Open House

[Sarvish]

Just a reminder that the Hamilton campus information session is this coming Tuesday.

 

I don't expect there to be any super-useful information but the last time I was at Mac was about 4 or 5 years ago so it would be nice to see the campus. If there *is* anything important, I'll post it here when I'm back.

[Sarvish]

Interesting things from today's session by Wendy (I think that was her name... I'm downright terrible with names)

 

1) With the 2015 MCAT, it will be the same in that only one section is counted. Wendy couldn't remember the name of the section but said it was something like "Psychosocial" which makes me think it's the "Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior" section although "Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills" sounds closer. However, VR scores will still be valid for 5 years.

 

2) Wendy explained how the campus lottery works which I didn't know before. The admitted students are ranked based on the formula including MMI. The top 20% of the class is guaranteed their 1st choice. The rest of the class is chucked into a lottery with the 2nd 20% having their name once, the 3rd 20% having their name twice, the 4th 20% having their name three times, and the bottom 20% having their name four times. Names are picked out of the lottery and given their second choice until the satellite campuses are filled and everyone else gets their first choice. I assume people who pick satellite campuses as their first choice are not included in the lottery.

 

3) CASPER consists of 12 sets of 3 questions, 8 sets based on videos and 4 sets based on personal questions.

 

4) The VR and GPA are ranked based on Z-score meaning a 14 or 15 on VR is probably worth a lot more than a 4.0 GPA.

 

5) Approximately 20% of the applicants are OOP vying for the 10% of spots reserved for OOP applicants

 

6) The ABS must be filled out and will not be scored but will be part of the full file review after the final ranking is done.

 

7) On the topic of the full file review, after the final rank list is done, applicants move on to Collation where their reference letters are read. If there's a bad reference letter, it's not enough to knock you out right away but the comments from CASPER and the MMI are then reviewed to see if you have any glaring weakness. Essentially, even if you have a good MMI score, if all the stations found weaknesses, you could still be in trouble.

 

I forgot a notepad so I was jotting this all down on my iPod and may have missed things.

[holiday1001]

enlightening, thanks for sharing

[dr-m-s]

enlightening, thanks for sharing

 

agreed, thanks for the info!

[duster123]

4) The VR and GPA are ranked based on Z-score meaning a 14 or 15 on VR is probably worth a lot more than a 4.0 GPA.

 

Could you explain Z-score, and how exactly it would be worth more. Thanks!

[FuturePT216]

Thanks for posting this! So sad I missed the session

[Sarvish]

4) The VR and GPA are ranked based on Z-score meaning a 14 or 15 on VR is probably worth a lot more than a 4.0 GPA.

 

Could you explain Z-score, and how exactly it would be worth more. Thanks!

 

Z-score is a different way of measuring your percentile ranking but not exactly. It's how many standard deviations you are above the mean. Because of the cap being so close to the average for the GPA, there's probably only 2 standard deviations separating the average and the maximum 4.0. Because everyone's much more clumped up for VR and there are so few people at 14 and 15, a high VR score could put you 2.5 or more standard deviations over the mean. A 4.0 GPA and a 15 VR will both net you a perfect score but people will be a lot closer to you in terms of a GPA score than they will be with VR

 

People generally say it's percentiles but percentiles and z-scores are different for skewed distributions. If it were strictly percentiles, there would be negligible difference between a VR of 14 and 15 since you've only moved up 1 or 2 places on the ranking. If the distribution were to be a perfect bell-curve and you could get decimal scores on VR, then z-score and percentile would be the exact same.

 

Sorry if that's gone and confused you even more. And someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think my stats knowledge is still partially correct.

 

Thanks for posting this! So sad I missed the session

 

No problem! I've glad I went, hearing Wendy speak along with a few MD students and a MD/PhD student was pretty great. The questions by some of the parents were a bit funny though, you could tell which kids just got dragged along by their overeager parents.

[sheqi]

That is very useful info, thanks for sharing. Although it's good to know, I'm almost glad that I didn't find out about the process before I applied; it makes it all sound even more intimidating! Best of luck to everyone applying this cycle nontheless

[10wattbulb]

Interesting things from today's session by Wendy (I think that was her name... I'm downright terrible with names)

 

4) The VR and GPA are ranked based on Z-score meaning a 14 or 15 on VR is probably worth a lot more than a 4.0 GPA.

 

6) The ABS must be filled out and will not be scored but will be part of the full file review after the final ranking is done.

 

7) On the topic of the full file review, after the final rank list is done, applicants move on to Collation where their reference letters are read. If there's a bad reference letter, it's not enough to knock you out right away but the comments from CASPER and the MMI are then reviewed to see if you have any glaring weakness. Essentially, even if you have a good MMI score, if all the stations found weaknesses, you could still be in trouble.

 

I forgot a notepad so I was jotting this all down on my iPod and may have missed things.

 

My issue with #4: A person who scores 14-15 on the VR was probably lucky more than anything else. If (s)he were to take the MCAT again, his/her VR score would most likely drop - i.e., be in the 12-13 range. So, I think that McMaster has to be careful with their Z-score method and consider the 'validity' of high VR scores (not just how 'exceptional' getting such a score is). Unlike a very high 14-15 VR score, getting a very high 3.95+ GPA is NOT so much about luck.

 

#6 & 7 are very interesting and prove that even for Mac, a good autobio sketch + good letters of ref can make a difference. To be more transparent, though, Mac should explain on their website the role that the ABS & letters of ref play in their med admission process because I had always been under the impression that Mac didn't take these elements into consideration at all!

[Sarvish]

My issue with #4: A person who scores 14-15 on the VR was probably lucky more than anything else. If (s)he were to take the MCAT again, his/her VR score would most likely drop - i.e., be in the 12-13 range. So, I think that McMaster has to be careful with their Z-score method and consider the 'validity' of high VR scores (not just how 'exceptional' getting such a score is). Unlike a very high 14-15 VR score, getting a very high 3.95+ GPA is NOT so much about luck.

 

#6 & 7 are very interesting and prove that even for Mac, a good autobio sketch + good letters of ref can make a difference. To be more transparent, though, Mac should explain on their website the role that the ABS & letters of ref play in their med admission process because I had always been under the impression that Mac didn't take these elements into consideration at all!

 

I agree to an extent on VR, I've been hitting consistent 11s with swings down to 10 and as high as 14 depending on my luck with passages. It sucks that 1 or 2 wrong questions can cost you so much.

 

On the other hand, our GPA system isn't normalized and never will be. Very few people would argue that GPAs are equal between universities. Even within universities, different majors and courses make a big difference.

 

I think it's good that the 2015 MCAT has 4 sections that are each 50% longer. Hopefully the VR equivalent won't be as luck-based.

 

I also thought the same thing about 6 and 7. I had never heard about them looking at these things, I'm 99% sure that Collation was never mentioned on the site before but the way Wendy talked about it made it seem like it's been in place for years. The way she said it, a good one won't really help you as much as a bad one will hurt you. Good/amazing letters won't move you up ranks, you just have to hope other people slide down past you.

[BlurstOfTimes]

I also thought the same thing about 6 and 7. I had never heard about them looking at these things, I'm 99% sure that Collation was never mentioned on the site before but the way Wendy talked about it made it seem like it's been in place for years. The way she said it, a good one won't really help you as much as a bad one will hurt you. Good/amazing letters won't move you up ranks, you just have to hope other people slide down past you.

 

I've always been under the impression that this was just how most schools use reference letters in general. They're basically just screening for bad reference letters, which are huge red flags ("You couldn't find three people who were willing to say nice things about you?!"). Makes sense to do it at the end of the process rather than the beginning so they don't have to read all three reference letters for each of their 4500 applicants just to find the few bad ones that will be in there.

[10wattbulb]

I agree to an extent on VR, I've been hitting consistent 11s with swings down to 10 and as high as 14 depending on my luck with passages. It sucks that 1 or 2 wrong questions can cost you so much.

 

On the other hand, our GPA system isn't normalized and never will be. Very few people would argue that GPAs are equal between universities. Even within universities, different majors and courses make a big difference.

 

I think it's good that the 2015 MCAT has 4 sections that are each 50% longer. Hopefully the VR equivalent won't be as luck-based.

 

I also thought the same thing about 6 and 7. I had never heard about them looking at these things, I'm 99% sure that Collation was never mentioned on the site before but the way Wendy talked about it made it seem like it's been in place for years. The way she said it, a good one won't really help you as much as a bad one will hurt you. Good/amazing letters won't move you up ranks, you just have to hope other people slide down past you.

 

Yes, the changes to the MCAT coming in 2015 will hopefully make it a more valid evaluation tool. In terms of the GPA, I know that some med schools like Toronto have ways to evaluate the difficulty of the program (in Quebec they also do this with the 'R score'), so getting a 3.83 in the apparently tough life sciences undergrad offered at Toronto U could end up being worth more than getting a 3.93 in a relatively easy program offered elsewhere. There are also problems with evaluating the difficulty of an undergrad because if many premeders end up in the same program (which is often the case), the program might appear to be 'easy' because everyone in it is getting good grades when in fact it is not.

 

To calculate the GPA, though, many med schools will drop some of your lower grades that might be skewing your GPA, or look only at your best (or last) 2 years. And most med schools prefer that you have full course loads and that you take courses that are appropriate for your year level, so they do have basic ways of standardizing the GPA. And generally speaking, a person who's consistently getting A's and A+'s is a definitely a hard-working student, even if the student is in a relatively 'easy' program. So you're right that the GPA is not as normalized as it should be, but a student who's constantly getting good grades is definitely not just lucky like (s)he could be if (s)he scores a 14 in VR when he/she normally scores ~11.

 

EDIT: P.S. This open house info session seemed to have really been quite informative!