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First choice? (post-interview)


What is your first choice (of the schools you have interviewed at)?)  

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  1. 1. What is your first choice (of the schools you have interviewed at)?)

    • Northern Ontario School of Medicine
      9
    • University of Ottawa
      19
    • Queen's University
      33
    • University of Toronto
      41
    • McMaster University
      18
    • University of Western Ontario
      35


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wow, I just went through the links that wuckfestern posted. They are pretty intense. Why would the faculty try to prevent students from getting to school during the transit strike? Why is Western ranked #9 now? I remember they were ranked around 3 or 4 a couple years ago?

 

Prevent is probably too strong a phrase - the striking bus drivers are of course unionized, and as with all universities I have ever interacted with the facility are also in a union. When the university arranged effectively a replacment bus service during the strike, it pretty much forced all unions to respond the usual way - by publicly coming out against it.

 

The university to be clear was the one arranging the alternative service, ie HELPING people get to the school which is the opposite of what was implied.

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Actually pretty much all of these links are misleading - of course I am at western so people might think I am also biased :)

 

MacLeans is not a particularly useful source for evaluating medical schools (or any other university for that matter). Their enter process is a more than a little ad hoc and don't specifically evaulate the med school separately from the rest of the doctoral programs, which I would argue is pretty important. Anyway, something more useful is probably the CaRMS match rate statistics - after all the various residency programs are far more likely to be able to know which schools train skilled doctors than a magazine editor :)

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Actually pretty much all of these links are misleading - of course I am at western so people might think I am also biased :)

 

MacLeans is not a particularly useful source for evaluating medical schools (or any other university for that matter). There enter process is a more than a little ad hoc and don't specifically evaulate the med school separately from the rest of the doctoral programs, which I would argue is pretty important. Anyway, something more useful is probably the CaRMS match rate statistics - after all the various residency programs are far more likely to be able to know which schools train skilled doctors than a magazine editor :)

 

The MacLean's isn't even ranking doctoral programs, the category linked ranks undergraduate programs in schools that have medical programs (although it is unclear if they are including the medical program itself in "the undergraduate experience").

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Where would find the CaRMS match rate statistics on each school? usually, the current year's info isn't available... (vs. USA schools, which readily post their class match lists)

 

well the match isn't done yet I guess so they can't report anything for this year yet.

 

http://www.carms.ca/eng/operations_R1reports_09_e.shtml

 

and you can replace that "9" with earlier years. I should say to that there is variablity from year to year at all schools (western dropped from 40% family to 30% in one year for instance), so you have to look at a few years of things to get the full picture - kind of like the premed thing all over again, you pour over the reports and learn the details and eventually get a solid picture :)

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While I do think the Maclean's rankings are somewhat informative, I think I find what current students have to say about their school much more useful when making a decision.

 

If the majority of the students at a school can testify that they thoroughly enjoyed their experience, loved the school environment, and have good things to say about the program itself, I will feel encouraged that this type of school is the one I want to go to.

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If you don't like the results from Maclean's, there are other rankings available. Although the other ones are not as catered to Canadian Medical Schools like Maclean's is, they still show pretty consistent trends:

Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2009

Webometrics Ranking 2010

Academic Ranking of World Universities - 2009

 

For this reason, the rankings from Maclean's are the most applicable ranking for medical doctoral (MD) programs in Canada.

 

Here is an article you might find interesting:

Cyrenne, P., & Grant, H. (2009). University decision making and prestige: An empirical study. Economics of Education Review, 28: 237–248.

Available: http://journals2.scholarsportal.info/tmp/1790307033076120777.pdf

 

Quote: "we find evidence that the change in the reputation of a university is based on what might be considered the appropriate “signals” that one would use to estimate the quality of universities."

 

Quote: "we find that the change in the reputational ranking of the universities by interested observers is largely consistent with the expectations generally held regarding the appropriate role and missions of different types of universities. For example, we find that for large research universities, increases in the amount of sponsored research per faculty member, and higher spending on libraries per FTE, significantly enhance their reputation."

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While I do think the Maclean's rankings are somewhat informative, I think I find what current students have to say about their school much more useful when making a decision.

 

If the majority of the students at a school can testify that they thoroughly enjoyed their experience, loved the school environment, and have good things to say about the program itself, I will feel encouraged that this type of school is the one I want to go to.

 

I agree for the most part. But there are some cavaets. Medical school is probably enjoyable overall, and since a student only attends one, he/she can't really attest to how good another one is. Secondly, I think there's a mentality that you end up reinforcing to yourself how good a school is after you go there (i.e. if you had a choice, and you chose this school...you keep thinking of reasons why you made a good choice) and that's just human nature.

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wuckfestern, you were asked to provide some semi-conclusive proof that you were a senior medical student as Schulich and not just a Western applicant trying to boost waitlist movement like a tool.

 

The Macleans ranking are rating schools with a medical school, not the medical school itself. The strength of several schools lies outside their research potential.

 

I have very little interest in research... I'm much more interested in programs that engage communities strongly and have a good early clinical component. I'd also prefer to live in a smaller city than Toronto..... So while Toronto's research potential does outrank many universities across the board and translates into a very strong ranking for the school, it's not a draw for me.

 

Do your research when you're picking a school. Don't rely on Maclean's rankings. Talk to students and figure out why a program is a good fit for you. Do preliminary research prior to May 13th, and when you know your choices really focus in on those schools if you're still confused.

 

Even on the very very off chance that wuckfestern is a schulich student. I would still be careful listening to the one overly vocal voice that tries overtly to tarnish a school's reputation in opposition of the other ~99% that really love the school. Every class, no matter it's quality, is bound to have a jackass or two.

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http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/rankings/. "A measure of undergraduate education at universities with a broad range of Ph.D. programs and research, as well as medical schools." Note this does not say: a ranking of Canadian medical schools. The issue is aimed at people choosing a university out of high school, not people choosing med school...I certainly hope that nobody has taken that seriously. As for the validity of the Maclean's rankings...In 2006, at least 22 universities boycotted the Maclean's survey, with University of Toronto president David Naylor deeming it "junk science." Take it for what you will, but my goodness please don't start to try and rank medical schools in Canada, it's going to be a pretty futile effort.
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I think it's pretty clear to most people that wuckfestern is a troll. Whether he/she is an applicant trying to dissuade students from applying to UWO is unclear. If true, I find that pretty sad. I used to think that premed applicants would stop stooping to greater and greater lows, but I am consistently proven wrong.

 

Anyway, my feeling post-interview is that UWO is my #1 choice. I am looking for a school with strong research, but also with collegiality among students. I definitely got that vibe from talking to students at UWO. It seems like a really fun place to be for 4 years. They match extremely well (same can be said for Queen's and Dal - although some people say that's more of a reflection of the students than the school). Not to mention that a few of my boys are there, my brother is a med student there, and I really enjoyed London the times I was there. As I've mentioned before, I'm so tired of the impersonal feeling at U of T, and while I thought the med school would be better, a lot of the students didn't seem to sell the place like at other schools (UWO, Mac and Queen's really stood out in that regard). Well, either that or they were just kind of socially awkward. I also was at early interviews at Dal, so I never actually got to see Halifax or the campus! My personal rankings of the schools I was lucky enough to interview at: 1) UWO; 2) Mac; 3) Queen's; 4) Dal; 5) U of T; 6) Ottawa. We'll see what happens in mid-May.

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http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/rankings/. "A measure of undergraduate education at universities with a broad range of Ph.D. programs and research, as well as medical schools." Note this does not say: a ranking of Canadian medical schools. The issue is aimed at people choosing a university out of high school, not people choosing med school...I certainly hope that nobody has taken that seriously. As for the validity of the Maclean's rankings...In 2006, at least 22 universities boycotted the Maclean's survey, with University of Toronto president David Naylor deeming it "junk science." Take it for what you will, but my goodness please don't start to try and rank medical schools in Canada, it's going to be a pretty futile effort.

 

Also, Memorial and NOSM aren't even included in the rankings.

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http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/rankings/. "A measure of undergraduate education at universities with a broad range of Ph.D. programs and research, as well as medical schools." Note this does not say: a ranking of Canadian medical schools.

 

This is what I thought at first, but Canadian medical school programs are considered undergradate MD degrees... it makes WF's list of links even more heart-breaking :(

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My personal rankings of the schools I was lucky enough to interview at: 1) UWO; 2) Mac; 3) Queen's; 4) Dal; 5) U of T; 6) Ottawa. We'll see what happens in mid-May.

 

Congratulations TheFonz! You'll have so many options to choose from on May 13!

btw... I think you are the person with the most Canadian med school interviews I've seen on PM101?!

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Fonz is a monster.

 

WKim101 is godzilla this cycle though.

 

They are... lol.. but the real monsters are the ones getting into saskatchewan OOP in second year or UofT/Ottawa in third year. Need crazy grades (without weighting) + a super competitive application in 1/3 or 2/3 of the time spent in university at the time of application when compared with a fourth year applicant

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This is what I thought at first, but Canadian medical school programs are considered undergradate MD degrees... it makes WF's list of links even more heart-breaking :(

 

I'm fairly certain this is not the case. My understanding is that Macleans compiles data on different universities, but because it wouldn't be fair to compare a large school like UofT to a small one like Trent, they group schools into different classes for more meaningful comparisons. Because a school with a medical faculty offers something entirely different than a school that doesn't, those schools are grouped into their own category. They are not, however, comparing medical schools per se.

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