Strange Stuff

[Guest Gomer]

Hello all,

 

I'd just like to share my disatisfaction with the U of T admissions process. I recently recieved my rejection (dated April 11) after a ridiculously long wait. The fact that I was rejected does not bother me as much as the circumstances surrounding my rejection. My OMSAS-converted GPA for U of T as a completed Honours BSc student is approximately 3.86, and MCAT scores of 9,9,10 and Q. I have numerous and diverse medically and non-medically related extracurricular activities, and I wrote a fairly strong autobiographical essay. As such, my general feeling was that I had credentials that at least met (and most likely exceeded) the minimums set forth by U of T. I suppose I was wrong.

 

The thing is that I have heard of and know a few applicants that have recieved interviews to U of T with lesser GPA/MCAT credentials, and with little to no practical extracurricular experiences (be it medically related or otherwise). Granted, I understand that GPA/MCAT are not the only deciding factors at play, however, U of T's process seems fairly biased towards academic selection factors over non-academic criterion.

 

Prompted by a curiosity to learn of the specific area of my application that was insufficient in gaining an interview, I have contacted the U of T Admissions Office and kindly asked them to elaborate on my rejection. Three days have passed with still no word. I am now considering contacting the Dean to ask my question.

 

This is my story. I simply want to hear of/know if anyone has had a similar experience at U of T, or any other medical school for that matter. My thinking is leading me to the paranoid conclusion that there may be a hidden agenda in their selection process that favours applicants from U of T, or other supposed "upper-crust" schools. I don't want to believe this, because their mission statement denounces such a bias in their selection process, but is it coincidental that the applicants that I know of that recieved interview calls with lesser credentials are undergrad U of T students? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

Best regards to all,

 

Gomer

[Guest hesus]

u of t has a fair admission process and I think you are experiencing what one might refer to as "sour grapes" syndrome. Your application probably lacked something that the other two applicants had. Maybe they though you were not well suited for their program. Move on! you are going to get no where by calling deans! once they have decided, they have decided.

[Guest Gomer]

And you know that U of T's admissions process is fair how? Are you some kind of expert. As for the "sour grapes" comment, I simply am stating how I feel in a frank and non-condescending manner. Maybe you should take the time to read it carefully before you shoot your mouth off.

[Guest Volker]

I saw your post on another forum, and the second I saw it, I thought this post is going to get flamed! Don't listen to the "sour grapes" comment that you have received already on this board, and you will probably receive on the other forum. As I'm sure you know, you have a every right to be bitter. It's disappointing to be rejected knowing that you are a qualified applicant and after all of your hard work. The sad part is that you are part of the majority - more people are rejected than are accepted to medical school.

 

You should definitely pursue your request to find more information about why you were rejected. Even though it won't change the outcome, it will provide you (and other rejected applicants willing to do this) with valuable information for future applications (if you are not accepted elsewhere). But you likely will not be able to get an answer until, at least, after the final round of interviews, or even after May 31st, when all applicants have been ranked and only if they are willing to provide you with feedback. Contacting the Dean right now wouldn't help you get the information any sooner, as it would not be a high priority, and I doubt the Dean is that directly involved in the admission process to be able to give you the type of feedback you want.

 

Regards,

Volker

[Guest jasmine]

nice for consoling this loser...but probably wont help contacting ut at this time.......they are very busy!

[Guest Gomer]

Positive comments appreciated. As for "Jasmine", your condescending comments and obvious lack of grammar, spelling and articulation clearly show who the true loser is. Enough said.

[Guest asdf]

i dont think that even your superior english skills will get you an interview now...you loser!

[Guest Nick]

may i suggest a carribbean medical school for Gomer, the wise one.

[Guest Rogue]

What is the web address of the other forum - I am intersted to know!

 

Thx

[Guest Anonymous2]

Hello Gomer,

 

I am sorry to hear that you did not make it for UT. Their admission process is rather weird and not specifically outlined (for instance, say Western or Queen's). There DOES seem to be a bit of subjectivity involved, which makes it much more frustrating than to be rejected at Queen's or Western (in which one clearly knows what and how to improve one's chances next time around).

 

As for the condescending comments and flames from the other people, perhaps this is from the same person?

 

jasmine = asdf = Nick

 

Just a thought. =)

 

Rogue: the website is www.delphi.com/anandmed/

[Guest Gomer]

Thanks for the input Anonymous2. I'm pretty sure it's still the same idiot, considering that they use the lower-case "i" in all of the posts. Nice try, though, jack-ass!

[Guest gim]

Dear Gomer:

Although the rude comments from the above mentioned people have been hurtful, there is some truth to them. You might think that UT admission's process is mysterious; however, UT has no hidden agenda in its evaluation process. Like all other universities, there is subjectivity in its process, when the evaluation of non-academic qualities is considered. However, this is 40% of the application. To minimize the subjectivity, every applicant's essay is read and evaluated by more than one person. Majority of the application is based on academic record with which there could be no tempering.

 

Nonetheless, I am sure you determination will have promising results, if not this year then the next one.

There always exists the option of international schools if you think that becoming doctor is your ultimate goal in life.

Bon chance,

Gim

[Guest tired]

Whatever gim. Gomer can also get in at more than one university in Ontario. U of T is only one of five. I'd say "your hope to be a doctor rests on international schools" (to paraphrase) is a bit harsh and presumptuous. Oh well, condescending remarks seem to be the forte of undergrad preMDs.

[Guest gim]

you idiot it was just a suggestion...man try and raise your self-esteem.

[Guest tired]

Thanks for the condescending reply, gim. You really are helpful

[Guest Random]

I don't think this is what Ian had in mind when he put this forum together.

 

This is starting to sound like premedical.com where the discussions have little to do with medicine and more to do with putting others down.

 

Oh well.

[Guest Yup]

Yeah, gim should not respond this nonsense. Let's concentrate on interviews/admissions.

[Guest gim]

toronto rules! did you look at the hospitals!

[Guest Ian Wong]

Thanks Random,

 

It's a bit tough around exam/application time to maintain your cool, and this forum is a small representation (completely valid or not) of the people applying to medical school.

 

I think the very first post about the perceived unfairness of the admissions process is well within my personal vision of what these forums should be about. However, some of the following replies were not. I do have the ability to delete replies, but I would really prefer not to have to censor out people's messages.

 

Therefore, I'd like to ask that you consider carefully what you write before you post it. That way, you'll perform the pruning so that I won't have to.

 

Swearing isn't condoned, but malicious comments are even more verboten. If you say something nicely, but have it loaded with all sorts of innuendo, that is delivered in a way with a sole intent to hurt someone, things will get pulled at that time.

 

Anyways, to get this topic back on track from it's original post, this is my big beef with the whole admissions process. Different schools looks for different things, and despite there being guidelines published in each medical school/university calendar, at the end of the day, it is a whole bunch of tired and overworked people trying to decide if:

 

Applicant A, with a good GPA/MCATs, and good extra-currics

 

is a better applicant than

 

Applicant B, with a good GPA/MCATs, and good extra-currics

 

It's a really tough call! This works both for, and against, each individual applicant, in that depending on which members of the admissions committee see your application first, and perhaps even depending on the quality of the applications they've seen before they view yours, you can't consistently say that one applicant is more suited to medicine than the next applicant.

 

With that said, you can help stack the odds in your favour by making your application as strong as possible. That's where this web-site come in, as a source of information to help unlock the black box of admissions as much as is reasonably possible.

 

Each premed applicant has a wealth of information, gathered through friends, professors, and their entire social network. Imagine a place where this knowledge is freely shared and discussed, and that is my vision of this web-site, and in particular, this forum. My hope is that once this round of interviews is over, and rejection/acceptance letters are out, that you'll contribute your knowledge as to your interview process, any rumours you heard about while interviewing here, and so on.

 

If you want to contribute right now, there's a "New Topic" button just to the top right of the screen. Start a new post, and we'll all jump in.

 

Let's make it happen.

 

Ian

UBC, MS2

[Guest SmileyKitty]

Hey Gomer, you sound like you do have good credentials but hey, may be you just got unlucky. What do I mean by that? Well the way I see it is that picking a med school class is a lot like picking a soccer team. You need a diverse class so you have a class that can use their different backgrounds to collaborate. You can't have a team with all forwards, you need some defensemen, a goaltender or two, and some midfielders.

If all med schools chose their students based on what "looks good" on paper, they would take all the people with 3.95 GPAs and above. But they won't have much diversity would they?

That's why they set a minimum requirement and a cut-off.

 

 

So for you not getting an interview is not the end of the world, just try again. I'm sure if you apply to other schools you can possibly get an interview. Man, you just need to enjoy yourself a bit more.

 

But yeah for all those who are considering medical school, from what I hear, 3.7 and up is pretty solid. U of T is a bit higher, but then again, they take your worse year and count it as .5 so that might help. Same with Ottawa, if you dont' do well in first year, make sure you kill your upper years. Oh yeah and for McMaster, even though the minimum is 3.0, still try your absolute best to get as high as a GPA as you can, I mean, with all those applicants, (esp the health scis who are applying next year, who do have amazing extra-cirrics and good marks) you should make yourself as amazing as possible.

 

It's not impossible, you just gotta figure out what you are doing wrong, what you should do to go about solving it, and then do it. Self-assessment is an important tool for self-improvement. And even if you are successful you can always do better!

 

Oh yeah I'd also like to say PBL RULES!

Problem-Based Learning and Self-Directed Learning, will lead you to success NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WHERE YOU ARE AT! As long as you know how to use it.

[Guest macyear3]

Hi there SmileyKitty

 

I have seen your posts in the other threads and although your enthusiasm for the Bachelor of Health Sciences program at Mac is commended, I think you are not seeing the big picture. You are correct in understanding that Medical schools require diversity, and it is for that very reason that very few BHSC graduates will get into Mac's program. I believe the target is set at 7. So that is 7 out 100+ grads from that program. (Trust me on this I've been one of the student reviewers on the application commitee for the past 2 years). It is for this reason that you may actually limit your chances for getting into medicine (at MAC anayways). To be very honest with you, when we fill out the initial evaluations, everyone says it's like watching the same boring movie over and over and over again: Biology major, GPA 3.8, Hospital volunteer, Int'l volunteer internship, played on school team, worked in lab. When you have seen this literally 600-800 times you start to lose interest. This will also be the result of viewing 100+ applications from the Bhsc program. To be honest with you the appropriate advice is to take a subject that really seems interesting to YOU and say to yourself I want to apply myself to this subject and get involved in it with the assumption that I will never see this area of study again. These make truly outstanding candidates who bring a lot to the class. After reading about the 578th Bio applicant described above, I came across a Poli Sci major who actually was instrumental in changing over 10 legislations in Ontario. He also worked as a campaign manager during his summers and wrote two published papers on political intervention and soultions for health care. When I showed the others on the admission panel they were jumping for joy at this "interesting candidate". Never volunteered at a hospital, never set foot inside a lab but rather explored his interests.

 

So Kittiekat your Bhsc program is a good introduction to problem based learning, however it is not by any means a ticket into the MD program, nor is it comparable in any way to the worload or level of difficulty of the MD program. To advise students to rush out for the Bsch program in the hopes of securing a place in medical school is extremely misleading.

 

Good luck to everyone, There are days when I wonder why we fought this hard to get into this hell but nearing the end I can say it has been worth it!

 

I have posted this elsewhere under Smileykitty's other comments where it may bemore relevant. I just don't want people to be misinformed!

[Guest Jess]

Hi there Macyear3,

 

I liked your reply to SmileyKitty (I think she/he works for the Mac BHSC admissions office.... just kidding!). I totally agree with you though - people should pursue things for interest rather than for the sake of increasing their chances of admittance to med school. But at the same time I don't think people who pursue the life sciences should be condemned. I, for one, love the sciences, in fact, I declined an offer to the Mac BHSC program because I wanted to follow a more hardcore science-based stream. I don't think arts applicants should be given the upper hand because they decided to do something different and provide a nice break from all those other science applicants. Personally, I would rather spend 4 years solving integrals and learning about signal transduction than take a single semester of poli sci. I just don't think it's fair that I (and others like me) get looked down upon because we're not different enough while getting pooled in with those people who follow the science route because they don't know what else to do and/or feel that its good prep for med school. Maybe this is one case where following your interests may not actually work to your advantage.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Jess,

 

I think that the bottom line is that medical schools are looking for excellent people to fill their classes. I think that Macyear3 is correct, in that reading personal statements from Biology majors can get boring after a while, especially if the autobiography focuses only on their science backgrounds.

 

However, the autobiography and the interviews are a chance to talk about the non-academic side to you. Even as a science major, the autobiography and interviews are a chance to discuss your personal background, your travel experiences, your athletic achievements, any personal projects or endeavours that you have accomplished (one guy in our medical school biked across Canada, not something particularly med school related, but that kind of thing gets you remembered).

 

As a result, even if you are a plain-jane science applicant, you still have the above opportunities to describe the other parts to yourself, and why you would make a great addition to the class. And I think it is for this reason, that to this day, the majority of the people in each medical school class still come from a science background.

 

You just have to be unique in ways other than your undergrad major.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest sazzafrazz]

Just a note of encouragement! I'm appauled at the insensitive remarks made by some of your fellow pre-meds. Med school in Manitoba anyway, and I'm sure elsewhere, specifically tries to foster helping your classmates, group work, and a "TEAM" approach to medicine. You will get in to med school. This just wasn't your year at U of T. Make sure you are applying to other provinces and other schools in Ontario (if you haven't already). The thing about med school and becoming a doctor is that you have to get in, .... , somewhere.

 

Best of Luck

saz

[Guest ThugJaan]

Hey,

 

 

Yeah, as long as you get in somewhere you can always go back to the school you want to do your residency.