Annual Specialty Competitiveness Stats

[thethirdlaw]

1 hour ago, Aetherus said:

I guess my point was more that it is very difficult to assess competitiveness based on the information provided by CaRMS for a few reasons:

1. Total applicants for a specialty is relevant for highly competitive specialties but over estimates the competitiveness of less competitive specialties where a plurality of people will be backing up. Hopefully, this year we will have more insight into all this with CaRMS having interview data. The most important metric will be to determine how many applicants did not get interviews at all.

2. The stats in general are a poor reflection of the CaRMS process for one simple reason: Quebec and the rest of Canada are agglomerated together in the stats. I understand that CaRMS may not want to separate a province from the stats, but it is impossible to deny that the reality of the Quebec match and the rest of Canada are very different. Very few applicants cross polinate between the two systems in terms of interviews, and even less match. It would be ideal if CaRMS offered separate stats for english speaking institution vs french speaking institutions. For example, Ophthalmology is made to seem much less competitive than it actually is as there is a total of 13 spots in Quebec that most of the rest of Canada does not access. This means that in reality there is only 25 english speaking spots for anywhere between 50-75 applicants. Quebec is also more likely to apply to two competitive specialties int he match (plastics + ophtho) which further confuses the picture.

Your point is well taken. Just a note on your ophtho example. Yes 13/37 spots are in Quebec. McGill is pretty accessible to Anglophones but that's besides the point. 1/3 of ophtho spots are in a French speaking province. 

However approximately 1/3 of CaRMS applicants are from Quebec schools. So I think the French speaking argument is less pervasive than at first glance. 

[thethirdlaw]

37 minutes ago, 1D7 said:

Quota & # 1st choice specialty rank still probably makes the most sense for assessing competitiveness.

# Unique applicants is a pointless measurement. If I wanted IM, I would want to know how competitive it is amongst 'serious' applicants, i.e. those who rank IM first. I don't want to look at data that includes the guy who ranked 7 different specialties in Toronto, or someone who backed up with IM.

I agree. 

[Aetherus]

2 hours ago, 1D7 said:

Quota & # 1st choice specialty rank still probably makes the most sense for assessing competitiveness.

# Unique applicants is a pointless measurement. If I wanted IM, I would want to know how competitive it is amongst 'serious' applicants, i.e. those who rank IM first. I don't want to look at data that includes the guy who ranked 7 different specialties in Toronto, or someone who backed up with IM.

I agree that for less competitive specialties, first choice specialty rank is more useful. My point was specifically regarding highly competitive specialties where there is a handful of applicants every year that get 0 interviews despite being a “serious” applicant. In these cases, we are underestimating competitiveness. You have to assume that no one applying to plastic surgery is backing up with the specialty for example, so the discrepancy between first choice applicants and total is largely due to people not getting interviews in my opinion.