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McMaster Waitlist Party 2020


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Just some hope to you guys, I was accepted off the waitlist 3-4ish weeks after acceptances were sent out.

I personally would have used casper scores in lieu of a lottery, but I am sympathetic to their comments about biases in video chat. Even zoom/facetime can get stuttery at times, and then you're going to be biased again people who can afford faster internet or nicer webcams - even mac pros from 2 years ago have relatively crappy webcams. I know other schools successfully did it, but you're just trading one potential issue for another. Imagine if your connection dropped out in the middle of your interview, you were able to connect but it disrupted the flow, and then its over - if you weren't accepted you would never know if it was you or the connection problems got in the way of a good impression. At least with a lottery you're either in or have a chance to interview next year.

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Yes people have bad internet but even if they do, doesn't that mean they wouldn't be able to do med school online for the first year from home with that bad internet...

Replacing something that is somewhat unfair and then removing the meirt based post-interview process is not a good solution.

If people have bad internet, then maybe they could do things without video for the entire interview, and just do it with audio only. There are other possible solutions than no interviews at all or no merit at all. Calgary and Queens both managed with online MMIs.

Mac just didn't want to bother. 

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16 minutes ago, littleduck said:

is anyone deciding between ottawa and mac? because I am leaning towards mac and wanted to know if anyones doing the same

We will probably have online medical school for the first year of medicine. Mac is only a 3-year program and there are so many issues that will arise by this. Up to you though, go with whatever you want.

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29 minutes ago, littleduck said:

is anyone deciding between ottawa and mac? because I am leaning towards mac and wanted to know if anyones doing the same

I chose Western (which is similar to Ottawa in structure) over Mac. 

For me I will be declining partially because of the lottery. I don't want the lottery label to reflect poorly on me later down the road. It seems a lot of people have been talking about the potential downstream effects of not being able to explore specialties at McMaster because of how fast you need to choose and how being the "lottery class" can hurt me. If residents who are picking people for specialties are talking about the lottery reflecting poorly then I'm not taking a chance.

The bigger reasons is that because Mac is a 3 year program, it will be much more rushed in every regard than Western (or Ottawa) with summers. In Mac I need to know my specialty (or an idea) by apparently February of 2021 and I barely even know where I will live for med lol, let alone what specialty I want. I don't like that I can't experiment with specialties for a long time because of COVID and I don't want to feel that pressure. Considering once you get matched to your specialty it is permanent, I want to make a well informed decision and not be rushed to choose because of COVID. I rather have the summers at Western to make things up. I also can not do clinical skills learning virtually at McMaster until COVID is up....

Barely any vacation (compared to Western or Ottawa) time means I will have to learn physicals virtually (which seems dumb like imagine using a stethoscope over a computer) just to keep up with a fast pace 3 year program which just doesn't seem worth it to me considering you only apply to specialties once.

The other reason is that I don't like that McMaster from what I've been reading has lectures that are mandatory to go to on top of their tutorial program. It is not all optional like it used to be it seems. 

I worked hard to get an acceptance, I'm not going to mess up my future because McMaster didn't have a back up plan if their schedule got messed up because of COVID. 

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12 hours ago, littleduck said:

is anyone deciding between ottawa and mac? because I am leaning towards mac and wanted to know if anyones doing the same

I am in the same boat. I've accepted Mac offer because Hamilton is my hometown. Another reason why I chose Mac over uOttawa is that Ottawa has a very cold winter.

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42 minutes ago, MDWoman said:

Now that it’s been a couple of days since the 12th, how is everyone feeling about being waitlisted? Is McMaster our only shot at an M.D. for most of us? 

The craziest part is that we could be at the very top and get an email on Wednesday OR we could be at the very bottom and not make it off

The size of the WL just increases the variance

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1 hour ago, William Osler said:

The craziest part is that we could be at the very top and get an email on Wednesday OR we could be at the very bottom and not make it off

The size of the WL just increases the variance

Have you addressed the fact that you lied about being a medical student? 

 

Delete your account bro.

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