2015 Post Interview Discussion

[fightoffyourdemons]

How did everyone feel about the interview today? I'm not sure if I'm the only 21st interview date person here. Everyone was super friendly and nice!

[mononoke]

I would actually want to know what you guys thought of the admissions video, I haven't even seen it yet

[nino]

The 1T7 got a premiere of the full admission video a few days ago, totally blew my mind XD

 

And it kinda sucked that the snowstorm hit campus like a brick yesterday. Hope everyone made it on time.

[fightoffyourdemons]

I thought it was pretty good. Though after watching Daffydil 2015 later that evening, I'm completely blown away by the amount of talent you all have! 

[PurpleS]

I enjoyed the interviewing experience (admissions video was amazing!), but I find it really hard to gauge how I did in the actual interview. Nothing I can do about it now, just the waiting game I guess.

 

I'm pretty sure I'm not getting a MD/PhD offer though. Everyone seemed really competitive, and I'm not sure if my answers were really what the interviewers were looking for.

[fightoffyourdemons]

Same here, I have a whole range of feelings on the stations... really good/good/okay/no idea. Did you get to talk to specific MD/PhD students or are you talking about people in general? And I'm sure you did great!

 

I enjoyed the interviewing experience (admissions video was amazing!), but I find it really hard to gauge how I did in the actual interview. Nothing I can do about it now, just the waiting game I guess.

 

I'm pretty sure I'm not getting a MD/PhD offer though. Everyone seemed really competitive, and I'm not sure if my answers were really what the interviewers were looking for.

[PurpleS]

I got to talk to a lot of the MD/PhD applicants on my interview day! Everyone was great : )

[amazonrainforest]

I got to talk to a lot of the MD/PhD applicants on my interview day! Everyone was great : )

Hi! Did you do the MD/PhD interview on Sunday? I was one of them! It's always a bittersweet feeling to attend interviews, because everyone is always so nice and friendly and sometimes you really hit it off with many of them, but it's sad to know that you definitely won't get to be classmates with everyone that you meet (whether it's because you didn't get in, or they didn't get in, or both).

[PurpleS]

Hi! Did you do the MD/PhD interview on Sunday? I was one of them! It's always a bittersweet feeling to attend interviews, because everyone is always so nice and friendly and sometimes you really hit it off with many of them, but it's sad to know that you definitely won't get to be classmates with everyone that you meet (whether it's because you didn't get in, or they didn't get in, or both).

 

I was on Saturday! Definitely agree. It sucks that they only seem to take 1 - 3 girls into the program a year ): Feels like I'm fighting an uphill battle.

[marauder4life]

I was on Saturday! Definitely agree. It sucks that they only seem to take 1 - 3 girls into the program a year ): Feels like I'm fighting an uphill battle.

what do you mean by 1-3 girls into the program? :S do you mean 1-3 students? 

[PurpleS]

what do you mean by 1-3 girls into the program? :S do you mean 1-3 students? 

 

Nope, they can take up to 10 students into the program (doesn't mean they'll accept 10). But it seems like there are only 1 - 3 females accepted every year. Last year, only 1 female applicant was accepted into the program.

[Cristiano Ronaldo]

@Calla, I would say those statistics are not something that you should worry about too much. I highly doubt any Canadian school, including UofT, would discriminate against candidates based on gender. You stand just as good as a chance as any male candidate. All the best!

[marauder4life]

I agree with the above post that they would not discriminate based on gender (or any other differences for that matter), so don't worry about it and all the best

[PurpleS]

If I don't get in, it's not going to be because I'm a female applicant. It's going to be because I wasn't competitive enough.

[Meridian]

http://mdphd.utoronto.ca/affiliations/student

 

Current student Bio count suggests about 30% female in the program.  So while statistically significant compared to 50/50 in MD program,  it does not suggest discrimination with such a small sample size of 10 each year.  What is your estimate of ratio you saw at the PhD interviews on Saturday ?

 

After reading Bio's, what is evident is they take really smart people that already have extensive research backgrounds.  Note how many already had a Masters before applying.   Maybe the statistical bias occurs earlier in the process back at the previous research opportunties.

 

Looks like getting an interview as an undergrad in itself is a major accomplishment.

[robclem21]

It unfortunately does not change the fact that they might only take 1 female applicant this year ):

 

If I don't get in, it's not going to be because I'm a female applicant. It's going to be because I wasn't competitive enough.

 

So what does the fact you are female have to do with anything here? Or the fact that may only take 1. They may also take 10?

[PurpleS]

At my interview, there were approximately 10 girls out of 23 total interviewees on Saturday, not sure about Sunday. If the interview ratio was similar in previous years, then that means they interviewed almost equal numbers of male and females but accepted less females, which is what I'm afraid of. Maybe I'm just being super paranoid, and there are probably other factors that contribute to this...

 

Perhaps this year they just had a huge increase in number of female applicants/interviewees.

 

Edit: Or maybe more females drop out of the program before the stats are updated?

[amazonrainforest]

At my interview, there were approximately 10 girls out of 23 total interviewees on Saturday, not sure about Sunday. If the interview ratio was similar in previous years, then that means they interviewed almost equal numbers of male and females but accepted less females, which is what I'm afraid of. Maybe I'm just being super paranoid, and there are probably other factors that contribute to this...

 

Perhaps this year they just had a huge increase in number of female applicants/interviewees.

 

Edit: Or maybe more females drop out of the program before the stats are updated?

I interviewed for MD/PhD on Sunday, and I think there were no more than 5 girls for the whole day. So the ~3 girls that they take in per 10, I would guess is simply according to proportion. about 1/3 of those invited for interviews are girls (for all you know, maybe only 1/3 of those who applied are girls, hence the carrying over of the same proportion), and so by simple probability, assuming girls and guys are equally competitive, it's normal to expect 1/3 of the intake being girls.

[PurpleS]

I interviewed for MD/PhD on Sunday, and I think there were no more than 5 girls for the whole day. So the ~3 girls that they take in per 10, I would guess is simply according to proportion. about 1/3 of those invited for interviews are girls (for all you know, maybe only 1/3 of those who applied are girls, hence the carrying over of the same proportion), and so by simple probability, assuming girls and guys are equally competitive, it's normal to expect 1/3 of the intake being girls.

 

Ahhh. I'm just paranoid then, lol. Ignore me. Sorry if I offended anyone by implying that the admissions committee was sexist!

 

At first I thought less females applied, I guess when I saw how many female interviewees there were, I panicked and assumed the worst about the stats.

[TCAGPrince]

I was on Saturday! Definitely agree. It sucks that they only seem to take 1 - 3 girls into the program a year ): Feels like I'm fighting an uphill battle.

 

In the 2011 incoming class of MD/PhD, 5/6 candidates were female!

 

http://mdphd.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/MDPhD-Newsletter-2012.pdf

 

So don't lose hope!

[Organomegaly]

had a really good experience at uoft this weekend, though it seemed like everybody had a great interview so I wonder what the variance in the interview results is like

 

 

regardless 65 more days till May 12th!! 

[StayHappy]

       

[UBCResident]

.

[thiscomment]

I think interviews aren't a huge differentiator for getting in for UofT.

 

Before they had the MPI interview a couple years back and the interview was worth 20% of final score, I remember reading that the average score was around 15/20. To me, this means that if the average is centered around 15, there's not a lot of room to differentiate yourself at the interview; ie, if you perform extremely well and get perfect (which is probably impossible), you're only about 5% ahead of the average joe after the interview. It could be a dealbreaker, however, if you perform terribly, there's a lot of room to go down.

 

But yeah what did everyone think about yesterday and the day before's interviews?

[Organomegaly]

I think interviews aren't a huge differentiator for getting in for UofT.

 

Before they had the MPI interview a couple years back and the interview was worth 20% of final score, I remember reading that the average score was around 15/20. To me, this means that if the average is centered around 15, there's not a lot of room to differentiate yourself at the interview; ie, if you perform extremely well and get perfect (which is probably impossible), you're only about 5% ahead of the average joe after the interview. It could be a dealbreaker, however, if you perform terribly, there's a lot of room to go down.

 

But yeah what did everyone think about yesterday and the day before's interviews?

 

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