jsarkis23 Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 Hey everyone, As I was looking at the admission stats for most of the med schools in canada, theres obviously a significant increase in the amount of applicants. Some schools, in turn, have accepted a little more applicants (but not enough). For example, the amount of applicants at the university of manitoba has increased from ~500 to ~900 applicants since 2001, and they only increased the amount of seats from 90 to 106 since then. Other schools increased their cutoffs from 3.2 to 3.6. And not so surprisingly, mcmaster requires the mcat from future applicants just to "filter out" the largest amount of applicants in ontario. Im looking at all this and Im wondering what the future will hold for all of us applicants. How much more competitive can it get? Will the schools work in favor or against future applicants? Its sucks to say that I wouldve had a better chance getting in 10 years ago. Any Ideas, facts, comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astudentis Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 There isn't much we can do to change the school's admin processes... all one can do is try their best. Ever wonder, the increase in numbers is possibly just re-applicants building up from year to year? Usually non-trad applicants would have a harder time to compete with trad applicants, who are coming into the game with higher and higher qualifications (academically<- seems to be the trend). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a41 Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 who are coming into the game with higher and higher qualifications (academically<- seems to be the trend). Lol grade inflation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w8kg6 Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 Ever wonder, the increase in numbers is possibly just re-applicants building up from year to year? Nah man, I doubt it. This process has been going long enough that it has likely reached steady state with an equal input and output of applicants (any of you chem eng's out there will know what I'm talking about). There might have been a reason for it a few years ago with Ontario's double cohort, but that was the UG grad class of 2006, and with the attrition rates that med apps experience, that can't be used to explain the continued jump 3 years later on. Also, this increase in competition isn't a new thing by any means. I'm sure we've all heard stories about one ADCOM member saying to another "man, I wouldn't have gotten in if I were applying now". Just do your best, and blame the system if it doesn't work out . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
future_doc Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 How much more competitive can it get? Will the schools work in favor or against future applicants? Its sucks to say that I wouldve had a better chance getting in 10 years ago. It is what it is. It will only get tougher over time and we will be telling our future children who apply to med school how easy it was for us compared to what they face. I am from Quebec. McGill is about to eliminate MCAT for Quebec residents graduating from Quebec universities. Some believe this makes the process easier, but the reality is that the competition will increase dramatically. McGill is doing this to give French speaking students a level playing field for entry to McGill and so, there will be an increase in qualified applicants to McGill med school. No MCAT is irrelevant to me as I cannot put all my eggs in one basket and MCAT is required outside Quebec. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deeman101 Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 For the state med schools in India only kids that score in the >95th percentile on the board exam get in. Will Canada be going in this same direction eventually? I don't think so. There will be a certain point where the competitiveness is deemed ridiculous, especially when there is a "shortage" of doctors. The government will either provide more funding for more med seats, or maybe allow private med institutions to crop up so the kids with money can get in with less outstanding stats. That would still alleviate some of the pressure in the government funded med schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astudentis Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 Hummm, I wonder whether full fledged privatized health care or whether privatized medical schools will crop up first in Canada... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsarkis23 Posted August 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 It doesnt make sense, the doctor shortage in canada has been known for ages, andthe only change thats happening is amount hopeful applicants. Im sure UofT can handle a class of 350 students, so whats holding them back? University Sydney handles a class of 250 australians and 80!! international students per year!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ploughboy Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 It doesnt make sense, the doctor shortage in canada has been known for ages, andthe only change thats happening is amount hopeful applicants. More hopeful applicants, but also more seats in medical schools. Eg there's been over a 50% increase in the number of medical school seats in Ontario in the last decade (from an unsustainably low baseline, but still a significant increase). http://www.ouac.on.ca/news/medappstats.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deeman101 Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 It doesnt make sense, the doctor shortage in canada has been known for ages, andthe only change thats happening is amount hopeful applicants. Im sure UofT can handle a class of 350 students, so whats holding them back? University Sydney handles a class of 250 australians and 80!! international students per year!!! Well according to whats-her-name (everyone except me can remember it) from UofT med school, the government is not giving them the money to support many more seats. She told me that it actually costs like $90k to put a person through med school, and the government ends up subsidizing most of it. UofT actually had more seats like 10 yrs ago than they did last year because the government pulled money back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astudentis Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 UofA increased 30 seats this year alone! I think Calgary (3 YR program) did to... so there is still hope for applicants! On another note: from that website on ON schools data: in 1975 602/3787 = 0.158965 successful applicants in 2008 857/5611 = 0.152736 successful applicants I guess the equilibrium holds...so dont worry (at least if you are in ON or AB)... just try to be in the top 15th percentile of applicants Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsarkis23 Posted August 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 hmmm, so canadian med students get the priveledge to pay low tuition fees, and then when they graduate they still pay the price by having the government deduct a load of taxes from their paycheck...great! but im glad for the seat increase, lets all get through before they stop doing that, lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewfieMike Posted August 11, 2009 Report Share Posted August 11, 2009 Nah man, I doubt it. This process has been going long enough that it has likely reached steady state with an equal input and output of applicants (any of you chem eng's out there will know what I'm talking about). or anyone who has taken high school chemistry, LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAS Posted August 12, 2009 Report Share Posted August 12, 2009 UofA increased 30 seats this year alone! I think Calgary (3 YR program) did to... so there is still hope for applicants! On another note: from that website on ON schools data: in 1975 602/3787 = 0.158965 successful applicants in 2008 857/5611 = 0.152736 successful applicants I guess the equilibrium holds...so dont worry (at least if you are in ON or AB)... just try to be in the top 15th percentile of applicants I wish it were that easy... take into account the regional biases set up in 4/6 of ON med schools and you will realize that if you don't qualify for one of those biases, your chances drops significantly. I'd say that you need to be in the top 5th percentile to get accepted if you're from South-Easter Ontario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supafield Posted August 12, 2009 Report Share Posted August 12, 2009 Medical schools should be posting disclaimers for 1st and 2nd years. "Find the midway pt. between this years GPA cutoff and 4.0 and aim for that by 4th year. As for the MCAT, it'll be increasing, but we can't tell you where and we promise it won't be in a predictable fashion. Thanks for coming out" When I very first looked up the requirements to get into medical school, if you had told me then I would have the stats I had going into last year I would have been quite happy. Alas, I'm writing the MCAT for a third time and applying once more. I always thought the menacing double cohort which jacked up my entering admission cutoffs to uniersity by 4 or 5% at several schools would be the peak of competitiveness. It seemed to be a sound theory, but things continue to get crazier. I'm hoping that with ~100 new seats (the equivalent to a new Queen's) this year will hold steady to last if not improve slightly but only time will tell. Best of luck everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOC_Ma Posted August 12, 2009 Report Share Posted August 12, 2009 Medical schools should be posting disclaimers for 1st and 2nd years. "Find the midway pt. between this years GPA cutoff and 4.0 and aim for that by 4th year. As for the MCAT, it'll be increasing, but we can't tell you where and we promise it won't be in a predictable fashion. Thanks for coming out" When I very first looked up the requirements to get into medical school, if you had told me then I would have the stats I had going into last year I would have been quite happy. Alas, I'm writing the MCAT for a third time and applying once more. I always thought the menacing double cohort which jacked up my entering admission cutoffs to uniersity by 4 or 5% at several schools would be the peak of competitiveness. It seemed to be a sound theory, but things continue to get crazier. I'm hoping that with ~100 new seats (the equivalent to a new Queen's) this year will hold steady to last if not improve slightly but only time will tell. Best of luck everyone. Good luck Supafield. I think med schools should be more realistic about their cut off's too. I mean seriously for Mac its a 3.0 cut off but really who gets in with that GPA? Olympic medalist? Nobel prize winners? Also the stats have been higher steadily each year and last year + the year of double cohort was probably the worst 2 years, hopefully it will peak off and start to drop which I think is totally possible with the 100 increase of seats + diminishing effect of double cohort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOC_Ma Posted August 12, 2009 Report Share Posted August 12, 2009 what is this 100 new seats people are talking about? I thought ontario was going to add 300 new seats, but only in 2011. Could someone maybe update me? references would be great too! Hey neuronix, it seems from this year's omsas website, a lot of ontario schools added new seats so about a total of 100 seats in ontario. For example toronto used to have 224 seats and this year its 250 seats, western and ottawa both increased a significant number of seats if I remembered correctly. As for the reference u can find those on the omsas application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooty Posted August 12, 2009 Report Share Posted August 12, 2009 i don't think the increase in seats is going to "catch up" to the increase in applicants for a while. i also think the mean gpa and mcat scores of successful applicants are going to increase steadily each year, partly because of this site! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dampy Posted August 12, 2009 Report Share Posted August 12, 2009 I figure getting in with sub-premed101 scores would be all the more reason to post and rub in peoples faces. And what exactly is sub-premed 101? At least half the schools publicly post the classes mean gpas... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thatonekid Posted August 12, 2009 Report Share Posted August 12, 2009 I hardly think that most premeds look at this site...that would be obscene numbers (ranging on the 2000-3000s). I also always (and still do!) believe that the stats on this site are very skewed...as in I know for a fact many people who get in to med school and do no post their (sub-premed 101) stats here. Some people are just less interested in this anxiety-producing-terrible idea-yet totally addiciting - website. don't get me started on sdn... I completely agree with this. I personally know at least 5 people who got into med school last year with sub-premed101 stats, and I'm sure that there are many more out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neisseria Posted August 15, 2009 Report Share Posted August 15, 2009 I think the problem is that while seats are growing, the applicants pool is growing even faster. More and more students apply to be doctors whether they have the capability or not, especially at times when the economy is tough and univ grads have trouble finding job, medicine appears more attractive than ever before. This might offend some equilatarians, but when you see 5000 people applied to a school, the actual number of truly competitive applicants is far smaller. The rest are just paying application fees to buy disappointment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awarepoint Posted August 19, 2009 Report Share Posted August 19, 2009 It seems to me that even in undergraduate and graduate schools, everything's becoming more competitive, slowly. It's just natural, more and more people want higher education, and it's easier for them to apply as time goes on. And the economy not being as strong sure doesn't help the situation. But despite all that, you just have to make do with whatever "time" you are going through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooty Posted August 21, 2009 Report Share Posted August 21, 2009 I hardly think that most premeds look at this site...that would be obscene numbers (ranging on the 2000-3000s). I also always (and still do!) believe that the stats on this site are very skewed...as in I know for a fact many people who get in to med school and do no post their (sub-premed 101) stats here. Some people are just less interested in this anxiety-producing-terrible idea-yet totally addiciting - website. don't get me started on sdn... I completely agree with this. I personally know at least 5 people who got into med school last year with sub-premed101 stats, and I'm sure that there are many more out there. sure, not every premed knows about p101, but this site is growing in popularity. the information contained here is also getting around. slowly, but surely, more premeds are going to wise up and strategize early. i'm not talking about the numbers posted on this site. obviously it's skewed. i'm talking about the slow inflation of cutoffs over the years. check them out if you have time. of course cutoffs aren't going to skyrocket overnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooty Posted August 21, 2009 Report Share Posted August 21, 2009 Yeah, they're not going to skyrocket over night... but let's take UofT for example. The class last year had 225 people. If you look at the accepted/rejected stats for 2009, i think around 50-60 people posted that they got in... Now, I'm sure that alot of the people who got in didn't have extremely low stats, but I do think that this site attracts people who are well above the averages on almost all of the aspects of the application, and thus, this is not the most representative sample. Let's face it, I'm sure every class has a good number of people who 'squeezed' in with low-ish stats, and those people are probably less type-A than alot of the people on these boards. I don't know...maybe I'm wrong...I hope not. again, i wasn't talking about what's posted on this site. they're skewed. we know. old news. earth is round. clay aiken is gay. we all agree. etc. my point is that the cutoffs set by each school will gradually increase over the years as more premeds become more knowledgeable about admissions processes, partly because of this site, and employ more effective course selection strategies to maximize their potential gpa and mcat scores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medaholic Posted August 22, 2009 Report Share Posted August 22, 2009 my point is that the cutoffs set by each school will gradually increase over the years as more premeds become more knowledgeable about admissions processes, partly because of this site, and employ more effective course selection strategies to maximize their potential gpa and mcat scores. Hopefully the shift in equilibrium will eventually slow down. But you're absolutely right that the number nflation & number of applicants >> seats increased Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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