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May 12 Countdown Thread 2020


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21 minutes ago, hehe123 said:

It says in the email that the rank order for offer, WL, reject will be randomized past 100

"The remaining applicants historically have an above equal opportunity of receiving an offer of admission once the interview score is included in the admissions formula.These applicants will be randomly selected to be placed on the offer of admission list, wait list, and no offer list."

It doesn't specify how applicants will come off the waitlist (in a random or ranked fashion)

Also, 

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I know this might not be well received, but thought I could play devil’s advocate:

Lines in the sand: pre-interview rank and probability of receiving admission to medical school

 

Can’t post the link here, but just paste that title into google.

The relevant quote from the article:


"post-hoc testing shows that a significantly greater number of offers are tendered to applicants categorized into the top bin (pre-interview ranks 1 to 50), z = 3.66 p<.001, and second bin (pre-interview ranks 51 to 100), z = 5.96 p<.001. Moreover, this testing revealed no significant differences amongst the remaining bins (i.e., comprising pre-interview ranks 101 to 550)” 

 

This is likely where a lot of their justification for the new formula is coming from. 

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I was skeptical going in but it turns out my own personal style of learning turns out was very compatible with PBL. It turns out didactic lectures do nothing for me, so I would usually just skim the recordings. I don't think they go overboard on the professional/psychosocial part of the education, it seems kind of silly going through it, as it seemed very obvious to me, but coming out the other end I'm constantly shocked how many people in medicine are lacking in that area. Overall the format was really chill, and the admin seemed very supportive and there wasn't much BS, a double edged sword if you are not self motivated, you can totally just coast through and then run in to trouble with carms. The exams/OSCEs don't count other than if you score significantly below average the school will follow up with you to see if you're on track. In the end three years went by quick, but I knew what I wanted to do early and I did electives at a lot of schools who were understanding when you gave the context that you're doing the elective halfway through your core rotations - match results vary by year, and obviously I matched to a fairly competitive specialty, and we had matches to competitive surgical susceptibilities as well, although I know a few people who took the extra year to do a masters, if they were really gunning (although there were a lot of people who wanted to do FM off the bat, but don't know how relative to other schools.

But mostly my classmates were all great, and rotating through different groups for PBL and procomp, as well as your clerkship cohort, means that you worked directly with almost everyone in the program, so it felt like a tight knit group, very social and welcoming, overall it was a lot of fun and I met some great friends. Perhaps it was the type of personality that self selected for Mac vs elsewhere? I know that the satellite campuses got super close as well - I saw on facebook recently that the Waterloo group from my year still has regular zoom chats.

Obviously I only went to one med school so can't really compare, but in hindsight, talking to U of T graduates for instance (and as a previous U of T alumni), I feel lucky I went to Mac vs U of T, for my personality and style of learning, specifically.

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8 hours ago, theinbetween said:

Hahaha. You know whats weird. I don't have the most vivid memory but for some reason I can remember every single thing that I did wrong aka the entire thing at my interview. I feel like Raven from That's So Raven when she gets those flashes. I bet my face looks so odd at the grocery store wearing my mask and randomly I get a flashback on my horrid answers and my terrible handshake while starring for a solid 60 seconds at the tomatoes I'm reaching for

Haha, I didn't shake one of my interviewer's hand (pre-Covid) because I wanted to give them the option to choose to do so, and they didn't, and couldn't stop thinking about whether they thought I was rude LMAO

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9 hours ago, bearded frog said:

Me reading this thread as someone who graduated from Mac 3 years ago after a very positive experience:

mnZe5cx.gif

what is your thoughts on thie lottery system? 

Glad you had a good experience at Mac. Mac was my first choice before this lottery now I am not so sure. 

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https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-make-freedom-information-request

Can we make a Freedom of Information Act request for our pre-interview ranking to see if we were part of the top 330 or bottom 220 (i.e. if a lottery was the only reason we got rejected or not)?

Similarly, can we make this request for other aspects like our CASPer %tile? It's really bullshit how schools won't offer feedback if you're unsuccessful

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I saw a Facebook thread on “spotted at Mac” with over 250+ comments from students saying they should have applied to Mac & Medical school and could have gotten in “I could be a doctor then too”. I think this is really horrible of Mcmaster to make those who do get admission this year to feel like they were just selected randomly and that they aren’t deserving. 
 

other students saying they should have applied makes it really hard to feel proud of saying you gained admission - I would have rather them just keep it closed honestly. 

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12 minutes ago, MedGoldfish said:

Damn. This would really be the cherry on the cake eh.

That means next year would be even harder........ Imagine losing the lottery this year and then next year having to compete with 750 people.

I think they should keep it to 552 interviews. Maybe bump it up a little to 600ish. The people who got interviews this year would have a pretty high probability of getting them again next year anyways... 

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1 minute ago, premed1995 said:

I saw a Facebook thread on “spotted at Mac” with over 250+ comments from students saying they should have applied to Mac & Medical school and could have gotten in “I could be a doctor then too”. I think this is really horrible of Mcmaster to make those who do get admission this year to feel like they were just selected randomly and that they aren’t deserving. 
 

other students saying they should have applied makes it really hard to feel proud of saying you gained admission - I would have rather them just keep it closed honestly. 

Or just send offers to the top ~250 with the best spots, which is a more logical solution, that allows them to be upfront with the criteria without pissing nearly as many people off. The idea of a lottery is simply ridiculous

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1 minute ago, premed1995 said:

I saw a Facebook thread on “spotted at Mac” with over 250+ comments from students saying they should have applied to Mac & Medical school and could have gotten in “I could be a doctor then too”. I think this is really horrible of Mcmaster to make those who do get admission this year to feel like they were just selected randomly and that they aren’t deserving. 
 

other students saying they should have applied makes it really hard to feel proud of saying you gained admission - I would have rather them just keep it closed honestly. 

Its still an accomplishment though. There were still 5000 applicants. Its not like the 552 who got interviews just walked through the pre-interview selection process. 

A lot of those people saying that stuff probably wouldn't even be able to handle the CARS section on the MCAT....

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3 minutes ago, premed1995 said:

I saw a Facebook thread on “spotted at Mac” with over 250+ comments from students saying they should have applied to Mac & Medical school and could have gotten in “I could be a doctor then too”. I think this is really horrible of Mcmaster to make those who do get admission this year to feel like they were just selected randomly and that they aren’t deserving. 
 

other students saying they should have applied makes it really hard to feel proud of saying you gained admission - I would have rather them just keep it closed honestly. 

Struggling to find it... do you have a link? In need of entertainment haha

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