CARMS matching and marks in med school

[Siamak]

Hey everyone,

 

I am just wondering how much do marks matter for CARMS matching. I am hearing conflicting stories. I am in a med school that has H/P/F system so how would I be compared with someone from Mcmaster? or is the H/P/F going to be used to rank me compared to my classmate from the same school?

 

thanks

[Nephets]

I go to a pass/fail school so I can't see how it would be that important. Obviously honours will get you bonus marks but I don't think you would be penalized for a pass. Fail speaks for itself.

[monkey799]

Depends on the specialty. Marks can be important for some fields that are very competitive and where academics is emphasized. Think ophthalmology, ENT, radiology etc.

 

If your school is P/F/H, not having H will count against you in those competitive fields, while having H will help you.

 

If your school is P/F only, then the committee will look at other aspects such as reference letters, clerkship comments etc.

 

You just need to play the game and find ways to stand out given the particular grading system of your school.

[Siamak]

Depends on the specialty. Marks can be important for some fields that are very competitive and where academics is emphasized. Think ophthalmology, ENT, radiology etc.

 

If your school is P/F/H, not having H will count against you in those competitive fields, while having H will help you.

 

If your school is P/F only, then the committee will look at other aspects such as reference letters, clerkship comments etc.

 

You just need to play the game and find ways to stand out given the particular grading system of your school.

 

Thanks for you reply

[Guest Apollo]

Depends on the specialty. Marks can be important for some fields that are very competitive and where academics is emphasized. Think ophthalmology, ENT, radiology etc.

 

If your school is P/F/H, not having H will count against you in those competitive fields, while having H will help you.

 

If your school is P/F only, then the committee will look at other aspects such as reference letters, clerkship comments etc.

 

You just need to play the game and find ways to stand out given the particular grading system of your school.

Actually, from what I've been told from several program directors (from Anesthesia and Internal Med) who sit on committees that choose residents, preclerkship marks aren't given much weight for several reasons:

 

1. Not all schools have Honours, so how do you compare the transcript of a UWO student (P/F only) with a U of T student (H/P/F)? Short answer: you can't!

 

2. Preclerkship marks don't correlate with your level of interest in a specialty. Do you think an optho program director will choose someone with all Honours and one summer of optho research over another person who didn't get any Honours, but did a Master's in ocular disease before med school and then another summer in optho research?

 

3. Your personality and ability to get along with your attendings is so much more important. If you have all Honours, but are socially awkward, you can forget about matching well. Don't forget the importance of you LORs in 3rd year

[Vallinar]

i would have thought the actual percentages in the classes would be on the transcript... so wouldn't they be able to compare marks that way?

[Satsuma]

i would have thought the actual percentages in the classes would be on the transcript... so wouldn't they be able to compare marks that way?

 

The percentages do not appear on the transcript.

That is the idea behind H/P/F or just P/F

[D-Rock]

Now, this is going to scare some people (myself included), so be warned. Plus, it's also guaranteed to be untrue for other programs, so don't take it as a given, but here's what the directors of two competitive specialties (one very competitive, the other not as much but still not matching everyone and their dog) at UBC told me:

 

1) Do I care about grades on your transcript? Not really. Obviously if you fail classes I'm probably not going to pick you, but as far as H's and P's, who cares? Some schools say an H is over 80%, where as others do it as being outside the SD of the average grade. These are not comparable. Plus, why would I care about how great you are at your infectious diseases block when I'm an X (not ID specialist, obviously)

 

2) The dean's letter doesn't mean anything. Everyone has nice things said about them in the dean's letters. If yours says you're a moron, well, I'm not picking you.

 

3) Letters of reference are the most important thing for assessment purposes. The problem is, with so many students, people are travelling around the country getting letters from specialists in mid-size communities who I've never heard of. Sure, it's a great letter, but I don't even know who this specialist is and who they trained with. How much weight can that have?

 

4) Your personal essay is important in the sense that you need to take the time to make it real, sincere, and insightful. Don't say, "I like medicine because I'm going to save the world. Pick me." But let's face it, most applicants write nice essays and they're not useful for picking between people.

 

5) Do an elective in my area, with my team. It shows interest and is critical for getting to know the people who make decisions.

 

6) Finally, so what do I have to go on to pick people? All these applicants are so close, and I can narrow it down to one or maybe a few, but then how do I pick the final ones? Well, I need something objective. And what do I have that's objective? Your undergrad grades.

 

That's when in my head, I said, "Oh sh*t." A classmate of mine hearing the same thing, and being a mature student thinks, "What, I have grades on my transcript from times before some of these applicants weren't even born! That's going to sink me?"

 

Ultimately, the impression I got from them is that you need to get along with their faculty and residents, and you need to work hard. That won't guarantee anything, but it won't hurt.

[unknown user 7]

So is the moral of the story go to a and take advantage of a P/F school? Lol.

[Guest Apollo]

Now, this is going to scare some people (myself included), so be warned. Plus, it's also guaranteed to be untrue for other programs, so don't take it as a given, but here's what the directors of two competitive specialties (one very competitive, the other not as much but still not matching everyone and their dog) at UBC told me:

 

1) Do I care about grades on your transcript? Not really. Obviously if you fail classes I'm probably not going to pick you, but as far as H's and P's, who cares? Some schools say an H is over 80%, where as others do it as being outside the SD of the average grade. These are not comparable. Plus, why would I care about how great you are at your infectious diseases block when I'm an X (not ID specialist, obviously)

 

2) The dean's letter doesn't mean anything. Everyone has nice things said about them in the dean's letters. If yours says you're a moron, well, I'm not picking you.

 

3) Letters of reference are the most important thing for assessment purposes. The problem is, with so many students, people are travelling around the country getting letters from specialists in mid-size communities who I've never heard of. Sure, it's a great letter, but I don't even know who this specialist is and who they trained with. How much weight can that have?

 

4) Your personal essay is important in the sense that you need to take the time to make it real, sincere, and insightful. Don't say, "I like medicine because I'm going to save the world. Pick me." But let's face it, most applicants write nice essays and they're not useful for picking between people.

 

5) Do an elective in my area, with my team. It shows interest and is critical for getting to know the people who make decisions.

 

6) Finally, so what do I have to go on to pick people? All these applicants are so close, and I can narrow it down to one or maybe a few, but then how do I pick the final ones? Well, I need something objective. And what do I have that's objective? Your undergrad grades.

 

That's when in my head, I said, "Oh sh*t." A classmate of mine hearing the same thing, and being a mature student thinks, "What, I have grades on my transcript from times before some of these applicants weren't even born! That's going to sink me?"

 

Ultimately, the impression I got from them is that you need to get along with their faculty and residents, and you need to work hard. That won't guarantee anything, but it won't hurt.

 

Undergrad grades (ie: grades before med school) would be pretty high across the board for most people in medicine, so it sounds like splitting hairs to me.

[monkey799]

While it's true that different specialties and programs assess applicants differently, and that transcripts from different schools may not be comparable, it's important to note that academic performance can be assessed in many ways.

 

This is particularly important in competitive specialties such as derm, ENT, rad etc.

 

In a school with H/P/F system, your classmates with more Hs will be looked at more favorably than those that don't.

 

In schools with P/F system, grades are still evident in the form of awards. Residents from competitive programs have told me that they look at whether or not an applicant from P/F school has received academic awards, as an indication of their relative academic standing in med school.

 

All the clerkship evaluations will show up on the dean's letter, and it will indicate whether an applicant achieves expectation (P), below expectation (P-) or above expectation (H). Ask your school for details of these.

 

More likely those with lots of Hs and/or awards and/or great clerkship evals will be the ones getting interview across the country, while those that don't will settle for 2-4 interviews most likely only at places where they did electives.

 

To find out how important grades are, best to look at carms website, and programs that says "we look for candidates with above average academic background" will likely emphasize more on grades. Also talk to residents while on electives to find out.

 

As pointed out earlier there is great variability and subjectivity in LOR and personal essay, and LORs are even less reliable given the vast variability in the rank and reputation of the attending doctor.

 

All of these is about getting interviews. It's sad that many great people who are easy to get along with miss out on the interview invites because their paper application are not strong enough.

 

In short, while LOR, research, personal essay are important, do not underestimate the important of grades in the form of trasncript, awards, and clerkship evaluations. It's an important deciding factor especially in competitive programs; it reflects an applicant's academic ability and level of work ethic - and therefore programs take it seriously.

 

my 2 cents

[lostintime]

But the thing is that for schools like UWO, I thought clerkship grades weren't passed onto the CARms accessors. It's only pass/fail...so I don't know how they can asess that.

 

As for academic awards, usually it's to THE highest mark in a course or year. That's like what--1-2% of the entire class? And those people may not necessarily want competitive specialties. So basically, if you're at a P/F school and you aren't #1 essentially (= no awards), then...you are simply not "academically rigorous"?

 

Maybe they care about it in other ways too, i.e. research productivity, etc?

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Different programs make assessments in different ways when selecting a candidate; however, a number of programs I know of, rank candidates for the program during a roundtable meeting once the interviews are complete. I've not yet sat on one of these roundtable committees but I am aware of what goes on in at least one of them.

 

The selection process often starts when the chair asks the committee if there is any interviewee in particular who anyone feels should be in their top x-number of spots. If there is a committee member (especially a staff member, since some of these committees are also comprised of residents) who wants you on their team, they can lobby to have you ranked highly. Other members of the committee can vouch for or conversely, raise red flags for each candidate and they do this for every candidate successively.

 

Clearly, for applicants who wish to match to programs which use this type of selection process, it's vitally important for the programs to know you and like you. That may be proven by a reference letter from a staff member in their program, clicking with the interview team, or best yet, by having a committee member vouch for you themselves. The rest of the items on your application serve to either strengthen the case to rank you highly or weaken it.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Valentine]

The most important thing when it comes to any application process for anything, is connections.

 

You could be the brightest, most handsome, most ambitious and accomplished applicant in the pool, and it wouldn't matter because the son or daughter of Dr.X, who is friends with Dr.Y on the interview committee, is also applying.

[skvangs]

something that has always bugged me... how do program directors know if a school is just p/f or h/p/f? won't they just think that the applicant never got an honours?

[007]

There aren't that many schools in Canada and they do this every year. I'm sure they've got it figured out which schools still have honours.

[rogerroger]

When a faculty of medicine changes its grading system letters are sent out to residency directors across North America notifying the change. Also a legend of the marking scheme is provided on or with all transcripts. This legend will also include info on old and new systems of evaluation.

[ploughboy]

I'm just glad that I'm at a school where a 61 and an 99 get you the same grade. It makes me feel less guilty about sleeping in and then sitting at the back of the class cracking jokes on the rare occassions when I did show up.