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Frustrated with the admissions system


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4 hours ago, Angrythrowaway said:

But one overlooked inequity relates to the large discrepancy in the difficulty, rigour and quality of undergraduate programs from school to school and program to program. It is ABSURD that medical schools evaluate the GPAs between schools and programs equally. As much as our Arts majors will argue this, a BA in any field has nowhere CLOSE to the difficulty and rigour of a BSc in life sciences or biochemistry. Perhaps components of theory have comparable intellectual challenges, but that still does not equate to the combination of intellectual challenge and sheer content of many science courses. 

Have you considered that maybe your personal strengths just happened to align more with your arts degree than your science degree?

It's freaking HARD to get as as good a GPA in arts/humanities courses than in the sciences... in STEM, it's fully possible to get a 100% perfect mark in most courses. Obviously most people aren't going to achieve this, but at least it's doable. This is very much not the case in the vast majority of arts and humanities courses. There are so many wildly subjective aspects to the grading-- not to mention to huge volume of reading and critical analysis skills required to do well, vs. rote memorization which can get you through a pretty significant portion of a typical Life Sciences degree. 

Yes, medicine is absolutely nepotistic and still favours privileged applications in many ways. But don't conflate this with your apparent disdain for the arts (or people who study them), and how they're apparently supposed to be less academically rigorous. 

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Just to add my two cents- I would also agree with the many previous posters that an arts degree is harder to do well in than a science degree. One of my good friends completing a BA in history had a lower GPA than me (in science), despite being incredibly intelligent and hard-working (at least as much as me, if not more). Looking at the grade distributions of our classes, all of my classes consistently had a much higher % of people obtaining As and A+s than his. He has had professors that simply don't give out A+s or even As. For many of his arts profs, an 80-85 on an essay is considered "top-tier". I agree with OPs point that there are some programs that are "easier" than others, but making a generalization to all arts programs is not accurate in my experience

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17 minutes ago, Psych said:

Just to add my two cents- I would also agree with the many previous posters that an arts degree is harder to do well in than a science degree. One of my good friends completing a BA in history (I did a BSc in life sci) had a lower GPA than me, despite being incredibly intelligent and hard-working (at least as much as me, if not more). Looking at the grade distributions of our classes, all of my classes consistently had a much higher % of people obtaining As and A+s than his. He has had professors that simply don't give out A+s or even As. For many of his arts profs, an 80-85 on an essay is considered "top-tier". I agree with OPs point that there are some programs that are "easier" than others, but making a generalization to all arts programs is not accurate in my experience

Yep, my science courses at a "Difficult" university(the course averages mind you, were still fairly low), were all much higher than non-science courses. One non-science course I received the highest grade of an just above cut-off A- and the professor personally congratulated me on the "highest mark i've ever given!", the department in general rarely ever gave A's because "no one is perfect that is why you are only a bachelors student and not a masters or PhD yet".    Yet I cleared A in Organic-chem when the average was 66 and an A+ in biochem. Go figure.

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19 hours ago, Angrythrowaway said:

Definitely. 3 tries after my science undergrad, zero interview invites. Completed a 4 year psych degree, 3 interview invites and an acceptance by the end of it. I guess part of the frustration is just seeing how much time was wasted doing that first degree, facing anxiety, being totally burnt out all for nothing. 

Sounds like confounding factors, maybe it was the extra 4 years of building your non-academics and ultimately interview skills that got you in?

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27 minutes ago, JohnGrisham said:

Sounds like confounding factors, maybe it was the extra 4 years of building your non-academics and ultimately interview skills that got you in?

Agree! There’s a big benefit to 4 years of maturity - that makes a difference regardless of whether your background is science or not.

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1 hour ago, Psych said:

Just to add my two cents- I would also agree with the many previous posters that an arts degree is harder to do well in than a science degree. One of my good friends completing a BA in history (I did a BSc in life sci) had a lower GPA than me, despite being incredibly intelligent and hard-working (at least as much as me, if not more). Looking at the grade distributions of our classes, all of my classes consistently had a much higher % of people obtaining As and A+s than his. He has had professors that simply don't give out A+s or even As. For many of his arts profs, an 80-85 on an essay is considered "top-tier". I agree with OPs point that there are some programs that are "easier" than others, but making a generalization to all arts programs is not accurate in my experience

That was my experience in an arts program. I think part of the difference stems from the fact that many arts students don’t tend to care quite so much about grades as science students, or rather, the perfect grade isnt seen as so much of the point. Obviously generalizing a lot there. But very few people in my art studios or lit or history classes were chasing 4.0 GPAs. My friends in those courses were often pretty happy with Bs and the occasional A-, as was I. I was often well above average in my art studio courses, and I only ever got one A. I worked just as hard at my CS courses and my MSc, but those were the ones where I tended to get all As, and that boosted my grades just enough to get my GPA over 80%. Probably would not have been able to get into med school otherwise! 

Edited by frenchpress
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22 hours ago, Angrythrowaway said:

I know many (likely the vast majority) of people on this forum will disagree with what I am about to state, but I think this discussion needs to at least be started. For reference I am a third year med student at an Ontario school. 

Our medical school admissions process in Canada needs an overhaul. It's getting to a point of absurdity. There are significant advantages between students who have connections/are from higher SES and their lower SES/less well-connected counterparts. Nepotism is alive and well in medicine. These inequities have been brought to light before, and are now even incorporated into interview questions, so I won't get further into this. 

But one overlooked inequity relates to the large discrepancy in the difficulty, rigour and quality of undergraduate programs from school to school and program to program. It is ABSURD that medical schools evaluate the GPAs between schools and programs equally. As much as our Arts majors will argue this, a BA in any field has nowhere CLOSE to the difficulty and rigour of a BSc in life sciences or biochemistry. Perhaps components of theory have comparable intellectual challenges, but that still does not equate to the combination of intellectual challenge and sheer content of many science courses. And a U of T, McGill, Queens, uOttawa, Western BSc in life sci/biochem/chem etc. is SIGNIFICANTLY more rigorous than similar programs at smaller liberal arts schools. As a student who has two undergraduate degrees, one in the basic sciences from a medical school-holding University, I can tell you that my second undergraduate degree in Arts was a walk in the park. I had a perfect GPA over 4 years, and I studied HOURS and HOURS LESS than my first degree. Compare that to scratching by in my science undergrad, which I struggled in and left me with little opportunity and a useless piece of paper. Similarly, over the years I have conducted a scoping review comparing science curricula and exams at smaller, liberal arts schools (Brock, Mount Allison, Carleton, UOIT, York, Trent etc. etc.) with curricula for the "equivalent" courses at medical-school holding institutions (U of T, Western, uOttawa, Queens etc.). There is a NIGHT and DAY difference. There are widely known loopholes to complete challenging prerequisites at "other" schools or online, as the difficulty of their exams and assignments are significantly lower. 

And that's not even bringing up the gongshow that is Mac Health Sci with their massively inflated GPAs, yet this program seems to be the single largest feeder program for medical schools across the country. 

I understand that it is not their fault, that alot of them will make good doctors. However we need a system that is far more objective and standardized, and that takes into consideration class averages and standard deviations. 

EDIT: Removed the parts of the post making generalizations regarding personalities in medicine and various programs. Was a silly point I agree. Thank you for those who brought that up. 

The grass is always greener on the other side eh? (a Quebecer chiming in here) 

FYI, Quebec medical schools (except McGill) uses the exact system you're preaching about (we take someone's GPA and then put it into a mathematical formula that considers the class average, standard deviation, and we add an arbitrary correction factor to take the program's difficulty into consideration to pump out an "R-score"), and we have our fair share of frustrations coming from such a system too. One of the problems is that it actually REDUCES applicant diversity and discourages nontrad applicants from applying. Exhibit #1: take a walk in a Quebec medical school and ask the students which program they come from. PT, PT, PT, OT, OT, pharmacy, pharmacy, biomed, biomed, biochem, you'd quickly see that there's not much diversity in terms of student backgrounds... legit the only social science program that you see med students coming from is law (or psychology, but you really need to be a straight A+ student, there's really no room for A, let alone A-), and that's basically it. Other social science degrees give very bad R scores as the aforementioned program correction factor tends to screw these programs over... on the other hand, professional health programs like OT/PT/pharmacy/nutrition have extremely high "correction factors", thus even with an average GPA you'd have an R score even higher than those of straight A+ social science/art students. This is heavily detrimental to these programs, since people are only applying in these programs as an R-score booster to get into med, and not at all to stay in the program and become a professional healthcare worker after. Exhibit #2: my friend in PT told me that on their first day of school, the director asked the class "how many here wants to change their program?" and HALF OF THE CLASS raised their hands...

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1 hour ago, offmychestplease said:

Just commenting about your signature because I have always been interested in how med works in Quebec,  but all the posts are in French lol....you finished grade 11 in 2017? Then I'm guessing you did the equivalent of grade 12 and 1st year university in CGEP (2017-2019)....did 1 year of optometry 2019-2020, then med will be 2020-2024. So does that mean you will finish medical school and start residency at 24?? Jealous af lol

Yup, you're 100% correct! Also, I'm a year late compared to the norm lmao (I didn't get in on my first cycle, this is my second cycle applying) ;) 

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20 hours ago, petitmonstre111 said:

Yep... This is exactly why I had to apply outside of Quebec. I studied engineering and I would've never made it to the interview. I know some schools are now moving towards not allowing students to apply without 60 credits completed within one program, or even a completed degree. I'm guessing they are trying to prevent what you've described?

Yes both Laval and UdeM have moved toward requiring a completed degree to apply to medicine (if you don’t get in straight after cegep of course).

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