/2092

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4749643/

Seems like lottery systems to select medical school students isn't a completely new idea. Not saying that it is being used this year, but a lottery method might technically be "evidence-based" since it's used in other countries, particularly in Europe.

Heck, there's even a Premed101 thread about this from years ago.

 

[BernieMac 525]

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[short_stack 174]

Just now, deedee908 said:

Also, I wonder if we can really rule out ABS/letters of reference? 

This also seems very unlikely to me for a couple of reasons - Mac doesn't really seem to care about ABS/LOR, ever lmao. There might be people who applied with a half-done ABS and ended up getting an interview. Those people would be completely destroyed by this. Also, there were plenty of without-button people who said they received interviews at other EC-heavy schools like Queens or Western and some OOP schools too.

[BernieMac 525]

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[DrOtter 345]

28 minutes ago, MDLD said:

We will know soon enough! But I am surprised no one with an 3.85 has gotten in. 

I'm pretty sure people have, the forum is hardly representative of the applicants

[MedGoldfish 127]

3 minutes ago, Casablanca said:

Heck, there's even a Premed101 thread about this from years ago.

 

"The University of Sydney's medical school may turn its admissions process into a lucky dip and scrap applicant interviews in the biggest overhaul of its selection policy in 10  years."

Hmm... scrap applicant interviews. Sounds familiar lol

[JigsawMD 21]

38 minutes ago, Daringderick said:

Hi All!

Let me add my info here too:

Interviewed at Mac, UoC, UBC, Queens, Uottawa and don't have a button!

CARS:132

GPA: 3.98

With those high stats, you probably don't even need a high CASPER to get an interview at Mac. For Ottawa, your GPA (which I would assume is somewhere around 3.97 - 4) can also offset a lower CASPER/ABS score, but seeing that you got into queens, you probably have a great ABS! 

[James Nystead 251]

As crazy as it sounds, I am 100% convinced that accepting applicants randomly or accepting applicants that were not accepted at other schools will not be detrimental to medical education or medicine in general. At that stage, those applicants will eventually be accepted if they persist 

[SnowmanTheSWOMEN 156]

Just now, William Osler said:

As crazy as it sounds, I am 100% convinced that accepting applicants randomly or accepting applicants that were not accepted at other schools will not be detrimental to medical education or medicine in general. At that stage, those applicants will eventually be accepted if they persist 

I agree, if you are going to do a lottery system instead of merit based, why not accept those that didnt get other offers... make sure no one gets the short end of the stick, everyone gets MD

[MedGoldfish 127]

1 minute ago, William Osler said:

As crazy as it sounds, I am 100% convinced that accepting applicants randomly or accepting applicants that were not accepted at other schools will not be detrimental to medical education or medicine in general. At that stage, those applicants will eventually be accepted if they persist 

This is the Father of Modern Medicine speaking. I trust this man.

[SoftTings 77]

I find it hard to imagine Mac doing a lottery system because of the uproar that would cause. I mean, if that was something they were upfront about from the beginning then sure. But springing that on all the applicants as acceptances are being sent out would probably cause mass chaos

Keep in mind, we a) don't know what the button means, and b) those with excellent stats may have met the threshold for interview without a great CASPer, but it's not enough for an offer. There's still that huge black box, and CASPer could be weighted as 70% (like the interview normally is) for all we know