Not getting into Med School? CBC News Story

[polea]

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[Freedom]

Just my personal opinion...

 

Because there are so little seats - many qualified applicants do not get in.

 

So little seats? For Class for 2011 Manitoba applicants (Regular and Special) there are ~90 enrolled for 342 applicants. A little over a quarter gets accepted. Out of those 342, most people with the minimum requirements get an interview. It would be a 33% acceptance rate if you just took into consideration the 273 (216+57) Manitoban applicants that received an interview (got 8 MCAT, 3.6+ AGPA/lower for special apps)

 

Last year had more people applying without the minimum requirements because they had to apply before they got their August MCAT scores.

 

33% seems pretty good to me. The number gets even higher if you consider the number of people that were offered spots but declined(12 declines, brings it to 37%).

 

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/medicine/media/Admission_Report_2007.pdf

 

student or students who have excellent gpa's and volunteer a lot etc. but were not accepted into med school.

 

If they kept improving what was lacking such as poor mcat/interview/agpa/apparently luck? , and kept trying, they would get in eventually... that's my game plan

 

GPA is only 10% and volunteering doesn't necessarily reflect a person's personality.

 

Personally, I go to sleep better at night thinking that the majority of people accepted had a more balanced application, and were then more qualified...for this round . It just means there are some great doctors coming around the corner if the standards are just getting higher.

 

As a result some of you may now be rethinking med school

Rethinking because they didnt succeed the first few times or.. in some cases, one time? No determination!

 

Not being accepted does have the advantage of giving individuals considerable time to contemplate if this is the right career for them. So for people going into it for the wrong reasons, it's not always such a negative in the long run.

[liszt]

I think the 957 includes all the out of province applicants.

[vip_138]

freedom, i technically don't disagree with you but I don't think you can say that the selection process is 'balanced' when MCAT vs gpa is 50% vs 10%. Obviously its a competitive process and only a fraction of ppl can get in, that's just how it is. More ppl are interested in medicine (for whatever reason), and there are limited seats. The goal however should be a fair process and even though i might be biased because my scores (my gpa is much higher than my mcat), I think a lot of ppl can agree that 50% for the MCAT is far too high. With the selection process the way it is, it almost completely negates gpa, and basically sets a certain imaginary cut-off for the MCAT, where those who are above get in, and those who are below, don't. Why can't MCAT and gpa be 30% and 30% or something similar?

[Freedom]

freedom, i technically don't disagree with you but I don't think you can say that the selection process is 'balanced' when MCAT vs gpa is 50% vs 10%. Obviously its a competitive process and only a fraction of ppl can get in, that's just how it is. More ppl are interested in medicine (for whatever reason), and there are limited seats. The goal however should be a fair process and even though i might be biased because my scores (my gpa is much higher than my mcat), I think a lot of ppl can agree that 50% for the MCAT is far too high. With the selection process the way it is, it almost completely negates gpa, and basically sets a certain imaginary cut-off for the MCAT, where those who are above get in, and those who are below, don't. Why can't MCAT and gpa be 30% and 30% or something similar?

 

BTW, I never said the selection process was balanced, I said the applicants offered admission were more balanced. In other words, a good/above average MCAT,AGPA,PAS.

 

But anyways..

 

The argument of GPA/MCAT is discussed in other places.. over and over again.

 

It may not be helpful to you, but it certainly help to individuals who are unable to improve their AGPA as significantly as their MCAT. AGPA may take years to improve back to a competitive level. AGPA isnt standardized. People may have inflated AGPAs from taking simple courses, etc, etc.

 

Let's just sum it up as "that's just how it is"

[Freedom]

I would need you to be in Winnipeg, as this would be a TV piece.

 

I am counting everyone who applied to U of M's med school.

 

Then shouldn't you be interviewing the Out of Province applicants since they are 2/3 of the applicant pool?

[keith_015]

Instead of running a piece on how "qualified" people don't get into med school, how about doing a piece about increasing class sizes.

Aside from Ontario, every other province has a similar criteria for citizenship for enrollment. Having a 30% shot in your home province really isn't that bad. If you don't get in, chances are there IS something you need to improve on your application. Some people just don't have the personality or thought process you need for interacting with the public. From last cycle I was waitlisted with my weakness being lack of ambition after I completed university. I've improved that and I'm sure they will recognize that this cycle. Of course everybody who applies thinks they are qualified, well if they meet the cutoffs that is. If you run a story on this, you could probably talk to anybody who didn't get in last year who did get an interview.

[Ninjzz]

Yay, another case of the media taking a complex issue and turning it into a circus. All the while the public is going to become even more jaded and not necessarily better informed.

 

Instead of cherry-picking people for your report, how about you do a randomized trial in which you ask students about their relative satisfaction level with the admission process? Just do a literature search and you'll find plenty of stories examining the issue of medical admission at length.

[Alastriss]

randomized as ninjzz suggested would be much better, but it still wouldn't be ideal. Different provinces will have different residents that have different opinions on the fairness of the admissions process and to lump them all together is unfair, idiotic, and absurd. Resident status is so huge it can be interpreted as a weakness on behalf of the admissions committee.

 

Finally, each school is so different in their philosophy, that a person who has a philosophy 'x' on medicine when comared to a school with philosophy 'y' may not get in even with the high numbers and just perceive it as "unfair", when it simply it was a compatibility issue. This is definetely something to take into consideration.

 

All of this based on the fact that people who are qualified don't get in. Yes this is absolutely true, we see great applicants who are quaified to be doctors that don't get in all the time and it is a sad reality. However this isn't the ad com's fault; there just isn't enough money to add enough seats as needed. We can't just increase more seats either, thats thinning out the quality of the education and undermining the healthcare that we take great pride in as canadians.