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Swung by Mac Admission Office today

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medbat Newbie

medbat

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To try and ease my anxiety I went and stalked last year's invite thread....*warning*does not actually lower anxiety!!*warning* :P

It seems the lowest gpa invite was ~3.45 with a 13 in verbal....I am now praying so hard for an invite considering a 3.33 and 14 (stupid first year...grumble...) I didn't even see anyone there post with below that ~3.5 GPA.

 

Wish the emails would just be sent already.

 

A 14 in Verbal is pretty damn amazing. I'm disappointed Calgary didn't give you an invite off of that. Mac might though!!

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clboulia Newbie

clboulia

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To try and ease my anxiety I went and stalked last year's invite thread....*warning*does not actually lower anxiety!!*warning* :P

It seems the lowest gpa invite was ~3.45 with a 13 in verbal....I am now praying so hard for an invite considering a 3.33 and 14 (stupid first year...grumble...) I didn't even see anyone there post with below that ~3.5 GPA.

 

Wish the emails would just be sent already.

 

The lowest GPA reported was 3.45. Perhaps this is because it seems uninviting for someone to post a GPA lower than that.

 

If you check out Mac's site, you can see the breakdown of the last few classes admitted. As you will see, 15 people had a GPA of 3.0-3.5. As for indications in other threads that "most" people accepted have GPAs of 3.8 or higher... No! - 107 students had GPAs 3.79 or lower in the last class admitted. 97 had GPAs of 3.8 or higher.

 

The cutoff is set at 3.0 for a reason. They want to admit people who aren't just all brains, hence the CASPer and only the VR on MCAT. With a 14 in VR, I think you are sitting pretty my friend ;)

 

http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/documents/Classof2014.pdf

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funnyboy6 Newbie

funnyboy6

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To try and ease my anxiety I went and stalked last year's invite thread....*warning*does not actually lower anxiety!!*warning* :P

It seems the lowest gpa invite was ~3.45 with a 13 in verbal....I am now praying so hard for an invite considering a 3.33 and 14 (stupid first year...grumble...) I didn't even see anyone there post with below that ~3.5 GPA.

 

Wish the emails would just be sent already.

 

A 14 in VR????!!!!! The god of VR is among us ;) If mac don't interview you, there nuts lol

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dassy Newbie

dassy

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A 14 in Verbal is pretty damn amazing. I'm disappointed Calgary didn't give you an invite off of that. Mac might though!!

 

I know I was diaspointed as well :( But apparently the lowest GPA that got in with a 14 was a 3.73 (which I find to be still very high...I only had a 3.63)

 

Based on this: http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/selection_process.html I see 15 people in the class with a GPA between 3.0 and 3.49, and only 3 people with a VR of 14+. There's 3 aboriginals in the class only, meaning most of those people were in the regular applicant pool. And 15 people with that GPA in the class probably means a lot more of them were interviewed!

 

All of this is to say that I think you've got a really good shot at a Mac interview

 

Thanks for the research Captain, you always know how to cheer me up lol

 

The cutoff is set at 3.0 for a reason. They want to admit people who aren't just all brains, hence the CASPer and only the VR on MCAT. With a 14 in VR, I think you are sitting pretty my friend ;)

 

A 14 in VR????!!!!! The god of VR is among us ;) If mac don't interview you, there nuts lol

 

Thanks both of you!! I love how there is so much support on these threads :o

 

Curious, how'd you do on the WS portion of the MCAT and Casper?

 

I got an R on the MCAT and I think Casper went really well....I'm naturally a fast typer (typist?) and I had a lot of answers prepped next to me so I could refer to them.

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markov79 Newbie

markov79

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I got an R on the MCAT and I think Casper went really well....I'm naturally a fast typer (typist?) and I had a lot of answers prepped next to me so I could refer to them.

 

haha i think he was quoting/teasing the "there nuts" response to you, 'cause it should be "they're" nuts.

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dassy Newbie

dassy

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I'm in a position similar to you for Mac, with a cGPA of 3.36, but my VR is only 11.

P.S. I also got the boot from Queen's, despite surpassing cutoffs.

 

Sorry to hear about Queens, their process was soo random this year...a lot of great candidates got rejected. Good luck with McMaster and I assume UofT/McMaster!

 

ps/ I"m really glad to hear that I'm not the only one of this forum trying to achieve the impossible (with such a low GPA compared to others) lol

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RN-MD Newbie

RN-MD

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It is so easy to start in with the self doubt when you read premed101 forums.

 

"OMG every single person on this thread has a 4.0, got a 44T on the MCAT, started volunteering in the womb, published an encyclopedia of articles, and got an offer for an interview in December. IM NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT (insert sobbing and chest pain)"

 

Hahahaha, I am sending super good luck and self confidence vibes to everyone! We can do this! Be proud knowing that each of us brings something amazing and unique to medicine and that may not translate into an awesome GPA- or it might- but everyone is different, and everyone has their own journey into medicine.

 

Fingers crossed for good news!!!! :)

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PremedGuy1 Newbie

PremedGuy1

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To try and ease my anxiety I went and stalked last year's invite thread....*warning*does not actually lower anxiety!!*warning* :P

It seems the lowest gpa invite was ~3.45 with a 13 in verbal....I am now praying so hard for an invite considering a 3.33 and 14 (stupid first year...grumble...) I didn't even see anyone there post with below that ~3.5 GPA.

 

Wish the emails would just be sent already.

 

Congrats on the 14 in verbal dassy! That's quiet an accomplishment. I'm assuming that you're probably a big reader? What were you scoring on your practice tests? And how much luck do you think is involved to score a 14?

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Dr_Scully Newbie

Dr_Scully

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To try and ease my anxiety I went and stalked last year's invite thread....*warning*does not actually lower anxiety!!*warning* :P

It seems the lowest gpa invite was ~3.45 with a 13 in verbal....I am now praying so hard for an invite considering a 3.33 and 14 (stupid first year...grumble...) I didn't even see anyone there post with below that ~3.5 GPA.

 

Wish the emails would just be sent already.

 

 

There's a person on the non-traditional success pages (grad student) who had ~3.44 and VR10 and he got into Mac. He must've nailed CASPER and then the interview. So personally I think it really depends a lot on Casper and the pool of applicants they get from year to year.

 

Like others have said already, if you look at the last 3 years class stats on their website, the average gpa went from 3.89 to 3.75 which is a pretty big drop.

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KMMD Newbie

KMMD

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This is why Mac is such a wild card in my opinion. GPA and verbal mean something but not really much considering the majority is CASPer. And there really is no way of knowing how you did on CASPer. I mean as long as you completed most or all of the questions. You might feel good about them but we really dont know what they are looking for other than your thought process. Also, I dont think Im the only one who didn't have enough time on every question to get every point I would have wanted - unless you are a crazy fast typer. It is all in the hands of Mac adcoms, may they have mercy on us!

 

Hopefully we will all know early this week! Best of luck to everyone!

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Recoil Newbie

Recoil

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So what are peoples thoughts in terms of an invite release date? I checked and last year invites were released on the 24th, so maybe tomorrow?

 

I think I speak for the masses when i say 'the sooner the better'. I'm thinking tomorrow might be the day.

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KMMD Newbie

KMMD

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Tomorrow would be amazing. I would love good news but even bad news would be better than waiting imo. I'm guessing very soon, I see the latest being Tuesday since it's the end of January but you really never know. Last year Mac was a complete surprise since it was the first of the Ontario schools - this year that was Queens for me. And now it's just waiting and waiting and waiting. I find once the first ones start coming out then I'm on the edge of my seat until they are all out. Before U of T started sending invites I was fine but now I am on this forum every 15 minutes (even on the weekend) - so sad!!

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holiday1001 Newbie

holiday1001

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Congrats on the 14 in verbal dassy! That's quiet an accomplishment. I'm assuming that you're probably a big reader? What were you scoring on your practice tests? And how much luck do you think is involved to score a 14?

 

I think the most important thing you need is confidence. I scored 11s, one 12, one 11 in all the AAMCs and somehow got a 14 on vr. During the real test I felt calm and collected. But to answer your last point, in my case I definetely got lucky.

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dassy Newbie

dassy

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Congrats on the 14 in verbal dassy! That's quiet an accomplishment. I'm assuming that you're probably a big reader? What were you scoring on your practice tests? And how much luck do you think is involved to score a 14?

 

I saw someone else quote this and answer with a very similar answer to me and I was like waiiit did I already reply??? lol I'm a pretty big reader, I love to read (but very simple stuff, so it wouldn't really account for any big vocabulary or complex passages). On the tests I was averaging a 10 (usually getting between 9-11 - 11 being the highest)...so when I got a 14 I was quite shocked. I think it comes with practice (I did many tests and I looked over the answers with my Dad - who actually helped improve my score a lot). It's also luck of the passages you get - I think mine were more science oriented (but I can't really remember)...I also had a super super long passage for the last one (I mean you had to scroll like 3 times, it was ridiculous), so I don't think others did well on it so it might have bumped up my score.

 

SOO practice and luck lol

 

~~~

I'm so torn with wanting them to come out tomorrow or not until last in the week because I have a midterm on Tuesday that I feel would be completely disregarded if I get rejected from everywhere

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medbat Newbie

medbat

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I'm so torn with wanting them to come out tomorrow or not until last in the week because I have a midterm on Tuesday that I feel would be completely disregarded if I get rejected from everywhere

 

Queen's rejection probably cost me a good 10% on my midterm on Friday.

 

No lie - don't check your e-mail until AFTER your exams.

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