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Western Interview Discussion 2015


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Exactly what I was thinking...after all, that's the million dollar question: "How can we get away with the least amount of effort into evaluating these applicants?"

 

Ha, Western just likes standardized objective measures of ability. That does make it a bit simpler of course until the interview stage. How do you really compare ECs in a standard fashion? Or how much faith do you have that  the same GPA from different schools/programs have exactly the same value?

 

It isn't about being lazy - it is about being fair.

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Dr. Hammond (Associate Dean of Admissions) happens to be hanging around the lecture hall right now, and when I asked he said that invites should be out sometime this afternoon. Best of luck, everyone!

 

Ha, dangerous :) Operative word is probably "should be" - or probably more likely were planning to, but of course are very cautious to make sure they get it right (flashbacks to prior year epic failures would give anyone cause prior to hitting send on things). Either way very soon now!

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Yup, that dean or whoever just trolled us hard

 

He is the associate dean of admissions - has held that position for a number of years now

 

Also happens to be an extremely skilled scientist, excellent teacher and exactly the sort of person you would want running an admissions system :)

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Ha, Western just likes standardized objective measures of ability. That does make it a bit simpler of course until the interview stage. How do you really compare ECs in a standard fashion? Or how much faith do you have that  the same GPA from different schools/programs have exactly the same value?

 

It isn't about being lazy - it is about being fair.

I agree with your premise. My issue is with the fact that they change these cut-offs year-to-year so that the combination of scores from each section are just enough to limit their interview pool to a certain number of applicants. Based on what evidence do they choose to make the verbal cut-off 11 or BS cut-off of 12 or PS cut-off 9 (or 10..can't rmr)? Do they think the VR is more important than PS? What evidence is there that a certain MCAT score will predict the applicant's success in medical school? I think the problem with the MCAT is similar to that of GPA. At what point is the MCAT or GPA no longer a strong predictor of success? You run into the same problemw ith all schools of course, because others will prioritize high GPA. But that's why you have to take a holistic approach and assess all components of the application and not simply over-emphasize one aspect (e.g. MCAT VR or BS). The way I see it, maintaining these high cut-offs (in comparison to most schools) is a very simple and easy way to limit how many files you have to review to determine interview decisions. That's what I have an issue with...

 

Even the top-schools in U.S. do not dare set "cut-offs" to automatically decide that you're not worth interviewing. 

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