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Western Interview Discussion 2016


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I don't think all canadian medical schools are equal...That's why there are different rankings! UBC and U of T are far better than most other schools

 

In what way :) and who is doing this rankings, ha. People love to rank things (particularly all these international groups0 - that doesn't mean those really hold water. They always make up some formula (often with subjective relatively valuations of things) and then track down reams of data to squeeze through it - but on the ground is that actually making a difference?

 

I mean the residency spots and board exams for instance don't really indicate a real significant difference - and we track the heck out of that.  On the fellowship level there are differences of course - I would rather do a fellowship in many areas at some centres than others. That has very little to do with medical school though as that is way, way above that level. People bring up research all the time of course but really the VAST major of doctors aren't involved in any research anyway - mixing up clinical education and research is a mistake I think. Again particular schools can make particular personality types or end goals but that isn't really saying much about the actual quality of the education directly. 

 

I am not saying the hospitals are all the same, the cities are all the same, that the residency/fellowship programs are all the same - again though that doesn't have as much to with medical school as people jump on. For CARMS in particular it isn't really about the school - it is about the applicant that makes the difference for the most part. Even for schools it is hard to lump them all together even for residency - you can easily have a very strong program X at one school almost independently of what is going on with all the other programs.

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Rankings aren't med school focused. If anything they're research-focused. Med school curricula are highly regulated so there is an approximate standard across all the schools. McGill is highly ranked and it's on probation.

 

excellent example (even the accreditation boards are yet another external evaluation system with ranking systems).

 

all this kind of makes sense though - when you have a system where for specifically medical education ( not research ), everyone is getting roughly the same amount of money per student, and all the teaching is done at large academic centres with motivated teaching, and government watching everything etc, etc then it is hard to actually develop major quality differences. This isn't the US with widely different centres and models of education.

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Does anyone know how many people would be in each waitlist tier?

High wait?

Normal?

Low?

How many in each??

 

errr no - not really - at least not perfectly.

 

what we do know is that the high wait list in recent memory has always cleared. It is designed in fact to clear. They haven't ever gotten to the low waitlist which means they get basically partially through the normal. We do know minimum values from high waitlist at least as we have over multiple years seen people posting on that when they clear the waitlist.

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errr no - not really - at least not perfectly.

 

what we do know is that the high wait list in recent memory has always cleared. It is designed in fact to clear. They haven't ever gotten to the low waitlist which means they get basically partially through the normal. We do know minimum values from high waitlist at least as we have over multiple years seen people posting on that when they clear the waitlist.

 

Just a rough idea of how many people in your opinion??

I heard 20 in each category, another person said 50, any idea???!!! Thanks

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Just a rough idea of how many people in your opinion??

I heard 20 in each category, another person said 50, any idea???!!! Thanks

 

we know that roughly 1/3 of the class was pull off of a wait list (give or take). The high priority waitlist does not seem to be the same size as the other ones - your numbers won't add up correctly at 20 each :)

 

It is easier to get minimums than max numbers - you can see from the prior years the relatively small number of high priority spots - those seem to ALMOST be as good as an actual acceptance.

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Sorry if this is the wrong area to post (I'm new)

 

But does anyone how much Western favors SWOMAN applicants? I know the admissions cut-offs are lowered, but are they still favored after interview?

 

I've had a few people tell me that they are very heavily favored and a few tell me it doesn't help much.

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Can anyone give me some information on this? As long as you meet all the pre-req's, are you granted an interview at Western? I'm SWOMEN and will most likely have a 3.9 two year average and will be writing my MCAT this summer. As long as I do well on the MCAT am I basically guaranteed an interview or do they take your EC's into account, too? I'm just noticing a lot of the SWOMEN people on this thread have a lot more research experience than I do and don't know if that will be important for me to try and fix over the summer. I know a lot of other schools take that into account, but I feel like Western's pre-req's are a lot more difficult so it weeds a lot of people out from even applying. 

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Can anyone give me some information on this? As long as you meet all the pre-req's, are you granted an interview at Western? I'm SWOMEN and will most likely have a 3.9 two year average and will be writing my MCAT this summer. As long as I do well on the MCAT am I basically guaranteed an interview or do they take your EC's into account, too? I'm just noticing a lot of the SWOMEN people on this thread have a lot more research experience than I do and don't know if that will be important for me to try and fix over the summer. I know a lot of other schools take that into account, but I feel like Western's pre-req's are a lot more difficult so it weeds a lot of people out from even applying.

All you need are the MCAT cutoffs, ECs aren't considered at any stage.
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All you need are the MCAT cutoffs, ECs aren't considered at any stage.

 

as far as we know that is directly true :) Although on a more "fluffy" level - it is ECs that give you the experiences that make you better able to handle the interview I think. That just reinforces the idea that your ECs should actually be meaningful for you and challenging in some fashion etc :)

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From an e-mail I got today:

 

"The Written Component is a compulsory part of your interview at Schulich where you will be asked to read and summarize a short passage according to instructions."

 

I think this is the first piece of real information we've gotten on the written component. Any thoughts at all?

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Saw that today. My first instinct was that summarizing seems like sort of a straight forward task to be throwing at candidates who have come this far. Not sure how much variability there would be between answers.

 

Also, seems a bit weird as their high VR/CARS thresholds already seem to sort for a similar type of skill set.

 

Double also, this harks back to the Written Sample portion of the old MCAT, which I think wasn't seen as particularly effective.

 

A theory out of left field: This is not actually being used to evaluate candidates but is just a giant test run for a future, more rigorous, written component to the application. :)

 

Anyone else? Curious to hear other posters' thoughts.

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Saw that today. My first instinct was that summarizing seems like sort of a straight forward task to be throwing at candidates who have come this far. Not sure how much variability there would be between answers.

 

Also, seems a bit weird as their high VR/CARS thresholds already seem to sort for a similar type of skill set.

 

Double also, this harks back to the Written Sample portion of the old MCAT, which I think wasn't seen as particularly effective.

 

A theory out of left field: This is not actually being used to evaluate candidates but is just a giant test run for a future, more rigorous, written component to the application. :)

 

Anyone else? Curious to hear other posters' thoughts.

My suspicion is that this is just a literacy test. As weird as it might sound given the high VR/CARS cutoff, keep in mind that those sections do not involve written communication. Also not all interviewees have a high VR/CARS score (those applying through the SWOMEN/aboriginal streams only need an 8 or 125), so this would act as an extra road block to ensure complete literacy.

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My suspicion is that this is just a literacy test. As weird as it might sound given the high VR/CARS cutoff, keep in mind that those sections do not involve written communication. Also not all interviewees have a high VR/CARS score (those applying through the SWOMEN/aboriginal streams only need an 8 or 125), so this would act as an extra road block to ensure complete literacy.

 

this was my hunch too; just a red flag

 

could be wrong of course 

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at least now you have more information :) if it is a summary exercise then it will make it pretty easy to have multiple passages and even knowing the main point of a passage won't help much for summarizing etc. Sounds like it would be easy to block any cheating efforts.

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Saw that today. My first instinct was that summarizing seems like sort of a straight forward task to be throwing at candidates who have come this far. Not sure how much variability there would be between answers.

 

Also, seems a bit weird as their high VR/CARS thresholds already seem to sort for a similar type of skill set.

 

Double also, this harks back to the Written Sample portion of the old MCAT, which I think wasn't seen as particularly effective.

 

A theory out of left field: This is not actually being used to evaluate candidates but is just a giant test run for a future, more rigorous, written component to the application. :)

 

Anyone else? Curious to hear other posters' thoughts.

 

This was my thought too (maybe a test run for the future) or just to make sure we can actually compose a coherent thought in writing.

 

However, when I saw "summarize" I'm thinking they're going to do something a bit more abstract than just a plain old summary of information, especially when they mention "according to instruction". I'm sure it won't be something crazy difficult; just one more part of the interview to complete  :)

 

Some of us will figure out for sure this coming weekend so just a bit longer!

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From an e-mail I got today:

 

"The Written Component is a compulsory part of your interview at Schulich where you will be asked to read and summarize a short passage according to instructions."

 

I think this is the first piece of real information we've gotten on the written component. Any thoughts at all?

Was this email sent to everyone? I didn't get anything yesterday

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Very little information about the written component has been provided, even to the students helping out with interviews this weekend. Although I do think increased transparency would be beneficial, it really isn't intended to be something you have to worry about too much or prepare for. The entire Schulich interview process has always been designed to learn about the applicant as a whole person, so don't stress to much about them looking for any one thing in particular. If you are interviewing this weekend, good luck!

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I feel like the key to being successful at interviews especially panel ones is to bring in personal examples in response to the questions they ask...like if they ask "how would you resolve a conflict" the best way to answer that question is to talk about a time when you had to deal with a conflict on your own or with other people etc. Good luck to all interviewing this weekend!

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