Lousy 3rd year marks

[Guest Jimmy]

I had actually never heard of the 60/20/20 thing, but my guess is that it probably isn't a myth. This will by the formula that they basically use. But's lets remember that when you're a medical school, you have the option of being flexible if you like the candidate. I honestly think that they are there to judge who the best future doctors are going to be and not to screw people. I'm not doubting that weak GPAs are bad, but when they look at that non-academic 40%, plus consider the quality of your degree and what you did, they might give you good marks in that area just to negate your GPA. They let in a good proportion of their interviewees so they do have the flexibility. And let's not forget that some people do "screw-up" the interview due to immaturity and so forth.

 

I don't have any more confidence in my UofT app than anyone else, but when you do seven full courses a year in a tough program and achieve a respectable overall GPA, I personally think that they are going to take everything into consideration despite a single mistake on one of your finals. What extracurriculars were you doing? What are you bringing to our school? Then they'll decide if they should weight that 40% to let you in or not.

 

A doctor friend of mine that was once on an admission committee reminded me of the novel Moby Dick when the head shrinking savage QueeQueg (excuse the spelling) wanting to get on board the whaling ship. Are you a Chrisitan they asked? He took his harpoon and hurled it through a foam bubble in the distance and that was all the "Christianity" he needed. I think this is broadly the same kind of deal... at this school anyways.

 

Don't forget that for all we know, a good nonacademic mark is 27/40. They might save the last ten marks just to let in exceptional cases that they want if they so desire. An extra 10 would allow you in even it your marks in one year were shoddy during your last year. Just because they publish the admission formulas, we have no idea how they are used or what they are going to do.

[Guest frivolous]

Jimmy,

 

"Nothing at that school is done in a half-assed manner...I think we can expect anything from Toronto but dumb decisions."

 

Ah...so naive. Maybe you'll change your tune when you get a PFO letter.

 

Right about now they are trying to desperately scrounge up interviewers for May 10-13, God forbid that we have inconvenienced their weekend plans.

[Guest a]

I must admit, I find it very disturbing that U of T finds it so hard to find people willing to do interviews. I really hope that this is just do to my lack of information about what's really going on. But - from the postings on the board - the information that I seem to have gathered is that despite the largest med school class in Ontario, and approximately the same number of interviews as the other schools, they are the ONLY school with a real problem in recruiting student interviewers.

 

This is scary. And in my head, it seems to lend credence to the rumours that the U of T meds classes are not fun places to be. I mean, what students wouldn't be willing to give up a few hours to help out their school if they cared about it, had time for extracurrics, etc??

 

I would absolutely love if someone would explain what's wrong with my reasoning above. I **so** want to be able to convince myself that I could be happy at U of T...

[Guest frivolous]

What a disadvantage it will be for those interviewing next week. Can you imagine going through a 45 minute interview where your interviewers are thinking "what a waste of my precious time"?

[Guest medsman04]

Don't know what to say:

 

I've heard

 

Faculty too busy...want weekend off...could really care less

 

Students couldn't be bothered...hearing things like "shoot there is no way I'm gonna waste my time watching some losers squirm and crackle all afternoon"

 

not looking good guys.....oh well maybe i'll volunteer...I'm not so self absorbed....

 

Good luck to you all

[Guest Champ]

Dear MedsMan,

 

Congrats on making it to 2nd yr Meds (if you actually are). Your comments really do go to show that the Med AdComs are not flawless and that sometimes they admit people to medicine that really should not be there. Your lack of tact and appropriateness in the way you "informed" the forum on the nature of upcoming interviewers was tasteless and immature. For those reading it who have been offered a May interview...are you trying to discourage them....Why would anyone purposely try and plant the seed that the May Interviewers don't actually wan't to be there (even if this is the case!). Surely a mature person would say that it is a moot point and that if you have been offered an interview try your best.

 

I am not sure what your angle is and whether you think the info you provided was helpful, but IMO I think you are very lucky to be in the position you are in.

 

 

champ.

 

PS. Good luck to all those for the May interviews.

[Guest YongQ]

Hey everybody,

 

I will say this again: the participation and personality of the meds classes at U of T is <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> <!--EZCODE BOLD START--> class-dependent<!--EZCODE BOLD END--><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->!!! For example, the current 2nd years have a reputation of being over-studious and uninvolved. The current 1st years have the opposite reputation (i.e. we're the dumb class, i.e. our avgs are 1 or 2% below what they're used to - it's also been said that we can "party like no other class has before"). Even the core faculty is aware of this difference between the 0T4s and 0T5s as they make the occasional joke about it in class. So please, when you decide whether or not to go to U of T, don't decide based on what somebody from here tells you about what your experience will be like - the class of 0T6 has <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> not even been chosen yet<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, so these informants are effectively talking out of their behinds. Remember, the many med students who go to U of T could've just as likely have been at another med school, so choosing a school based on your "potential classmates" is totally pointless.

 

To those interviewing this weekend, good luck! And for those on Sunday morning, I hope to meet you and give you the real scoop on U of T. Just look for the guy whom everybody calls by his last name...

 

YONGQ

[Guest a]

YongQ: If your class is so great, why is it so hard to find interviewers?

[Guest Ian Wong]

The fact that it's the end of the year for med school is a HUGE reason. Right now, looking back to my first year at UBC, exams started in mid-May and continued until the end of May. That's a massive amount of pressure to be under as far as studying goes. After several hours of studying, you just want to crawl into bed and sleep, or turn on the TV and let your brain atrophy for a while, or perhaps go and spend time with friends or a hobby.

 

I can totally understand if (as far as I know, no one's even confirmed that there's difficulty in finding students) someone were to refuse to volunteer their time at this junction. It'd take some serious big issue that was affecting my own personal life to get me to spend extra time on something that isn't going to influence me, my friends, or my family directly.

 

Just because many of the first year classes are concentrating on mastering the knowledge that they need to know to graduate to complete their goals of becoming doctors (which is why they're there in the first place) doesn't make them bad people.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest frivolous]

Ian...it is totally understandable that with exams approaching that med students may not want to volunteer their time to be interviewers. But according to Medsman04, we have a different issue here.

 

Maybe UofT can learn something about time management and get interviews done when things aren't so hectic. Other med schools seem to get it, why can't UofT (a.k.a. the lazy school that only interviews one weekend per month)

[Guest YongQ]

Interviewers must be in 2nd year.

 

YONGQ

[Guest ThugJaan]

If you ask anyone that received an interview at UofT they will tell you that we ample first year students giving guided tours. The ones in my tour group told me over and over again that this was by far the best tours they had been given.

 

AS YongQ said 2nd years interview, so blaimng our class for lack of interviewers, is well, stupid.

[Guest a]

Thanks for answering the question! I obviously didn't know that second-years do interviews (is that uniform in all schools?).

 

You are welcome to call me "stupid", if you like, for not knowing that.

[Guest YongQ]

Hi a,

 

I apologize for ThugJaan's wording... what I'm sure he meant was that in the future it'd be wrong to hold the 1st year classes at U of T acccountable for anything relating to admissions (besides the tours).

 

YONGQ

[Guest YongQ]

I'm not sure many other schools use students in the interview process.. when I last checked, 1st year Mac students read the essays, but I'm not sure if they interview or not.

 

YONGQ

[Guest UWOMED2005]

I'm on my way back to the Western forum, but I just wanted to point out that our 1st years have NO role in the admissions process. Some of the 2nd years interview if the clerks are too busy. . . but us first years do nothing other than plan the non-interview events for interview weekend.

[Guest Goldendoc]

Just wanted to clarify that at both McMaster, and Calgary students interview. At both schools its a mix of 1st and 2nd year students.

 

Good luck to all those interviewing this weekend, it's not that bad, just relax the interviewers are just there to meet you.

 

GOLDENDOC

UofC Meds 2005

[Guest stargirl]

My MCAT writing sample score was only an M...I didn't get an interview at U of T last year and thought that might be the reason why so I contacted them to see if they could give me any feedback...The response I got (and I quote)...

 

"Your non-academic package (autobio sketch, essay and references) scored below average for the applicant pool and this was the reason the file was refused.

 

Your GPA is in the competitive range and there are no concerns over the "M" you obtained on the writing sample of the MCAT."

 

I was impressed that they gave me that much info...and not having to rewrite the MCAT took a lot of the stress away...I scored 10 VR, 11 PS, 10 BS so the writing sample score was the only thing really dragging me down...on the other hand, that score is the reason I didn't get an interview at Queen's but I digress...

 

I reapplied to U of T this year, completely revising my essay (but using mostly the same examples...your life doesn't change that much in ONE year) and did get an interview this past weekend...YAY!!

[Guest Akane200]

Sorry for not reading this thread, but I will answer questions why interviewers were hard to find this weekend.

 

I don't like the image painted of 0T4s who couldn't care less. I did double duty this weekend. A lot of student interviewers took on an extra "shift" because of the last minute add ons. I do admit that a lot of people in our class like to bury their head in books a lot. However, when it comes to "academic- type" things to do, we're the ones to volunteer first.

 

Admissions did receive a lot of volunteers this year from our class. A lot of people spent their precious spare time reading the essays (30 had to be read in a period of one week!!!) and preparing for inteviews. I spent about 10 hours reviewing 30 essays and 90 reference letters. I also interviewed 12 times in total and spent 30 minutes for each applicant's essay and preparing questions for each interview.

 

There were 2 whole extra days added to this round of the interviews at the last minute (I'm not sure, but that's almost 30-50 more interviews each day).

 

Firstly, Faculty are harder to find on such short notice because doctors are busy.

 

In addition, the second year class had our major DOCH 2 research assignment to hand in today. We have practice OSCEs as well on thursday. We have foundations and the real OSCEs upcoming. May is a crazy month for us.

 

Thirdly, they were scrambling for female second year interviewers because more of faculty interviewers are male. They did find enough female interviewers too. And things seemed to go smoothly.

 

This wasn't half hazardly done. A lot of hard work from our class went into the process as well. I hope these explanantions help. Blame the second years; but we did our best.