Post-interview odds?

[Premedwithadream]

Anyone know what the post-interview odds are at UOttawa? How many interviews, how many seats and how much wait-list movement?

Can't find these numbers anywhere online .

[MedicineLCS]

The AFMC "Guide to MEdical Schools" includes waitlist movement and seat offers, a few years behind admittedly:

https://afmc.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/2021_admission-requirements_EN.pdf

I'm not sure why it says 156 for the one year (maybe a 165 typo), it's definitely in the 160s for 2019-2020, but the multiplicity of streams will complicate the waitlist picture. There are dozens of posts in this subforum going through the waitlist behaviour in the past and excellent data (if I do say so myself) from last year. Suffice to say, the waitlist (especially English stream) does move a fair deal and it does not appear that Ottawa overoffers on Day 1 like some other schools do, so there is definitely hope if you end up high up on the waitlist. 

I have no idea how COVID will change this and the big caveat applies that they could decide to randomize email time stamps, start overoffering on day 1, or completely change the post-interview scoring system this year. 

[Premedwithadream]

11 minutes ago, MedicineLCS said:

The AFMC "Guide to MEdical Schools" includes waitlist movement and seat offers, a few years behind admittedly:

https://afmc.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/2021_admission-requirements_EN.pdf

I'm not sure why it says 156 for the one year (maybe a 165 typo), it's definitely in the 160s for 2019-2020, but the multiplicity of streams will complicate the waitlist picture. There are dozens of posts in this subforum going through the waitlist behaviour in the past and excellent data (if I do say so myself) from last year. Suffice to say, the waitlist (especially English stream) does move a fair deal and it does not appear that Ottawa overoffers on Day 1 like some other schools do, so there is definitely hope if you end up high up on the waitlist. 

I have no idea how COVID will change this and the big caveat applies that they could decide to randomize email time stamps, start overoffering on day 1, or completely change the post-interview scoring system this year. 

Thanks, that is a great resource.

I've also gotten this from their website: 

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

Does this suggest that post-interview, it's a 50/50 weighting?

[PequalsMD]

If memory serves it is a combination but no one knows for sure what determines your post interview score. Our best approximation was that interview performance is the single most important factor. If you completely ace the interview that’s auto-admission, regardless of GPA. Then you are stratified based on interview performance (the so called “binning” method) and ranked in order of GPA. In that sense both are important but I’ve always understood that interview performance determines which bin you are in (e.g high waitlist, medium waitlist, low waitlist, the participation waitlist lol - since Ottawa doesn’t give any rejections) and from there, GPA determines your relative ranking. Check the 2020 waitlist thread, they were extremely close in accuracy and held up for my offer too.

[Psych]

So basically how it works (from what I've read on the forum) is the interview is scored out of 4, and if you get 4/4 you are in the top "bin". So everyone with a 4/4 interview will get an offer before anyone with a 3.5/4, regardless of GPA. But within the same bin (ex- everyone with 4/4) you're ranked by GPA, so the top of the bin would be everyone with a 4.0 going all the way down to 3.85. So if two people have the same interview score, the one with the higher GPA will get an offer first. Basically, interview score is the most important factor but GPA is used as a "tiebreaker" between people with the same interview score. If two people have the same interview score AND GPA, I've heard that bilingual status will get you ranked higher, but that's just what I've heard (I have no proof to back this up).

This is all just info from the forum though, I have no actual knowledge of admissions so take that for what you will

[Premedwithadream]

On 3/9/2021 at 12:37 PM, Psych said:

So basically how it works (from what I've read on the forum) is the interview is scored out of 4, and if you get 4/4 you are in the top "bin". So everyone with a 4/4 interview will get an offer before anyone with a 3.5/4, regardless of GPA. But within the same bin (ex- everyone with 4/4) you're ranked by GPA, so the top of the bin would be everyone with a 4.0 going all the way down to 3.85. So if two people have the same interview score, the one with the higher GPA will get an offer first. Basically, interview score is the most important factor but GPA is used as a "tiebreaker" between people with the same interview score. If two people have the same interview score AND GPA, I've heard that bilingual status will get you ranked higher, but that's just what I've heard (I have no proof to back this up).

This is all just info from the forum though, I have no actual knowledge of admissions so take that for what you will

Thanks for your reply, I read old threads and came to the same conclusion.

Do you have any idea why Ottawa puts so many people on the "good waitlist?" I've heard that it's up to 250-300 people on it. Isn't that kind of excessive considering that usually there's only 85-90 people who get in off the waitlist?

[DrOtter]

On 3/10/2021 at 8:09 PM, Premedwithadream said:

Thanks for your reply, I read old threads and came to the same conclusion.

Do you have any idea why Ottawa puts so many people on the "good waitlist?" I've heard that it's up to 250-300 people on it. Isn't that kind of excessive considering that usually there's only 85-90 people who get in off the waitlist?

I'm not sure where you get the 250-300 numbers from.

But if you checked the waitlist thread from last year, roughly 50% of the good waitlist applicants who posted did end up getting accepted.

There's no way to know how many "good waitlist" they send out in total though.