Guest hopestar1023 Posted January 16, 2004 Report Share Posted January 16, 2004 I wrote to Western and this is how they responded (pertaining to the fact that I did not complete full course loads and doing a 16 month internship): For those applying in 2006 for entry in 2007 will require a four-year honors degree. I would suggest you probably should take another degree program. We only look at the most recent degree. Taking a year off will not affect your application at this medical school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hopestar1023 Posted January 16, 2004 Report Share Posted January 16, 2004 oops, I meant to reply to my "Advice about second degree" posting. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest khoberian Posted January 16, 2004 Report Share Posted January 16, 2004 well that's just great. You'd think that if you were doing a second degree, they would cut you some slack given that it is your SECOND degree after all. Is this four-years only restriction applied by other med schools too? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted January 16, 2004 Report Share Posted January 16, 2004 Well seeing as admin has let that slip...I guess I can comment on it. Western will be moving to a requirement for COMPLETION of a four year HONOURS degree as a pre-req... this will apparently be effective the 2006 application cycle (ie not for those that have applied right now, not for those that will apply this fall, or the fall after that, but it will be a requirement for those that apply in the fall of 2006.) This will be the people that are currently in their last year of high school and those in first year university that apply during their fourth year. Rumor I have heard is that once UWO decided to do this, the other ONTARIO schools have decided to do the same...so that things are standard in Ontario. I have no insight into what the progress on the change is at the other schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jeff Posted January 16, 2004 Report Share Posted January 16, 2004 thank goodness i am graduating this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest marbledust Posted January 16, 2004 Report Share Posted January 16, 2004 That sounds a bit crazy to me, but I guess those responsible for such a decision must have a reason for changing the requirement. I can't personally think of a one myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 I did an honours degree, and I appreciated the fact. There's a lot of people who did 3 year degrees doing very well in my class, but I found doing the honours degree had three benefits: a) one more year of maturity one more year of immaturity (ie one more year partying as an undergrad) and c) a chance to do an honours project and see how a science lab REALLY worked. . . rather than accepting what my science prof fed me face value as if it was the word of god. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tweep0 Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Whats up with this steady increase in minimum undergraduate years? It used to be two years minimum of an undergraduate degree. Then three (current situation) and now all four? We are gonna stop seeing a lot of doctors in their 20s. I wonder how much of a turnoff that extra year is gonna be for people thinking of going into medicine. Oh well. Tweep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Steve U of T Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 I would imagine the new high school curriculum in Ontario and the elimination of the OAC year played a significant role in the decision. The average student is entering university a year younger, so they are expected to complete another year to make up for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mgupta Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 yea i have to agree with steve. so in the long run you are still doing the same number of years before you enter meds -if you're from ontario. My year (class of 2006) has students with 4 year highschool (ontario highschool -gr 10-12+OAC) with 3 year degrees. the 2006 cycle will have 3 years highschool and 4 year degree. same lucky 7. ) i think where it might screw ppl over are those from out west. in the west you get your normal degree in 4 years and for some programs you have to do another 0.5 yr to 1 year to get the honours. so to apply to UWO they'll have to look at whether they want to do honours (and spend some more time in uni) or just get out with basic degree. as for the q which schools take in after 2 years, UA, UC and USask still have the 2 year minimum requirement to enter meds (unless they are changing as well-and then i wouldnt have a clue). i believe UBC (and up until 2006 all ontario schools) take students after 3 years and UM, McGill, Newfoundland are min. degree (be it 3 or 4 years) requirement. i think UWO would be the first to move towards an HONOURS degree prog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 High school in Ontario used to be five years (9-OAC) it is now 4 years (9-12)...the difference is that you will now have to have 4 years of undergrad (and an honours thesis) before you will be eligible to apply... So actually, the magic number is 8...not 7... Reasons for doing this: 1. elimination of a year of high school in Ontario...med schools are concerned about an influx of younger and less mature students... theoretically, one could fast track through high school (or skip grade in elementary), do three years of undergrad and then start med at 18-19... 2. many residency programs are incorporating grad degrees into their programs...and quite a few people have interest in doing a grad degree before/during/after their residency....you can't do this with three years of undergrad and no degree... an MD does NOT count as an 'acceptable' undergrad degree for grad school admission 3. med schools value 'critical appraisal' of the literature...doing an honours thesis goes a long way to teach critical appraisal of literature and knowledge, independence in thinking, researching and learning...something that can't really be taught as effectively any other way... 4. UofT is no longer offering three year degrees...therefore people coming from UofT undergrad (historically up to 20% of the UWO class) after three years will have NO degree...this is a problem (see #2) there is some concern that other universities will jump on UofT's bandwagon and stop granting three year degrees in the future 5. the pre-req situation is out of control...("does my *&(@# 101 course at XYZ university count for half of your organic chem requirement if I combine it with course Z from university V and lab course B that I took as summer course at university G??" - you get the picture) Moving to a single requirement (a degree....) will solve this As for screwing over the Western students...realistically, we don't have that many!! (sorry monkey..) I think that we have <10 in our class from the west and 10/133 isn't many on the grand scale of things...most of the applicants from the west either a) decline their interview or decline their offer in favour of a western school where they have an in-province advantage and tuition is lower. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mgupta Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 thats interesting...didnt realize ontario highschool starts at grade 9. its gr.10 in calgary and halifax...the last time i checked. i was working wtih those numbers....so weird how each province has their own definition of what is considered highschool and whats not.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aidan Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 aneliz, Are you sure that you can't enter a graduate program with just an MD? I spoke to a resident about the dis/advantages of going to med school without completing a BSc, and she told me that it makes no difference whatsoever in one's eligibility for graduate degree programs. That makes sense to me, since an MD is an undergrad degree after all. I can't see why having ONLY an MD would be unacceptable to a graduate program. This is kind of an important issue to me, and I'd expect to a number of others on this board, so anyone with more information please speak up. - Aidan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UofT Student Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 aneliz, I am applying this year to hopefully get accepted after completing just three years of undergrad (and since I'm at UofT, I would have no degree). Does this mean I would be at a severe disadvantage four years from now when I'm attempting to apply to residency programs? Or, would this new rule be "phased in" so that only those in the cohort applying to medicine two years from now would be affected? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 We have been told this repeatedly at UWO...from both the Student Affairs office and by the head of the Pathology Dept (a dept that has many residents that want to do grad work during residency) and many of the basic science faculty. They have had incredible challenges getting residents accepted into graduate programs without an honours undergrad degree. Some have had to take undergrad courses to finish their BSc during their residency before starting an MSc in the department... Graduate work requires an HONOURS undergraduate program as a pre-req...yes, an MD is an undergrad program, but it is not honours level and is not felt (at least at UWO) to be sufficient preparation to enter a graduate degree program. People lacking an undergrad honours degree are felt to be lacking in the basic research and lab skills to succeed in a grad program. UofT student...the admissions requirements are not changing until 2006 at the earliest, so not having a degree will not impact on your admissions status. However, it will limit what you can do after...it will not seriously 'disadvantage' you in getting a residency position (unless you are competing against someone with a PhD!) but it might limit what (if any) graduate degrees you can do during your residency...and this is NOT a new rule...it has always existed so there wouldn't be any 'phase in'... One way around this is to complete the last year of your undergrad (UofT degree) as two summer semesters...one after first year, one after second year. I know of at least one person that went that route and now has their undergrad degree even though they got in after three years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest coastal79 Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 I have a BA in English. My intention all along was to go to medical school, I just wanted to pursue other interests before I got there. I dropped out of the honours program because I wanted to take lots of different courses, in science, philosophy, languages, psychology; honours requires a larger number of courses in one concentrated area, which would have left me with less options. I would have had to use all of my electives to take my medicine prereqs. Basically, by saying an honours degree is required, they are saying that they want people who, for the most part, aren't going to have a particularly broad education (obviously people can stay in school, take more courses, graduate later, but that costs money, which lots of students don't have). Apologies for the huge generalization of that last statement, but in many cases it is true. Aneliz mentioned that these schools are basing this decision on the perception that those without an honours degree don't have sufficient research experience. Where does that leave those who don't have a BSs? Do they want to go back to almost every med student having a science degree? I'm trying to avoid making more generalizations, but different people are drawn to different things and, given the incredible diversity of jobs in medicine, it can't be beneficial to have a relatively homogenous (education-wise) population. Personally, when I become a doctor, I have no intention of working in a lab doing research-that just doesn't interest me, and it should not have an impact on whether I, or someone else like me, gets into medical school. Bloody frustrating. Anyways, Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest klukyboy Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Just curious, does this mean degrees like engineering, which are not offered as honours program, will no longer be accepted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Heya, Just a couple of things. #1. I'm going to bump this into the UWO forum, since this is pretty UWO-specific. #2. Don't kill the messenger. This forum is a great place to discuss changes and downstream implications, but aneliz is, after all, a med student first and foremost, and she's been doing a fantastic job of volunteering her time to answer questions and help applicants, despite carrying a huge workload. #3. It's definitely frustrating to have the admissions committee change their requirements. It's difficult to think you know which targets to aim at, only to have those targets changed later. Still, these changes aren't going to affect immediate applicants, but rather those who are just entering the university stream now, which I think is some pretty good accomodation to those who are already committed in their university track, and also gives them a few more years to analyze and perhaps revise these decisions. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest therealcrackers Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 The idea is that ANY four year degree should suffice, honours designation or not; like it will be that 20 courses will be the definition of a four-year degree, but don't quote me on that just yet. Also note that the recommendations are that this comes into effect two years from now, so that those people early enough in their university education can make the appropriate changes in their course selections and their educational stream. It should NOT affect students in later years of university, whose streams are already more determined and have less flexibility towards completing their degree requirements. Anything less would be completely unfair, and I think the admissions committee is very sensitive to that fact. Be kind in your comments and questions: it's 6 am, I just got woken up out of a sound sleep to help with a C-section on my last day of my obstetrics rotation, and I'm very tired. But I'm still on here. We do this because we care, and we want you to succeed. It's the helping people part of the future medical professionals in us. Please be patient and diligent: these are guidelines that would not come into effect until after most of the current moderators have graduated medical school. We do our best to get facts out that are relevant and important to prospective students, but we also have our own frustrations with the administration which you will share once you get in (and most of you will!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Hi there, Just a wee comment re: the necessity of an Honours degree. Two things were mentioned above: 1) one shouldn't need an Honours degree because not all doctors pursue research; 2) (by aneliz?) that doctors are required to be able to critically review the literature. These are two very important points. There has been a consistent push towards evidence-based medicine (or as my Scottish pal likes to call it, eminence-based ), and the evidence, or new medical knowledge, is buried primarily within a massive corpus of medical journals. Within this heap of knowledge is an array of quality levels. Doctors need some set of tools to be able to filter through articles and identify those that are good, as opposed to taking every abstract at face value. A thesis project will help a student acquire at least rudimentary versions of these tools. As long as you're going to practice progressive medicine in the Western world, it will be inextricably tied to research. You may not be the one doing it, but you're going to be the one who will be expected to keep up with what's being done. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Just wanted to point out as well that many universities now offer "Honours conversion" 1 year programs for people who chose not to do an honours degree at first, but later decided they wanted to go to grad school. Just an option if any of you are worried. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest coastal79 Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Apologies to aneliz if my rant came across as somewhat directed at her. :\ I quoted her because she provided the information, and I wanted to refer people back to her posts in case they were unsure of what I was commenting on. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Hello, The "Honours Conversion" is exactly what I did at UofT, to pick up my 4-year B.Sc. in 2002 (although I don't know if that's what it was officially called). I had finished a 3-year in 1998, gone to business school, and then after collecting the MBA, decided to return to do a M.Sc. I needed the extra "upgrade" year to be eligible to apply to M.Sc. programs. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TequilaFire Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Alright, I read all of the above, and realized I am at a messed up point right now. I am a high school student and will graduate this year. The problem is the deadline for the university applications was on Jan 14, today is the 17. I DID NOT apply to any honours programme, because I was told it was not a med school requirement, and felt taking a "regular" programme would open up more time for ECs and volunteering. Is there anyway I can switch into the honours programme before first year? Should I send an email off to UWO and ask them how to approach this? I am upset because none of this information has been relayed to high schoolers. Aren't we the people affected? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Don't worry Tequilafire. Many/most universities will allow you to switch to an honours degree within your program. . . you're not screwed yet. Just make sure to choose a program where there is an honours option. I'd get in contact with the universities you applied to, NOT western's med school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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