Not sure what to do. Need advice.

[rmorelan]

Well, in states they consider the whole package...GPA/mcat/personal statement. There are no set-in-stone-cutoffs. If you rocked the MCAT, you can still get an interview at top 5 med schools, even if you have an abysmal GPA. Also, your references hold a good deal of weight as well as your sketch/personal statement. However, if you did mediocre on the MCAT and have low grades...guess what? You are still not out of the game...if you have outstanding commitments and accomplishments, you will get a shot!

 

Hi there, it sounds like you are reinforcing your earlier point about how the US system works, but not directly addressing any of the questions I think are pretty logical to ask for such a system (its not actually your "job" to answer them but someone should know how it is done ). I am not actually judging either the Canadian or US one to be better at this point, but before we "jump on the bandwagon" of the US approach I think we need to go over how their holistic approaches actually work.

 

One aspect of the Canadian system I do like is that much of the system is completely transparent. I may not like the policies of say U of Ottawa, but I do understand them. I know what the expected cut off are, what MCAT levels they are looking for and how I will be treated. My main fear of more holistic approach is the loss of the that transparency. You can be continuous rejected, without having a good idea of way. For the most part in Canada if you get an interview, you are aware of why you got one. I was curious if the US is also so open. Hence the questions of exactly how the accomplish the ranking of various programs etc. How is that actually done? Hopefully we could learn something about that - at least for comparison purposes.

[Guest Dalboy]

Its hilarious that people here are ripping on Mac. Not because my brother who went to Mac told me I'd never get in and it turned out being the largest scholarship I received out of high school or because one of my profs who went to Mac for undergrad and postgrad told me he couldn't believe how much harder Dalhousie is than Mac.

Its hilarious because this crap happens everywhere. In first year I went home to Ontario where two self-righteous asses from Queens told me that it was "rough" that I go to Dal. I think Queens is a fantastic school but it seems like it is a school for some people who need the name and the vanity because they're not smart enough to back anything up with intellect. Everyone I know who has gone to Queens feels it is imperative that everyone know it like anyone cares.

To the douche who was saying that UofT doesn't inflate grades like other schools, that is such a load of ****. My buddy plays football for UofT, doesn't study EVER, and still gets C's. Your school is very prestigious, likely because of world class research, but get your head out of your ass.

I could also question the difficulty of McGill, Guelph, Western and even Harvard from what I hear from past and current students but why bother? I've taken brutally hard courses at Dal and I've also taken a few birds. I believe it is no harder but no easier than any other top notch Canadian school. I don't give a **** what Maclean's thinks of my school because I know that we're the 26th largest institution in Canada with the 4th most in research funding and the second most Rhodes scholars (next to McGill). It is also a school where to be an honours student, you must complete a year long honours project with complementary thesis. Unlike certain schools where one or 2 seminar classes in 4th year make you an honours student, these seminar classes are required on top of your research. My honours research was the most gruelling experience of my life and I can't believe others can have the honours title without ever getting their hands dirty. But that's my problem. I chose Dal and loved it despite my sleepless 4th year.

I took this opportunity to get stuff off my chest because I empathize for the Mac students who feel the need to justify themselves and I can't stand the sense of self-worth people have because of the school they get their undergrad degree from. Mac is a great school. I would have gone there to stick it to my brother but it has a major flaw, it is in Hamilton. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go to a great school in a city where bars stay open beyond 1 am and where it rains water, not soot.

[cling]

I'd like to see some evidence to support the claim that I've bolded above. You say that "we are losing a great deal of our intellect to the South", and suggest that reforming our admissions processes will help with this.

Brain drain is definitely present. No question. Can admissions changes help? You bet. Currently we are making cutoffs which will allow students in the 99th percentile of MCAT to be considered less competitive than applicants in the 85th percentile. Crazy...but true. Do you need an example? 32Q vs 39Q (the 32q had a 10 in VR, the 39 had a 9...). And so on... an engineer who scored in top 10 in his class is inferior to a health sci who scored in the bottom 1/3 of class. The engineer has a 99th percentile MCAT, fails the GPA cutoff everywhere in Ontario, gets accepted to HMS. That shouldn't happen. Of course, if the engineer got accepted to Mac and HMS, sure he would choose HMS probably, but that shouldn't stop us from giving him a chance to choose between an Ontario school and HMS.

 

 

I would suggest we can only reasonably say that some Canadian applicants are going abroad for medical school simply because the supply of seats in Canada is much less than the demand.

 

You are right. It is obvious that an increased supply will allow for less competitive applicants to get admitted. No questions there. However, we should do our best that our least qualified applicants are going to the States/not admitted in Canada. By using minimal amounts of low objectivity measures such as an absolute GPA, we are not doing everything we can to make sure our worst are the ones who we lose/don't accept. It doesn't matter if we lose these applicants to USA med schools or Burger King.

 

Everyone who gets into med school has the potential to be a great doctor, no question about it. However, since it is a competition, some measures are needed to make it as fair as possible. Why do you think the MMI was developed? Why was the MCAT introduced? Why are grad students given less and less special treatment? And so on. Do you need absolute perfection? No, not really. But if we don't do what is within our reach and without a good reason, what does that say about us?

[Guest Dalboy]

I for one am happy that some schools put more emphasis on who a person is rather than just their grades.

I agree that schools should do a better job filtering out students that have purposefully taken easy courses to pad the GPA. However, what's the difference between someone who took the summer off to study and got a 35 on the MCAT, and someone, like myself, who out of necessity had to work 50 hours per week during the summer and got a 30. MCAT success is based far more on practice than on aptitude. Just ask my buddy who, with his B- GPA, only studied during the summer and scored a 35. The summer before that he worked ~30 hours per week and scored a 23.

Med schools wonder why doctors aren't going to rural areas as if it starts after that doctor has left medical school. It starts when people are selected for medical interviews based solely on GPAs and MCAT scores. No attention given to where that particular student is from, nor if they've spent significant amount of time in rural areas working or volunteering, nor if they've done anything that demonstrates a strong desire to make a difference. To get doctors in rural areas, schools need to select students who are not only smart but also ones that want to be doctors because they have a passion for helping people and strive to be leaders in their community.

In my opinion, the person who scores the 30 on the MCAT with the 3.85 GPA but has worked in the middle of nowhere, has a tendency to do rather than wish, and demonstrates leadership qualities such as captaining sports teams is a far better investment for rural Canada than the 40 MCAT, 4.0 GPA wiener student who doesn't care about Moose Factory because it doesn't have the glitz of Toronto. I'm not saying all geniuses are apathetic losers, but when your cutoffs are solely based on numbers, your risk of admitting these people is far greater. If your cutoffs are too low, admittedly, you run the risk of admitting morons. Instead of allowing a computer to decide who gets an interview, which Western seemingly does, real people should be making a real effort to assess applicants.

[cling]

However, what's the difference between someone who took the summer off to study and got a 35 on the MCAT, and someone, like myself, who out of necessity had to work 50 hours per week during the summer and got a 30. MCAT success is based far more on practice than on aptitude. Just ask my buddy who, with his B- GPA, only studied during the summer and scored a 35. The summer before that he worked ~30 hours per week and scored a 23.

MCAT is an aptitude test. MCAT tests your application of basic concepts. If you read around the forums, this is what the majority of succesfull MCATers will tell you. It doesn't matter how much memorization you do, but rather how well you think on the spot. And then there is the written sample and verbal. That is just... stuff. Also, a lot of people who did well on the test also had responsibilities such as work, school, volunteering or all 3. MCAT you can retake if you weren't feeling well or weren't well prepared. Your GPA? Not a chance.

 

Instead of allowing a computer to decide who gets an interview, which Western seemingly does, real people should be making a real effort to assess applicants.

 

That is a good suggestion. As far as the whole, "oh it is too much resources" argument goes, people volunteer their time for such things.Schools in the States have admissions committees, and I don't see what stops us from doing something similar.

Sure cutoffs are definite. However, they change from year to year, sometimes quite drasticly and you really don't know how competitive you are until they are posted. Just look at the Queen's admissions. MCAT cutoff went to 999R. As a result, 1000 more people thought they were competitive for Queens. As a result queens had to interview roughly the same number of people as there spots in all of Ontario. Bizarre. Does that make sense? Therefore, there is still a good deal of uncertainty in our system. It isn't absent.

[princess19]

Brain drain is definitely present. No question. Can admissions changes help? You bet. Currently we are making cutoffs which will allow students in the 99th percentile of MCAT to be considered less competitive than applicants in the 85th percentile. Crazy...but true. Do you need an example? 32Q vs 39Q (the 32q had a 10 in VR, the 39 had a 9...). And so on... an engineer who scored in top 10 in his class is inferior to a health sci who scored in the bottom 1/3 of class. The engineer has a 99th percentile MCAT, fails the GPA cutoff everywhere in Ontario, gets accepted to HMS. That shouldn't happen. Of course, if the engineer got accepted to Mac and HMS, sure he would choose HMS probably, but that shouldn't stop us from giving him a chance to choose between an Ontario school and HMS.

 

 

 

 

You are right. It is obvious that an increased supply will allow for less competitive applicants to get admitted. No questions there. However, we should do our best that our least qualified applicants are going to the States/not admitted in Canada. By using minimal amounts of low objectivity measures such as an absolute GPA, we are not doing everything we can to make sure our worst are the ones who we lose/don't accept. It doesn't matter if we lose these applicants to USA med schools or Burger King.

 

Everyone who gets into med school has the potential to be a great doctor, no question about it. However, since it is a competition, some measures are needed to make it as fair as possible. Why do you think the MMI was developed? Why was the MCAT introduced? Why are grad students given less and less special treatment? And so on. Do you need absolute perfection? No, not really. But if we don't do what is within our reach and without a good reason, what does that say about us?

 

i really don't understand the need to try and minimize the value of a health sci degree. unless you are IN the program, you really don't know the difficulty of our courses and you're not in a position to judge the worth of a "health sci A+ vs an engineering A+". last time i checked engineers have quite a few courses offered through their faculty such as "professional engineering" which give them a break so stop trying to make everyone feel sorry for the engineers. there is a reason why NO ontario med schools require a specific undergrad degree - as long as you have completed the prerequisites and attained the minimum GPA in the program of your choice, you are eligible to apply. if you are convinced that engineering is sooo much harder and you want to go into medicine, then feel free to choose something else, but they sure don't deserve special consideration. i don't understand the endless debate over which degree is "better" or who has grades which are overly inflated. i don't doubt that engineers have to work hard for their marks, but so do students in all other undergrad programs, including health sci. trying to argue that engineers or whoever else have to work "harder" or that some people have it "easier" is pointless and completely based on the very biased opinions of a few people. english is often targeted as a "joke" when some of the english literature courses are among the most challenging courses offered. don't try and diminish the hard work of others when you have no idea what they have accomplished or how much effort they've put into their learning. these types of generalizations and value judgments of undergrad programs are very unnecessary and offensive.

[princess19]

MCAT is an aptitude test. MCAT tests your application of basic concepts. If you read around the forums, this is what the majority of succesfull MCATers will tell you. It doesn't matter how much memorization you do, but rather how well you think on the spot. And then there is the written sample and verbal. That is just... stuff. Also, a lot of people who did well on the test also had responsibilities such as work, school, volunteering or all 3. MCAT you can retake if you weren't feeling well or weren't well prepared. Your GPA? Not a chance.

 

 

 

That is a good suggestion. As far as the whole, "oh it is too much resources" argument goes, people volunteer their time for such things.Schools in the States have admissions committees, and I don't see what stops us from doing something similar.

Sure cutoffs are definite. However, they change from year to year, sometimes quite drasticly and you really don't know how competitive you are until they are posted. Just look at the Queen's admissions. MCAT cutoff went to 999R. As a result, 1000 more people thought they were competitive for Queens. As a result queens had to interview roughly the same number of people as there spots in all of Ontario. Bizarre. Does that make sense? Therefore, there is still a good deal of uncertainty in our system. It isn't absent.

 

what is that supposed to mean...are you trying to diminish the value of verbal & the written sample too? funny, because most med schools now seem to recognize verbal reasoning as the greatest predictor for success...

[cling]

what is that supposed to mean...are you trying to diminish the value of verbal & the written sample too? funny, because most med schools now seem to recognize verbal reasoning as the greatest predictor for success...

 

No, I am just saying that you prepare in a different way for verbal and writing compared to other sections. If anything, I am a big propopent of MCAT (ALL sections, including both Verbal and WS).

[cling]

i really don't understand the need to try and minimize the value of a health sci degree. unless you are IN the program, you really don't know the difficulty of our courses and you're not in a position to judge the worth of a "health sci A+ vs an engineering A+".

 

Nobody is belittling the health sci degree. It is a great degree. It looks like the rest of the degrees when put in a frame and hung on a wall. I am concerned with how med school admissions gauge academic prowess. Health sci is a well known program for incredibly inflated grades. No secrets there. It is unfair to expect an engineer to compete for GPA numbers with a health sci. Current med school professors and staff know this. I agree that your program focuses on things such as collaboration.However,the GPA is not used to measure your collaboration abilities in the game of med school admissions. It is used to measure academic ability.

 

It is easy to imagine why potery school marks are not accepted by OMSAS. There isn't even a conversion scale. It is obvious that the grades you get in potery school don't say much about your academic ability. Yes,even if it takes really high grades in highschool to go to potery school. Get it?

[princess19]

Nobody is belittling the health sci degree. It is a great degree. It looks like the rest of the degrees when put in a frame and hung on a wall. I am concerned with how med school admissions gauge academic prowess. Health sci is a well known program for incredibly inflated grades. No secrets there. It is unfair to expect an engineer to compete for GPA numbers with a health sci. Current med school professors and staff know this. I agree that your program focuses on things such as collaboration.However,the GPA is not used to measure your collaboration abilities in the game of med school admissions. It is used to measure academic ability.

 

It is easy to imagine why potery school marks are not accepted by OMSAS. There isn't even a conversion scale. It is obvious that the grades you get in potery school don't say much about your academic ability. Yes,even if it takes really high grades in highschool to go to potery school. Get it?

 

- why is it unfair to expect an engineer to compete for a similar GPA as a health sci? study hard in either program, do your homework and do well on your tests/essays/exams, and you will get a high mark.

- i find it interesting you say that it is essentially common knowledge that health sci inflates grades, even among med school professors. where do you get this info? heresay? i don't see any evidence supporting why you are stating this as a "fact"

- yes our program puts much emphasis on collaboration and other important personal/interpersonal skills, but it is used as a LEARNING TOOL. we learn THROUGH collaboration & discussion rather than getting evaluated on "how well we collaborate". schools differ in their learning styles, but this does not mean they are not competent when it comes to evaluating academic ability. there many different ways to teach and to evaluate (rather than simply traditional lectures and exams), but other methods are still highly valuable and yes they still measure comprehension of the material. similar to how ottawa, mac, northern and many other schools use collaboration in their curriculum, and these students still have to pass licensing exams and demonstrate that they have learned the content.

- indeed i get your analogy about potTery school, but find it quite irrelevant

[Guest Dalboy]

Every med school's curriculum (at least the good ones) now revolves around group based learning. This is why being a team player makes someone a better candidate for medicine even if marks are slightly lower.

So the Mac Health Sci curriculum sounds like it is the perfect stepping stone for the group based learning curriculum. One's ability to collaborate plays a significant role at these schools.

Being a loner has no place in medicine no matter how smart you are... unless you're a pathologist or something. I did a job shadowing for 3 days at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. This is the top oncology research center in the world. Every doctor was part of a team of doctors working on whatever project. Each oncologist also had 2 APNs working under them, and these people were crucial to getting doctors through clinics, so there was no room for the holier than thou attitude.

Sure I'll accept that the MCAT is an aptitude test to a certain degree. There is a difference in the ability to acquire knowledge between the 90th percentile and the 70th, given both practiced similarly. But aptitude refers to one's natural abilities. So why is it then that the score I received on my actual MCAT was far better than what I scored on my first practice one? Why is it that Kaplan told me that if I wanted a competitive score, I would need to practice so many hours per week? I'm not convinced that the difference between the 90th percentile and the 80th has much to do with aptitude or intelligence. My number one piece of advice to all my friends so far has been to make the MCAT their number one priority over the summer and study intensely. To no surprise, they have all gotten very high scores.

Therefore, my argument stands that a human should be assessing applicants using a systematic approach, weeding out those who have clearly not challenged themselves like their peers.

[cling]

-

i find it interesting you say that it is essentially common knowledge that health sci inflates grades, even among med school professors. where do you get this info? heresay? i don't see any evidence supporting why you are stating this as a "fact"

 

Here you go...

 

-

I have read this discussion with great interest. A close younger friend is applying to medicine this year and was telling me about how competitive things are now.

 

I graduated from medicine 8+ years ago and am now an assistant prof at an ontario medical school. I went to an Ontario med school and did my residency at McMaster. I should mention that when I applied to medicine in the mid 1990's, things were still very competitive, with only 530 spots in the whole province with a provincial population that was maybe only 10% smaller than today.

 

In regards to Health Sci - many people on the adcom (at MAC at least) are concerned about grade inflation in that particular program, but there is no way to address it. While most people are smart in the program - compared to other elite programs the GPA averages are way off any reasonable scale for any undergraduate program. Too much 'self evaluation' artificially can inflate marks. Averages are frequently A- or higher - virutally unheard off anywhere else - especially in elite programs like COMP ENG at Waterloo, or any program at UofT.

 

About 20% of all Ontario applicants do get admitted into medicine in Ontario in any given year. However, most people interested in medicine when starting an undergrad program never apply to medicine. In other words, considerably less than 10% of all people interested in medicine get into an Ontario medical shool. With Health Sci - virtually 50% of all incoming undergrads get into medicine - with an amazing 25% total going to McMaster medicine alone.

[cling]

Every med school's curriculum (at least the good ones) now revolves around group based learning. This is why being a team player makes someone a better candidate for medicine even if marks are slightly lower.

So the Mac Health Sci curriculum sounds like it is the perfect stepping stone for the group based learning curriculum. One's ability to collaborate plays a significant role at these schools.

 

Collaboration, teamwork and group based/inquiry based approaches aren't unique to the Health Sci program. Not unique at all. Also, such teamwork qualities of an applicant are assessed through the nonacademic part of the application, not the GPA.

[HBP]

the argument that mac health sci deserves A averages because it has students with 90+ highschool marks is stupid

 

every other life science program has 80+ students, yet the averages are C's.

 

grade inflation.

[blinknoodle]

the argument that mac health sci deserves A averages because it has students with 90+ highschool marks is stupid

 

every other life science program has 80+ students, yet the averages are C's.

 

grade inflation.

 

But put the same health sci students in those science classes, and they still get A+.

[AdamP]

I think after 7 pages of this we can all come to a consensus.

 

Bow down to:

 

1) Standardized Tests

2) Engineering Degrees

[cling]

But put the same health sci students in those science classes, and they still get A+.

 

Maybe. Some? Do you know any health science students that have, oh I don't know, taken organic chemistry classes during summer school at different Universities? Or have taken more geography, music and basketweaving courses than anything else?

You have 7 electives a year... Is it really hard to find 7 bird courses to take? Of course it isn't. The courses you do have to take are not known for their difficulty, either... unless it is hard to decide how to evaluate yourself. It isn't just my opinion, regardless what you think.

 

 

 

From McMaster Health Sciences calendar:

Level IV: 30 units

 

6-9 units HTH SCI 4A09 or 4B06

3 units HTH SCI 4X03 (See Note above.)

18-21 units Electives

 

Grueling courseload right there, right? No not really.

[princess19]

Maybe. Some? Do you know any health science students that have, oh I don't know, taken organic chemistry classes during summer school at different Universities? Or have taken more geography, music and basketweaving courses than anything else?

You have 7 electives a year... Is it really hard to find 7 bird courses to take? Of course it isn't. The courses you do have to take are not known for their difficulty, either... unless it is hard to decide how to evaluate yourself. It isn't just my opinion, regardless what you think.

 

again, very offensive.

 

i DO know that as previously mentioned, in organic chemistry each year the professor shows the class average (a C) and then superimposes the average of the health science students in the class (an A). i am not trying to say health scis are better or smarter, but simply that they are high achieving students who work hard for their grades. the high GPAs of many health sci students are a result of their hard work and motivation, not because they got high grades in high school. that is a fact. i know many health scis that slacked off in health sci courses and got seriously low grades (no, not an A-), but i shouldn't have to justify this. self-evaluation is a very important skill for anyone, especially those who wish to enter medicine, and encouraging us to learn this skill does not take away from our academic ability, nor does it inflate our grades. you really don't know much about our evaluation methods or what it takes to get an A so stop trying to act like you do. as i said, how do you explain the so called "grade inflation" in the "REAL university courses" in other disciplines? further, just because one person (aka Descartes) seems to agree with you, does not mean that the rest of the medical community believes our GPAs are undeserving or inflated.

[cling]

again, very offensive.

 

self-evaluation is a very important skill for anyone, especially those who wish to enter medicine, and encouraging us to learn this skill does not take away from our academic ability, nor does it inflate our grades.

So you are saying that grading yourself does not guarantee higher grades than taking a test? Are you sure about that?

[n00b]

But put the same health sci students in those science classes, and they still get A+.

 

then put them there. if they'll get A+ anyway, at least make them work for it.

[princess19]

So you are saying that grading yourself does not guarantee higher grades than taking a test? Are you sure about that?

 

yes actually, that is what i'm saying. first of all to clarify, not all health sci courses operate in this way and for the ones that do, it is not simply "i give myself an A+ so that's my mark". the professor has the final say in what your mark is and you need to provide sufficient justification for your self-evaluation. it is not an easy thing to do and the marks are not just handed out. many students who can get an A+ in genetics, orgo or biochem cannot achieve the same marks in some of the inquiry courses. as i said, our professors use many different ways to evaluate us rather than only standard exams, (which by the way are still used in many of our courses i.e. anatomy, critical appraisal of the medical literature, epidemiology, statistics, etc.), and regardless of the method, the final evaluation is very challenging and requires consistent effort & hard work in order for success. some people find this to be a hard thing to wrap their head around but it is unfair to try and argue that self-evaluation is a joke or that health scis do not need to work hard/as hard as everyone else for their marks.

[cling]

 

Fairness US med school system: While I agree with Cling on some issues, I strongly disagree on this. First of all, most US school have MASSIVE affirmative action policies, where URM can get into medicine with GPAs < 3.4 and MCATS < 21 with relative ease, with 15-20% of spots reserved. Aside from AA for african canadians at DAL, and AA for a few spots at most schools for aboriginals, most Canadians are on equal footing (aside from expected regional preferences).

 

Agreed. Affirmative action is definitely a weak point of the US system. Do we have to have affirmative action in Canada? Of course not! Can we take the multifaceted approach to evaluating applicants without affirmative action? Of course.

[cling]

some people find this to be a hard thing to wrap their head around but it is unfair to try and argue that self-evaluation is a joke or that health scis do not need to work hard/as hard as everyone else for their marks.

 

Earlier you compared an engineer A+ to a health sci A+. If you were an objective bystander and not a health sci for 1 second and someone gave you the following info:

 

1) Health Sci Average A- (Being on the conservative side of things)

2) Engineering Average is a C+ (we are talking about the 1/2 of the that pass and being fairly conservative).

 

Whose A says more about their academic ability: health sci's or engineer's?

 

OK. It's apples and oranges. You shouldn't fail to acknowledge this.

[~me~]

 

From McMaster Health calendar:

Level IV: 30 units

 

6-9 units HTH SCI 4A09 or 4B06

3 units HTH SCI 4X03 (See Note above.)

18-21 units Electives

 

Grueling courseload right there, right? No not really.

 

Actually, it can be very much so, depending on which electives you take. And most hth scis I know (including myself) like the challenge of difficult courses. And fyi, a 9 unit thesis is not a joke. I probably spend 20-25 hours a week of my thesis in the lab. And I had a three unit course for which I wrote a 150 pg report. And it was corroborated to the bone. Plus, I chose to do it; it was not a course on the course-list, but I wanted to learn about the topic, found a prof who would supervise me, and I told him of my plans. Let me remind you that it was a three unit course.

 

If you heard my course load this term, where I'm taking 6 courses in addition to working part-time and volunteering, I hope you would not make such remarks. I mean sure - there are some of us who may take a few more bird courses. But then again, you can't be honestly arguing that someone in biochemistry does not have the ability to do the same. They may have fewer electives, but they could still take bird courses for all their electives.

 

And if you had to pick a year's mandatory courses for hth scis, why not 2nd year, which is more grueling that most other programs I know of? Why such a biased view?

[dizzle]

my two cents..

 

sooo to add some stuff about the health sciences program (not that i have anything against it)..

 

yeah i agree, i definitely know that some of the students are ridiculously bright and would succeed regardless of the degree..

 

again i agree, some students really aren't that bright and can just grab a free ride by not participating in inquiry groups etc

 

my first two years at mcmaster were frustrating for me initially i guess. in first year, health sci students didn't have as many exams as me.. (i had 10 exams every year until my last year, where i took a thesis) -- so even if they took the same physics as me, chemistry as me, etc big whoop, they have way more time to study for their exams (although i guess they had pbl presentations to prepare for)... in addition, i had to deal with 3 hours of biology labs (which hth scis don't have to do lol), 3 hours of physics labs (which wasn't required for health sci students), 3 hours of chemistry, etc (microbio, plants, animal phys, cell bio labs) per week, which got in the way of studying adequately for midterms.

 

my last two years at mcmaster.. i guess i've gotten over the initial grudge and just accept things for the way they are.. i figured out the loopholes/special permissions where i could take health science courses (i've taken 6 and i've gotten no lower than an A on any of them hahaha)

 

in terms of evidence that there may be inflation at work? ... well only anecdotal evidence from myself. i've worked in the hospital on campus closely with some professors and masters students. without naming them, i know two hthsci profs that complained to me about the program. for example being confronted by the hthsci dean to bump marks up. the masters student i worked with told me how he TA'd one of the classes and one person in the group did absolutely nothing, got a bad mark and yet complained to the dean at the end and got his mark fixed up.

 

this is just what i know of the program from my first-hand experience. before you start having hthsci heart attacks, i'll help defend you guys a bit..

 

- PBL/inquiry is not always fun - sometimes you get idiots in your group who don't know things or don't do their share.

- immunology/virology courses are reasonably difficult courses (although not the hardest biology/biochem related courses i've ever taken)

- from the other hth sci courses i took, even if you don't have to write midterms or exams, you still have to write dozens of papers and pubmed stuff like nobody's business.. if you're not prepared to work hard, you won't get an A

- their 2nd year, particularly 2f03 anatomy is pretty difficult

- even if it was true that their first year marks were inflated, they still have many ways to screw up

 

some of the slackers i know in my program would still do poorly in health sci, simply because of their work ethic. if i had to do it all over again, would i have chosen the hthsci path? yeah.. it probably would've made my med school application process 100x easier lol