Guest diencephalon Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 The detailed sketch, when completely, looks like an exhausting, tedious list of all the activities I've done... Do the ad comm really look at your entire sketch, or do you think the look at the top half of it, and if its good they'll continue to look at the rest....and if the top half isnt so great, they'll just throw out your app. even though the bottom half is amazing? Call me paranoid, but I'm seeing this vision that 3 people on the admissions commitee are looking at my detalied sketch...but all the "good" stuff is on the bottom, and the "so-so" stuff is on the top part.....and I picture them trashing my app simply b/c they don't want to waste their time! Any thoughts? Thank heaven I'm going on vacation in the next month! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tanya23 Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 Hey again diencephalon, I think that adcoms have professional integrity. I would imagine they take their jobs quite seriously. Our application fee is payment for the time and effort they spend reading our applications. The mission statements of several Ontario med schools state that the "admissions committee has the responsibility to evaluate and consider all qualified applicants for admission to medicine..." or words to that effect. Plus, schools generally evaluate your application using a structured format (with numbers, comments), not just an arbitrary "nah, I don't like this guy" approach. So I see it unlikely that they would breeze over your sketch and not read the whole thing carefully. Plus, according to other threads on this board, there is a definite benefit to having an extensive background. Several incoming med students on this board have said "fill up your sketches as much as possible." That is, of course, with material that YOU feel is relevant. If you think a particular entry is "fluff" and really doesn't add anything to your "image", then leave it out. However, we all had to start somewhere, and mentioning your high school clubs/activities shows early initiative to be involved in your community. I hope this helps! Good luck....Tanya. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 Hi there, Also, when speaking with the Ottawa Admissions Office the other day, they mentioned that students have to jump the first hurdle of the academic cut-off to stay in contention for a med school spot. It's only those that do who will have their sketches read, which serves as the next cut-off when assessing who is interviewed and who isn't, apparently. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest diencephalon Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 Hi Guys, thanks for responding! What I dont understand (and I know this topic has been discussed to death around here, but I feel I need to vent this off) is how subjective the process is. For example, Ottawa/Mac/U of T read your essays or detailed sketch before granting you an interview. If we assume that everyone meets the cutoff, how the heck can the evaluate the non-academic portion equally? I know from other posters (thanks V ) that you need to fill in all portions of the sketch, but even so, how can one judge what's an "outstanding, unique" activity versus a ho-hum average joe one? It would be great if these schools had a strict, objective, points system where for example, if you did research/had a sports or music background/won some academic awards - you would get award points accordingly. And who ever got the highest "points" would be granted an interview. As an example, suppose an applicant won a contest for being the fastest grocery bagger in region (bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this ), versus someone who was the top swimmer in the region......Surely, the grocery bagger would be looked somewhat down upon, b/c to the general public, that achievement well, sounds stupid even though there's a lot of hard work involved (like bagging 5 lbs of dog food and 3 watermelons per minute all while trying avoid crushing loafs of bread and tomatoes in the process)... It would be better if ad comms awarded both these people with equivalent points, so that there's no bias in determining what's "outstanding". But I guess that is the way medical schools have always worked, and because of the sheer number of applicants, that above method seems unfeasable or perhaps the process always has, and always be inherently bias. So thats my 2 cents now...the time I spent venting I could have worked on my application ! Cheers everybody! Diencephalon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tanya23 Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 Hi Kirsteen/Diencephalon! Kirsteen, thanks for the info about the Ottawa selection process. However, I thought it worked a little differently.... According to the OMSAS book, if WGPA meets the cutoff, then the sketch is read (as you stated). But, my understading was that the WGPA and the sketch each contribute 50% to the score. Those with the highest scores are then invited for interviews. Maybe this has changed, and now the sketch alone determines who gets an interview? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest C Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 Have any of you tried calling Ottawa? Unfortunatly I can't b/c Im working right now and its a long distance call....and by the time I get back home, the admissions office is closed! Tanya and Diencephalon you have great questions that Im sure everyone would like to know the answers to! Perhaps if you called them (emailing take a looong time) you'd get a clear answer free of speculation toodles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TimmyMax Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 Hey there, diencephalon, (I know you were just venting with this suggestion, but I thought I'd address something like this anyway) While I can appreciate your frustration with the subjective side of admissions, I don't think that a point system would be very effective. It should be about quality (agreed, very hard to gauge) of ECs rather than quantity, and more specifically, what you learned from them. Such a point system would automatically reward those with the most free time to pursue the most teams and be in the most clubs. It would also be too hard for the schools to check up on whether this person actually contributed to the varsity hockey, football, basketball and volleyball teams like they say they did on their sketch, or if they just played for the bench the whole time. A consequence of this would be people signing up for stuff just to further their med school app, rather than because they're interested in it. And how does this do the swim champion who has to train 4 hours a day any justice? It doesn't, in my mind. While yes, it is very frustrating that your EC record will come under scrutiny and people who don't even know you will be making conclusions based on what's on your sketch. We all go through this; it's part of the admissions process, unfortunately. The best approach is to paint the best picture of yourself through your activities, because ultimately, each EC represents some part of your personality. Getting this across to the adcoms is the real challenge. So my advice is to not worry that someone is going to over-trivialize your involvement in activity X- it's going to happen to everyone. Just be the best applicant you can be and the rest will take care of itself! Best of luck! Timmy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 Hi Tanya23, I'm sorry, but I mis-worded my post. You may be absolutely correct re: the weighting of the scores determining who receives the interview invitation and who does not, and I believe that both factors (academic/non-academic) are used in the second cut-off. I didn't ask Admissions for information regarding the ratios of scores used at that stage of the process. The only information they supplied was regarding the first cut-off and how it is used to determine how much reading they'll have to do (!), but not how the academic and extracurriculars scores are combined to assess who receives the interview invitation. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tanya23 Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 TimmyMax, you make a good point about quality vs. quantity in ec's/volunteer activities. It IS important to consider the impact of ec's on our lives, and what benefits we got from them. However, the Ottawa application no longer requests this info. Does this mean that they're evaluating our ec's/volunteerism strictly based on numbers? I wonder... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TimmyMax Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 Hey, I'm not exactly sure- I haven't had a look at this year's Ottawa application, but from the sounds of it, it must have changed since last year. Interesting....I'll look into that further. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest V Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 I really doubt they would be looking at numbers. Here's what I think. Think of an Olympic member in swimming (actually this is a real case of a girl I met at my Western interview) who has to wake up at 4 am every morning, then go to class at 9 am... after school she has a bite to eat then either goes to student council meetings, volunteers at an old age home or I think maybe did some tutoring for blind children. Thats "only" a total of 4 activities. Then let us look at another example, ficticious if I may add, of a gentlemen who has participated on a pre-med council, recreational sports team, red-cross volunteer, student ambassador for their university, dance class participant and another two random activities. Let us also say that this individual has only spent about 1hr MAX/week at each of these activities, and does not make a real concious effort to make an impact at any of them. That, however, totals to 7 activities. In the end, the QUALITY and QUANTITY do matter, but a fine balance must be reached. You must have some activities that you are devoted to, hence taking up more time and leaving less for other activities (ie. olympic swimmer), where as others can be small acitivites with medium-level responsibility where you have the chance to gain some small experience by not really over-exerting yourself (ie. ambassador to the University). I think in the end, the things you take out of them with shine through in the interview. The activities in which people just "signed-up" for to boost their application can now be seen by the committee, and the interviewee will not look so glamorous (lacks the quality). In my interviews, they always picked an activitity on my auto. sketch and began asking questions about it.... their way of seeing if a) you really did learn something your level of involvement c) did you BS on your application. That's my 2 cents (well, like my mom says, a cent and a half). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tanya23 Posted July 20, 2002 Report Share Posted July 20, 2002 Very well put, V. Balance is the key! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest diencephalon Posted July 21, 2002 Report Share Posted July 21, 2002 Thanks for the advice/opinion guys...can always count on you! Cheers, diencephalon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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