newbeginning Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 .................................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newbeginning Posted March 7, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 ............................................ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyleh Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 Your chances are good. Look at the stats of those who were given interviews this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m1428 Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 What are my chances for 2012-2013 cycle? cGPA: 3.77 (one summer course with a mark of 59 really brought me down) MCAT: VR 11 ECs: nothing spectacular, in fact, VERY WEAK - minimal hospital volunteering, tutoring children's with disabilities currently finishing up 3rd year, will be going into 4th year in September... I'm willing to do anything to strengthen my application but I really don't know where to start... any helpful tips? also, does mcmaster even look at ECs? or does it all come down to my performance on CASPER and MMI? thanks in advance! From http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/selection_process.html Pre-interview --> Formula 1 - 25% Undergraduate Grade Point Average, 25% MCAT Verbal Reasoning Score, 46% CASPer Score, up to 4% Graduate degree (1% Master's degree/4% PhD). Post-interview --> Formula 2 - 70% Multiple Mini Interview Score, 15% Undergraduate Grade Point Average, 15% MCAT Verbal Reasoning Score. -They don't look at ECs at all, but having a variety of experiences in different areas would help for the CASPer as well as the MMI. -If you look at past invited/rejected threads (for interview), you can see that people with low GPA/verbal have gotten interviews due to good CASPer performances--> rock the CASPer, get an interview. -The forums have a lot of resources for CASPer prep as well as MMI... check those out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atomickitten86 Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 I, too, had thought McMaster does not look at ECs or reference letters. But based on this quote from their website it looks like they may: "The Undergraduate Medical Program uses two formulae to rank applicants - the first provides a rank order list for invitation to interview, and the second provides a rank order list for advancement to Collation (full file review)." To me, "full file review" implies that they will look at everything you submitted to OMSAS for the top X number of applicants after the interview. The bottom Y number of applicants after interview will not undergo this "full file review" and be plain out rejected. They will then rerank those applicants and send out invites, waitlists and possibly some additional rejections too. This is just speculation. @newbeginning, your stats are good. But you, like everyone else, will have to do well on caspar... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamsneverdie Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 hey guys i was wondering if the bolded part below is newly updated for the 2013 cycle, or if this was true for evaluations of current applicants (2012 cycle) also: "Several hundred applicants (552 in 2011/12) will be invited to Hamilton for an interview in March or April 2013. The selection of these applicants is based on the composite score which weights the grade point average from the Academic Assessment, the MCAT Verbal Reasoning score, scores from the Autobiographical Submission and, where applicable, graduate degree" quoted from: http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/interviews.html edit: i'm guessing by autobiographical submission they actually mean CASPer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Applemanv3 Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 hey guys i was wondering if the bolded part below is newly updated for the 2013 cycle, or if this was true for evaluations of current applicants (2012 cycle) also: "Several hundred applicants (552 in 2011/12) will be invited to Hamilton for an interview in March or April 2013. The selection of these applicants is based on the composite score which weights the grade point average from the Academic Assessment, the MCAT Verbal Reasoning score, scores from the Autobiographical Submission and, where applicable, graduate degree" quoted from: http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/interviews.html edit: i'm guessing by autobiographical submission they actually mean CASPer? HMMMM!!!! I had not seen that part before!! It looks like there may have been ECs involved pre-interview. I say this because, as I have posted on the invited/regrets thread, I have a very low cGPA and was thus far under the impression that my CASper alone may have saved me. But, I had a full 48 item sketch with several long-term and lots of depth/variety. This may also have helped me. Who knows, though, right? But since it is now stated on the website, it seems like Mac is perhaps the clearest of all schools regarding how people get interviews! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamsneverdie Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 HMMMM!!!! I had not seen that part before!! It looks like there may have been ECs involved pre-interview. I say this because, as I have posted on the invited/regrets thread, I have a very low cGPA and was thus far under the impression that my CASper alone may have saved me. But, I had a full 48 item sketch with several long-term and lots of depth/variety. This may also have helped me. Who knows, though, right? But since it is now stated on the website, it seems like Mac is perhaps the clearest of all schools regarding how people get interviews! yes i had not seen it before either! then again i have a gut feeling that by "autobiographical submission" they actually mean CASPer, but then why not just say CASPer?? it's interesting how they worded it. and also, while i was reading through their website, i found something else that was interesting (bolded below): "An overall simple average will be calculated using the grades from all undergraduate degree level courses ever taken (with the exception of credits taken on exchange outside of Canada/USA). Work of different years is treated equally. This average is calculated by the applicant on the OMSAS Academic Record Form and verified on the OMSAS Verification Report which is sent to applicants. McMaster University may also review and revise this average. The marks from supplementary and summer courses will be included in the GPA calculation. Courses for which a "Pass" grade is assigned are counted for credit, but will not be included in the GPA calculation. In order for the GPA to be evaluated, independent grades from a minimum of 5 half-year or 5 full-year courses in total, are required, without which the application will not be considered." quoted from: http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/academic_requirements.html i was surprised to read that; i wonder how this revision process takes place and what would cause them to make changes to someone's average? does anyone know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sprinkles Posted August 30, 2013 Report Share Posted August 30, 2013 yes i had not seen it before either! then again i have a gut feeling that by "autobiographical submission" they actually mean CASPer, but then why not just say CASPer?? it's interesting how they worded it. and also, while i was reading through their website, i found something else that was interesting (bolded below): "An overall simple average will be calculated using the grades from all undergraduate degree level courses ever taken (with the exception of credits taken on exchange outside of Canada/USA). Work of different years is treated equally. This average is calculated by the applicant on the OMSAS Academic Record Form and verified on the OMSAS Verification Report which is sent to applicants. McMaster University may also review and revise this average. The marks from supplementary and summer courses will be included in the GPA calculation. Courses for which a "Pass" grade is assigned are counted for credit, but will not be included in the GPA calculation. In order for the GPA to be evaluated, independent grades from a minimum of 5 half-year or 5 full-year courses in total, are required, without which the application will not be considered." quoted from: http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/academic_requirements.html i was surprised to read that; i wonder how this revision process takes place and what would cause them to make changes to someone's average? does anyone know? Sorry to bring back an old post but wow thats pretty interesting! I always had it in my head that Mac 'counts all courses ever taken...ever'. Maybe there is hope for me yet?! I had a pretty good GPA until my last year where I foolishly thought I could handle a full time job with full time school and got a rude awakening. I was always under the impression they never even looked at the rest of your grades....that they just got a number spit out from a computer system and evaluated you based on that. Does this mean they would look at alllll your grades (and maybe see you were a consistent A student with a few bad marks that skewed your average versus consistently scoring low grades) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kaiser Posted August 31, 2013 Report Share Posted August 31, 2013 Sorry to bring back an old post but wow thats pretty interesting! I always had it in my head that Mac 'counts all courses ever taken...ever'. Maybe there is hope for me yet?! I had a pretty good GPA until my last year where I foolishly thought I could handle a full time job with full time school and got a rude awakening. I was always under the impression they never even looked at the rest of your grades....that they just got a number spit out from a computer system and evaluated you based on that. Does this mean they would look at alllll your grades (and maybe see you were a consistent A student with a few bad marks that skewed your average versus consistently scoring low grades) Very strange that they would say that. Since my current degree has a way higher GPA avg. this also gives me hope (though I get the feeling computer cutoffs still may play a role with ~4000 or more applications). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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