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Uottawa Now Requires Mcat!


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If ottawa has crazy mcat cutoffs like western and keeps a high gpa acceptance rate, i might just have better chance applying to harvard instead. It's getting ridiculously competitive being a Canadian applicant these days.

One thing to keep in mind is that adding the MCAT is not making applying more difficult and/or making your chances at getting in any less likely. The # of applicants won't suddenly increase by adding the MCAT

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One thing to keep in mind is that adding the MCAT is not making applying more difficult and/or making your chances at getting in any less likely. The # of applicants won't suddenly increase by adding the MCAT

 

Pretty much true - there will be some shifting.

 

Interesting move - it does raise some serious questions about the francophone applicant stream. 

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There's no way that it will be looked at for the Francophone applicants. It would be a quick human rights complaint if it were.

 

In all likelihood, it appears that Ottawa is going more blackbox like Queens.

 

I would estimate over 95% of their english applicants will have written the MCAT, a similar percentage will also be applying to McMaster and thus have written Casper. From the university's perspective this is just more data on the applicants. There is no "right" way to select med students but there are certainly better and worse ways. More data points on applicants could allow for a "better" selection of medical students. "Better" being whatever endpoints the university want to track. Exam scores, Match rate, likelihood of staying in Ottawa to practice medicine and serve the community. 

 

Less transparency is more stressful for applicant but I would argue is better for medical schools. It prevents "gaming the system" and gives the university more flexibility in selecting who they believe is best suited to be a doctor.

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Doesn't Quebec have 3 of their own Universities that strictly french applicants can apply to!?

 

All the other French applicants at U of Ottawa (from provinces other than Quebec) that I know of speak english perfectly and should not have any problem with the MCAT. I am french and had no problem writing the MCAT! Realistically, if you are going to work outside of Quebec, you are still going to practice 80% of the time in english, so it is important that they are also fluent in english

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There is no french version of the MCAT, so those applicants would write it in English.  It seems as if a number of French stream applicants are functionally (or even preferentially) anglophone, but not sure if this is the case for all.

 

 If it's just serving as a checkmark for french stream applicants, then it's an expensive and time consuming checkmark.  For the applicants who have weak base in English, I can fully empathize and identify with the difficulties of preparing and writing advanced exams in a non-native language.  

 

I also agree that this move seems to weaken the notion of the french stream.  It strikes me as a little out of step with the official image Ottawa projects (federalism & official bilingualism), but from a practical point of view I can see the point (extra metric of applicants).

 

Quebec francophone applicants could apply to the Quebec universities, although these tend to accept mostly CEGEP rather than university candidates.  Francophones from other regions of the country who applied to Ottawa would be at more of a disadvantage.  

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I heard from someone who spoke to the Dean that they decided to implement the MCAT because of the overwhelming number of non-traditional students (i.e. from an arts, psyh and/or music bachelor) who simply did the pre-req courses, got in and then have difficulty in med school to the point of failure. 

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I heard from someone who spoke to the Dean that they decided to implement the MCAT because of the overwhelming number of non-traditional students (i.e. from an arts, psyh and/or music bachelor) who simply did the pre-req courses, got in and then have difficulty in med school to the point of failure. 

 

Oddly - this was actually the original purpose of the MCAT in the US.  The supposition has always been that high GPA is sufficient to learn the material, but apparently not...

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Alright, so far, the interview is still based on wGPA, and non-academics. Offers of admission are wGPA and interview. So it looks like they might possibly be collecting data to establish a cut-off for future application cycles or something? Unless they only changed the MCAT part of the site and are waiting to do the rest. But let's hope it is the former for now...

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GPA inflation is getting out of control

 

this is the strongest argument for standardized testing.

 

I wonder if the CASPER was there first attempt to deal with it, and they felt they needed more. For Ottawa this move almost feels like a bit of desperation to stem the tide considering the two streams they have.

 

Much have been an interesting meeting where this was decided on, ha!

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Wait so if you wrote the 2015 mcat in 2015 it won't count for this requirement then? It says 2016.

 

awkward wording - I suspect they just want you to write that test.

 

It probably does mean though that they don't count the old test. Which will impact a bunch of people actually who were avoiding taking the new test.

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