RGK Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 Another honest post here As we all know, the admission process to med school has both objective components (like GPA) and other not-so-objective components (CV, LOR's, Interview) How fair do you think the admission process is ? Till now, little is known about how med schools convert the non-academic components of an application into some sort of numerical value that can be used to rank applicants. Moreover, how is a candidate's response in an interview scored ? How can we be sure that likability doesn't come into play ? Even regarding the GPA, there is still a lot of talk about ''the difficulty of an applicant's program''. After all, we all know that a GPA of 3.5 in engineering is not the same as a 3.5 in science. How many applicants thought their application was solid and were turned down unexpectedly ? How come a single applicant can get accepted by competitive med schools but at the same time rejected by less competitive ones ? How can we be sure that nothing 'fishy' is going on backstage ? Who watches over the med school application process ? How can we be sure that a particular applicant wasn't granted admission because of 'family ties' rather than academic merit ? And most importantly, what can we do about it ? Let me hear it now.......this is going to be interesting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnGrisham Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 A lot of speculation and heresay involved, best to just do what you can do and move on. Life is full of uncertainties that are out of your control, and all you can do is do your best and focus on what is in your control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falling Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 I thought this was going to be a thread about socioeconomic factors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_ _ Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 it's all a game and you just need to learn to play it well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harvey Specter Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 it's all a game and you just need to learn to play it well as my gurl T Swift says, "love's a game, wanna play?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruhh Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 EC is subjective GPA is manipulated (Mac Health Sci Vs. UofT Engineering) MCAT is irrelevent (Ottawa, NOSM, QuARMs, Quebec) Wait, actually none of that matters, your geographical region determines your chances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_ _ Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 EC is subjective GPA is manipulated (Mac Health Sci Vs. UofT Engineering) MCAT is irrelevent (Ottawa, NOSM, QuARMs, Quebec) Wait, actually none of that matters, your geographical region determines your chances. haha most accurate description I've ever read Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_ _ Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 http://imgur.com/gallery/3Bsf7 this describes the socio-economic/rural thing pretty well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybird Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 Insufficient information to come to any possibly valid conclusion. Sure feels like I nearly killed myself getting in, though. Burnout by 4th year was very real. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralk Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 Tough topic - to stop myself from writing an extended essay on this, I'll give the short version. 1) Under-the-table stuff is fairly unlikely. No system's perfect, but the sheer number of applicants and standard safeguards against conflict of interest make it much more difficult for contacts to matter than say, the residency matching process does. That's why so many physicians' kids go overseas to train. I believe the application process is applied fairly. 2) While the process is applied fairly, the process itself at most schools is, by definition, not fair to all applicants. Geographic status is the most obvious way fairness to applicants is violated, but the flip side is that it's more fair to the patients being served by the individual schools, since they'll be more likely to have a physician that'll actually stay where they're needed. Fairness has multiple definitions, and being perfectly equitable to applicants isn't the primary goal: providing adequate access to medical services is the primary goal. 3) When looking beyond demographics to the supposed merit-based considerations, I don't think fairness is the right question. Designing a completely fair, merit-based system is virtually impossible even with significant resources, which of course, aren't available. Rather, effectiveness of the process (do we get the best future physicians) and reproduceability of the process (how much of the process is based on chance) are the main concerns. On both counts, I think the system we have in place does reasonably well, but leaves plenty of room for improvement. Some schools are more effective than others, especially when it comes to reproduceability. 4) Perception of applicants and programs are often flawed. Many people think they have strong applications, when they actually have multiple weaknesses. Often programs are perceived as being more competitive when they mostly just have different considerations, which make them tougher for some applicants to get into but easy for others (ex. Ottawa's high-GPA, heavy-EC, no MCAT vs Western's high-MCAT, lower-GPA, no-EC requirements). 5) No matter what, the application process will favour those with high socioeconomic status and disadvantage those with low socioeconomic status, though there are ways we can (and should) mitigate that preference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sprite Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 Tough topic - to stop myself from writing an extended essay on this, I'll give the short version. 1) Under-the-table stuff is fairly unlikely. No system's perfect, but the sheer number of applicants and standard safeguards against conflict of interest make it much more difficult for contacts to matter than say, the residency matching process does. That's why so many physicians' kids go overseas to train. I believe the application process is applied fairly. 2) While the process is applied fairly, the process itself at most schools is, by definition, not fair to all applicants. Geographic status is the most obvious way fairness to applicants is violated, but the flip side is that it's more fair to the patients being served by the individual schools, since they'll be more likely to have a physician that'll actually stay where they're needed. Fairness has multiple definitions, and being perfectly equitable to applicants isn't the primary goal: providing adequate access to medical services is the primary goal. 3) When looking beyond demographics to the supposed merit-based considerations, I don't think fairness is the right question. Designing a completely fair, merit-based system is virtually impossible even with significant resources, which of course, aren't available. Rather, effectiveness of the process (do we get the best future physicians) and reproduceability of the process (how much of the process is based on chance) are the main concerns. On both counts, I think the system we have in place does reasonably well, but leaves plenty of room for improvement. Some schools are more effective than others, especially when it comes to reproduceability. 4) Perception of applicants and programs are often flawed. Many people think they have strong applications, when they actually have multiple weaknesses. Often programs are perceived as being more competitive when they mostly just have different considerations, which make them tougher for some applicants to get into but easy for others (ex. Ottawa's high-GPA, heavy-EC, no MCAT vs Western's high-MCAT, lower-GPA, no-EC requirements). 5) No matter what, the application process will favour those with high socioeconomic status and disadvantage those with low socioeconomic status, though there are ways we can (and should) mitigate that preference. just a quick note, do you guys think that under the table stuff is prominent here in ontario? Without giving up to much info away, I personally witnessed a very close friend of mine from childhood get an interview in a school here in ontario that even he admitted he thought he had like a 1% chance. Again I dont wanna tell to much detail on a public forum, but through his "connections" he went to meet up with the admission coordinator for the school sometime before interview invites were sent. Long story short he got the interview and I guarantee hell matriculate into the professional school this year. I am very certain that this happens way more often then we would like to admit. obviously you guys might think its anecdotal, but I wouldnt make this up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falling Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 Well the thing is, no one ever hears about cases where someone tries to use their connections to get an interview and fails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralk Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 just a quick note, do you guys think that under the table stuff is prominent here in ontario? Without giving up to much info away, I personally witnessed a very close friend of mine from childhood get an interview in a school here in ontario that even he admitted he thought he had like a 1% chance. Again I dont wanna tell to much detail on a public forum, but through his "connections" he went to meet up with the admission coordinator for the school sometime before interview invites were sent. Long story short he got the interview and I guarantee hell matriculate into the professional school this year. I am very certain that this happens way more often then we would like to admit. obviously you guys might think its anecdotal, but I wouldnt make this up! I would find it very disturbing if the situation were exactly as you present it - that a person who shouldn't have gotten an interview did because of their connections. There might be more to the story than you know though - as I said, perception of competitiveness is often flawed, and even a 1% chance leads to an interview in 1 of 100 cases. I got an interview at a school where my chances were fairly low without knowing anyone at the school. With so many applicants, a lot of low-chance people get interviews and ultimately admission. Regardless, thank you for sharing the story of your friend - if these types of things do happen more often than we think, the only way to get programs to take them seriously is if they're exposed to the light. Rumors and speculation don't mean impropriety is going on, but they are a great to way to expose impropriety if it is occurring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnGrisham Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 I would find it very disturbing if the situation were exactly as you present it - that a person who shouldn't have gotten an interview did because of their connections. There might be more to the story than you know though - as I said, perception of competitiveness is often flawed, and even a 1% chance leads to an interview in 1 of 100 cases. I got an interview at a school where my chances were fairly low without knowing anyone at the school. With so many applicants, a lot of low-chance people get interviews and ultimately admission. Regardless, thank you for sharing the story of your friend - if these types of things do happen more often than we think, the only way to get programs to take them seriously is if they're exposed to the light. Rumors and speculation don't mean impropriety is going on, but they are a great to way to expose impropriety if it is occurring. Can attest to this, got an interview at my alma-mater when i thought i had a 1% chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
makingfetchhappen Posted February 28, 2015 Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 as my gurl T Swift says, "love's a game, wanna play?" Gotta love those Starbucks lovers lol. I don't think that the system is unfair. I think that they try to make it as fair as they can, but it's impossible to make the system perfect. The problem is that there are just more qualified applicants than there are spots, and by a pretty big margin. Generally if you can't get into other professional programs in Canada, you just don't belong there. For example, if you cannot get the marks to get into teacher's college in Canada, I don't really want you teaching my kids when I have them. Sorry, not sorry, lol. This is coming from someone who is facing a lot of the barriers mentioned above. My second degree totally drags down my GPA from my BSc. But there's not much that med schools can do to fix that. They try to fix it by letting you make it up in other ways, like through your MCAT or your experience. Another thing that gets some people ahead of others is the ability to go back and do a second undergrad. I cannot afford to leave the work force for 2 years just to try to get into medicine. Some people can afford to do that, and that's awesome for them I guess! Also, I cannot afford to take 4 months off to study for the MCAT, which also comes along with being older. Trust me, I am a big fan of fairness, but just because something totally sucks doesn't necessarily mean it's unfair. It totally sucks that there are so many people out there who probably have the potential to be good or even great doctors but may never get in even after multiple attempts. Also, I think that nepotism and cronyism are pretty rampant in life, but not in med school admissions. It seems like there are a lot of checks and balances in place and I would be surprised if it was not extremely rare. Overall I think that the system is pretty fair, especially when you compare it to a lot of other parts of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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