Class of 2012 stats posted

[cheesecake]

In case anyone who applied last year is interested, the stats of the class of 2012 have been posted. With such a significant emphasis on a high GPA last application cycle, I don't understand how 3 people got in with a GPA between 3.0 and 3.19. I am happy for those individuals, but still surprised to see that.

 

http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/selection_process.html

[charmer08]

those 3 might be aboriginal

[future_doc]

and they may have aced the V and ABS

[cheesecake]

ahhhhh yes, of course. Forgot about that!

[mcgill_student]

In case anyone who applied last year is interested, the stats of the class of 2012 have been posted. With such a significant emphasis on a high GPA last application cycle, I don't understand how 3 people got in with a GPA between 3.0 and 3.19. I am happy for those individuals, but still surprised to see that.

 

http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/selection_process.html

 

avg gpa ...so high

[TonesRN]

and they may have aced the V and ABS

 

Verbal wasn't used for class of 2012. Will only be used starting with class of 2013.

[magiman]

wow...

41 from health science?

thats a pretty big chunk

[g37]

wow...

41 from health science?

thats a pretty big chunk

 

Doesn't mean they're all Mac Health Sciences. Western and Waterloo have similar programs for example.

[DrManhattan]

Doesn't mean they're all Mac Health Sciences. Western and Waterloo have similar programs for example.

 

True. However, 35 of them are from mac, fyi.

[igeorgex]

the class of 2013's stats are going to be interesting, to see how they take VR into account now...

 

but if the mean GPA is 3.89, what's the median??

[HBP]

Median is above 3.9 (that much is obvious from the distribution).

 

Mac truly is the GPA school. I wouldn't be surprised if the admitted 6 aboriginal students were ALL the ones below a 3.7.

[AdamP]

well will see how it changes next year, pretty sure it will go down.

 

anyways one thing is for sure. with a ratio of 122/72, every night is ladies night at mac!!

[gc88]

3.89 median gpa and the interview was supposedly worth 70% of one's post-interview score...i don't buy it...

[mature Applicant]

MAC is a high GPA school and I don’t believe that MCAT is going to change that. They introduced the VR so they can reduce the application pool. A few predictions about next year: There will be more science students applying next year who have already written the MCAT for other schools. This group generally has fewer students with 3.90 or 4.00 GPAs. At the same time, there will be fewer students with basket weaving degrees and 4.00 GPAs. The end result, in my view, is that MAC will not want to see a substantial drop in its mean GPA and will continue to accept students with the highest GPA regardless of the MCAT. This assumes that applicants have all met the VR threshold grade of 6, which is not all that difficult to attain. The bottom line is that a lot of people are hoping that the introduction of the MCAT is going to level the playing field when it comes to applying to MAC. My prediction is that the MCAT is not going to help all that much and the stats of the Class of 2012 is a pretty blatant indication that not much else is going to matter except high GPA’s regardless of how and where those GPA’s were attained.

 

If you look at the stats carefully, and discount the 6 aboriginal applicants, it is easy to see that MAC basically had a cut off GPA of around 3.70. This is contrary to what they claim because I cannot believe that there was a not a single worthy individual in all other GPA ranges. Given the distribution of GPAs form this year’s classes, even a prefect MCAT VR and a prefect ABS would not have helped to bridge the GAP. They just went for the highest GPAs and didn’t consider much else. Class of 2013 won’t be any different.

[Microbiodude]

Median is above 3.9 (that much is obvious from the distribution).

 

Mac truly is the GPA school. I wouldn't be surprised if the admitted 6 aboriginal students were ALL the ones below a 3.7.

 

Why would you assume them to be aboriginal? There's 6 ppl with a GPA <3.70 and 15 people who are 29+...from what I've heard its usually the older applicants that score higher on the ABS and post-interview...probably b/c of greater life experience and more things to talk about.

[Toodlee]

agreed, the 6 applicants were definitely NOT all Aboriginals. I read a post by someone in the Northern med school saying they got accepted into both Mac and North with a GPA of 3.8ish who applied under Aboriginal status .

[thatonekid]

Given the distribution of GPAs form this year’s classes, even a prefect MCAT VR and a prefect ABS would not have helped to bridge the GAP. They just went for the highest GPAs and didn’t consider much else. Class of 2013 won’t be any different.

I have to, respectfully, disagree with this point you made. One has to consider that last year the pre-interview forumla was approx 66% GPA and 33% autobio. Therefore, those with the higher GPAs were at a significant advantage to those with "life experience". Now that the MCAT has been introduced, the new pre-interview formula is 33% GPA, 33% VR and 33% autobio. Even if mac looked at those with the highest GPAs, a perfect VR score (15) could, mathematically, "help to bridge the gap". Thus, the class of 2013 could potentially have a lower mean GPA than that of 2012 (assuming that the post-interview formula stays consistant at 70% MMI). I'm not claiming that the mean GPA will be much lower, but it is not really that difficult to believe that it could go from 3.89 to 3.87ish.

[mature Applicant]

I have to, respectfully, disagree with this point you made. One has to consider that last year the pre-interview forumla was approx 66% GPA and 33% autobio. Therefore, those with the higher GPAs were at a significant advantage to those with "life experience". Now that the MCAT has been introduced, the new pre-interview formula is 33% GPA, 33% VR and 33% autobio. Even if mac looked at those with the highest GPAs, a perfect VR score (15) could, mathematically, "help to bridge the gap". Thus, the class of 2013 could potentially have a lower mean GPA than that of 2012 (assuming that the post-interview formula stays consistant at 70% MMI). I'm not claiming that the mean GPA will be much lower, but it is not really that difficult to believe that it could go from 3.89 to 3.87ish.

 

I agree that a drop from 3.89 to say 3.86 is always possible and could always happen just as a function of the application pool. The point I was making was that if you were around say 3.4-3.6, high MCAT and ABS scores would not have helped you that much this past year since they took no one from those GPA ranges. Slight GPA fluctuations are always possible but you would have to be up there to begin with. If this trend continues for next year as I suspect it will, MCAT is not going to be the equalizer that some people are counting on.

[ACHQ]

I agree that a drop from 3.89 to say 3.86 is always possible and could always happen just as a function of the application pool. The point I was making was that if you were around say 3.4-3.6, high MCAT and ABS scores would not have helped you that much this past year since they took no one from those GPA ranges. Slight GPA fluctuations are always possible but you would have to be up there to begin with. If this trend continues for next year as I suspect it will, MCAT is not going to be the equalizer that some people are counting on.

 

I have to respectively disagree based on facts. I was at the senate meetings when the Medical school proposed the implementation of the MCAT. One of the biggest reasons for implementing the MCAT VR was because according to extensive research studies performed (and MAC lovvvves evidence based data) determined that VR was the MOST correlated with success on licensing exams and clinical success. On top of that when asked HOW the MCAT will be used they explicitly stated that there will be an absolute cutoff of 6 (analogous to the 3.0 cutoff for GPA) but that it will be evaluated like GPA is (i.e. the higher the GPA you have vs the mean the better your chances, otherwise known as the z-scores).

 

Therefore we can assume that MCAT VR could have an effect on the mean GPA of admitted students, but this depends on the applicant pool. But you can be sure that admissions preinterview score is based on getting students with the highest GPA scores AND MCAT VR scores AND ABS scores...

[mature Applicant]

I have to respectively disagree based on facts. I was at the senate meetings when the Medical school proposed the implementation of the MCAT. One of the biggest reasons for implementing the MCAT VR was because according to extensive research studies performed (and MAC lovvvves evidence based data) determined that VR was the MOST correlated with success on licensing exams and clinical success. On top of that when asked HOW the MCAT will be used they explicitly stated that there will be an absolute cutoff of 6 (analogous to the 3.0 cutoff for GPA) but that it will be evaluated like GPA is (i.e. the higher the GPA you have vs the mean the better your chances, otherwise known as the z-scores).

 

Therefore we can assume that MCAT VR could have an effect on the mean GPA of admitted students, but this depends on the applicant pool. But you can be sure that admissions preinterview score is based on getting students with the highest GPA scores AND MCAT VR scores AND ABS scores...

 

The extensive studies are based purely on American data. The licensing exams that were used in the study are the USMLE and not the Canadian licensing exams. For those of you who may not be familiar with the US licensing exams, the USMLE is different than the Canadian licensing exams in several respects and is taken at different times by US medical students. For example, the Medical Council of Canada II is taken after a few years of residency when the person has gained a lot more clinical experience whereas USMLE II is required after the third year of medical school when the student’s clinical exposure is rather limited. There is no exam in Canada that is exactly the same as USMLE Step I (purely basic sciences). Moreover, the US medical student profile is somewhat weaker than the profile of an average Canadian medical student in terms of factors like MCAT and GPA. The US medical school admission process is also somewhat different that what takes place here in Canada every year. These alone could be confounding factors if we were to use the US data to make the same predictions about different populations that were not included in the original sample (US v.Canadian students). In fact, the authors of the study bring these issues to light to discourage overgeneralization of the results. Therefore I am not entirely sure that the data based purely on a US study is going to fit the Canadian trends. MAC claims that even without the use of MCAT in prior years, the students’ success rate on the Canadian licensing exams has been the same as any other school in Canada. If that’s true, how will the introduction of MCAT improve the quality of applicants in terms pass rates on the licensing exams (taking the school’s argument at face value)?

 

If I had to read 4000-5000 applications every year, I would want to reduce the numbers too. It’s too taxing and may even be too costly for the admission’s office. There is nothing wrong with GPA cut-offs and MCAT scores as long as the school is straight forward about its admission policies. Based on the recent Stats (Class of 2012), I don’t see that. Otherwise, I have nothing agianst the school or its PBL system.

[ACHQ]

The extensive studies are based purely on American data. The licensing exams that were used in the study are the USMLE and not the Canadian licensing exams. For those of you who may not be familiar with the US licensing exams, the USMLE is different than the Canadian licensing exams in several respects and is taken at different times by US medical students. For example, the Medical Council of Canada II is taken after a few years of residency when the person has gained a lot more clinical experience whereas USMLE II is required after the third year of medical school when the student’s clinical exposure is rather limited. There is no exam in Canada that is exactly the same as USMLE Step I (purely basic sciences). Moreover, the US medical student profile is somewhat weaker than the profile of an average Canadian medical student in terms of factors like MCAT and GPA. The US medical school admission process is also somewhat different that what takes place here in Canada every year. These alone could be confounding factors if we were to use the US data to make the same predictions about different populations that were not included in the original sample (US v.Canadian students). In fact, the authors of the study bring these issues to light to discourage overgeneralization of the results. Therefore I am not entirely sure that the data based purely on a US study is going to fit the Canadian trends. MAC claims that even without the use of MCAT in prior years, the students’ success rate on the Canadian licensing exams has been the same as any other school in Canada. If that’s true, how will the introduction of MCAT improve the quality of applicants in terms pass rates on the licensing exams (taking the school’s argument at face value)?

 

If I had to read 4000-5000 applications every year, I would want to reduce the numbers too. It’s too taxing and may even be too costly for the admission’s office. There is nothing wrong with GPA cut-offs and MCAT scores as long as the school is straight forward about its admission policies. Based on the recent Stats (Class of 2012), I don’t see that. Otherwise, I have nothing agianst the school or its PBL system.

 

The data McMaster presented was on a CANADIAN study that indicated that MCAT VR correlated well with success on both MCCQE I and II

 

Mac may have claimed that not having taken the MCAT does not affect ones success on these exams, but they never claimed (back then) that it did not correlate well with success.

 

The main reason mac has implemented is because of the very fact: there are too many applicants with similar stats (very high GPA's), and it has become increasing difficult to justify interviewing one applicant with a 3.9 vs another applicant with a 3.9 solely based on the ABS. Hence implementing the MCAT VR (which according to them) has shown correlation with success in the future as a physician, and they can be more "justified" in taking someone with a 3.9 GPA and a 12 VR vs a 3.9 GPA and an 8 VR (of course factoring in the ABS)

 

No doubt that this will decrease the number of applications, yet I do not believe they will drastically drop. I'd be surprised if they fell below 3000 (given the number of applicants to Queens), and will probably be closer to 3500-4000 (vs the current 4500-5000) because they still don't require preqs, allow 3rd years to apply and have a bare minimum 6 cutoff (which although everyone knows is like the 3.0 GPA cutoff but that will not stop them from applying) .

[mature Applicant]

The data McMaster presented was on a CANADIAN study that indicated that MCAT VR correlated well with success on both MCCQE I and II

 

Mac may have claimed that not having taken the MCAT does not affect ones success on these exams, but they never claimed (back then) that it did not correlate well with success.

 

The main reason mac has implemented is because of the very fact: there are too many applicants with similar stats (very high GPA's), and it has become increasing difficult to justify interviewing one applicant with a 3.9 vs another applicant with a 3.9 solely based on the ABS. Hence implementing the MCAT VR (which according to them) has shown correlation with success in the future as a physician, and they can be more "justified" in taking someone with a 3.9 GPA and a 12 VR vs a 3.9 GPA and an 8 VR (of course factoring in the ABS)

 

No doubt that this will decrease the number of applications, yet I do not believe they will drastically drop. I'd be surprised if they fell below 3000 (given the number of applicants to Queens), and will probably be closer to 3500-4000 (vs the current 4500-5000) because they still don't require preqs, allow 3rd years to apply and have a bare minimum 6 cutoff (which although everyone knows is like the 3.0 GPA cutoff but that will not stop them from applying) .

 

Do you mind posting the link to the Canadian study you mentioned? I have carefully read the study that MAC presented to the Senate, and they provided a link to the actual publication. That link was to a US study. No Canadian medical school participated. I’m usually pretty up on these things and am not aware of any Canadian study of this nature. I do suspect, however, that you are repeating MAC’s interpretation of the US data and their claim that it applies to Canadian licensing exams, which is probably what they said in that Senate presentation. However, there is nothing in the actual article I read that even attempted to make such correlation. But if I have missed the Canadian study and there is such data out there, I sure would like to take a look at the it and learn more about the study’s methodology!

[ACHQ]

Do you mind posting the link to the Canadian study you mentioned? I have carefully read the study that MAC presented to the Senate, and they provided a link to the actual publication. That link was to a US study. No Canadian medical school participated. I’m usually pretty up on these things and am not aware of any Canadian study of this nature. I do suspect, however, that you are repeating MAC’s interpretation of the US data and their claim that it applies to Canadian licensing exams, which is probably what they said in that Senate presentation. However, there is nothing in the actual article I read that even attempted to make such correlation. But if I have missed the Canadian study and there is such data out there, I sure would like to take a look at the it and learn more about the study’s methodology!

 

Your probably right about them using a U.S. study. If the link they posted was for the U.S. study than that's what they based it on, and I didnt really check up on it, I'm just reporting what Mac presented at the senate meeting, in which they made it seem that it was a Canadian study.

 

Whether or not Mac has properly argued/been straight forward about their admissions policy is still up in the air. Even after a lengthy debate on the issue it seemed as though they convinced more than enough people on the senate board that it should be implemented.

 

wrt the gpa issue, the reason that the mean GPA is very high this year (and skewed towards 3.9-4.0) is the fact that GPA was worth 60+% of the pre-interview score, since they use z-scores someone with a 3.9-4.0 is at a distinct advantage and as long as they present a decent ABS they have a solid shot at an interview.

 

If you introduce the MCAT VR, the mean GPA may or may not drop depending on the distribution of MCAT VR scores among the various GPA brackets. I wouldn't be surprised if it either dropped significantly or stayed the same... this is McMaster after all!

[mature Applicant]

Thanks for clearing this up. It sounds like MAC's idea of data driven decision making is to put a saddle on a donkey and call it a horse.

[abcwxyz]

If VR correlated to the USMLE's, it's still important and valid as an admission tool.