Uottawa Now Requires Mcat!

[Morinphen]

I think what they're trying to say is applicants have to write the new MCAT, and they'll accept scores from any point in 2016 since the announcement is kind of late?

[soccerx5]

I think what they're trying to say is applicants have to write the new MCAT, and they'll accept scores from any point in 2016 since the announcement is kind of late?

 

 that would make more sense. I checked and the last day to write in 2016 is September 10th

[4Tetra]

So apparently you have to re-write it if you took it in 2015...

 

Admissions responded with this statement: "You must take the MCAT exam in the calendar year prior to the year in which you plan to enter medical school. For example, if you are applying in 2016 for entrance in 2017, you must take the exam in 2016". 

 

So either she thinks I'm totally ignorant about the whole process, or that "must" means absolutely in 2016. 

[RicardoKaká]

So apparently you have to re-write it if you took it in 2015...

 

Admissions responded with this statement: "You must take the MCAT exam in the calendar year prior to the year in which you plan to enter medical school. For example, if you are applying in 2016 for entrance in 2017, you must take the exam in 2016". 

 

So either she thinks I'm totally ignorant about the whole process, or that "must" means absolutely in 2016. 

Lol, this is still not very clear.

[Ozymandias]

Doesn't that imply you have to re-write the MCAT next summer if you aren't accepted for the 2017 admissions? Essentially re-write every summer until you're accepted haha. We'll just have to wait until they clarify.

[jebelali]

That is ridiculous. The MCAT is valid for three years usually. It's almost like they decided to use the MCAT on a whim.

[thethirdlaw]

100% guarantee you guys that this year's requirement for the MCAT will purely be a scholarly exercise of determining their weighting of it for next year. I interviewed at Ottawa this past cycle and my CASPer was atrocious (I mean seriously, if you had read my answers you'd question how I was even capable of using a computer), and that was the first cycle they "implemented" it.

 

Beyond that, you play the game to get in. Being angry at injustices gets you nowhere. A sense of entitlement won't get us far in this career.

[Bjorn]

1 year expiration's for the mcat? If serious, the gpa requirements have to tank....... otherwise who is even going to be eligible?  Getting a 3.9 ish wgpa is hard enough, but now you have to take the mcat within the same year and presumably score well. What if you already had a great mcat that is 1 year old, I don't think you even risk writing it again... 

[j17f]

Yea I hope they're just using it for scholarly purposes. I received an interview, and on my CASPer I wrote in one of my answers about how shitty their product is because it kept shutting down (delete this if I'm not allowed to say this). Obvious I wasn't so rude about it, but I thought it would of been a red flag. 

I wish they would let us know whether they will accept the highest mcat score, or the most recent. I'm trying to decide if I should plan to write Aug 5th so I could re-write Sept 10 if my score sucks, or just write August 25th and again the 10th if I feel like the test went poorly.

[geriatricsdoc]

No Canadian Med school is fair in their selection process. Period.

[CupaJolene]

I think geriatricsdoc is wrong...

 

It's totally false to just assume that CARS would be the only challenging part for a francophone. I'm a bilingual individual who wrote the MCAT last year and I can completely understand how ALL of the sections would be challenging for someone who is not as proficient in English and has completed all of their studies in French. You're totally undermining the gravity of this new requirement for francophone applicants. The fact that it is so last minute isn't anything to scoff at either. Most prep companies have begun their courses and the MCAT is absolutely not an exam you can just undertake willy-nilly. I takes a well thought-out study plan and months of dedication to succeed. 2017 applicants have every right to be upset and voice their frustration. Although I do believe the Faculty unfortunately won't change their mind about this, no matter how many people complain.

[Morinphen]

hey everyone, I just called admissions and they said as long as you've written the new MCAT (this year or 2015) you're fine!

[indefatigable]

I think geriatricsdoc is wrong...

 

It's totally false to just assume that CARS would be the only challenging part for a francophone. I'm a bilingual individual who wrote the MCAT last year and I can completely understand how ALL of the sections would be challenging for someone who is not as proficient in English and has completed all of their studies in French. You're totally undermining the gravity of this new requirement for francophone applicants. 

 

It's disappointing to see how little understanding there is for switching languages.  Since there are already differences in admissions and language of instruction, there shouldn't be any reason why francophones have to write the test.  Anglophones should be able to apply to the French stream, but would have to overcome the language barrier.  Franco Ontarians have been an oppressed minority (no language rights) and this policy just seems like the wrong direction.  Since I'm not sure if there are any formal requirements to have French proficiency in English Ottawa, the francophone educated doctors are the only ones that can communicate with the francophone patients.  

[geriatricsdoc]

It's disappointing to see how little understanding there is for switching languages.  Since there are already differences in admissions and language of instruction, there shouldn't be any reason why francophones have to write the test.  Anglophones should be able to apply to the French stream, but would have to overcome the language barrier.  Franco Ontarians have been an oppressed minority (no language rights) and this policy just seems like the wrong direction.  Since I'm not sure if there are any formal requirements to have French proficiency in English Ottawa, the francophone educated doctors are the only ones that can communicate with the francophone patients.  

1) uOttawa clearly wrote that their admission criteria can change anytime on OMSAS.

 

2) French applicants may find it difficult to write a test in english but many French applicants will have no trouble doing it if they are bilingual. uOttawa has a policy to favour bilingual applicants over applicants that can speak just one language (english or french). Hence, MCAT could be a way of eliminating non bilingual applicants. I know even in the english stream - all things being equal, applicants that are bilingual get admission.

 

3) uOttawa has policies that discriminate co-op students and do not acknowledge their GPA when they took two co-op terms in 1 year. They also have casper (test that discriminates people who cant type fast). One can also claim they discriminate students based on geographic regions/socioeconomic status.For ex: one cannot volunteer in three places for hundreds of hours if they are poor and have to work full time to pay school fees. They can lose points for 0 volunteering on their ECs. We can keep ranting about all unfair policies but that wont do any good. 

 

- G

[indefatigable]

1) uOttawa clearly wrote that their admission criteria can change anytime on OMSAS.

 

2) French applicants may find it difficult to write a test in english but many French applicants will have no trouble doing it if they are bilingual. uOttawa has a policy to favour bilingual applicants over applicants that can speak just one language (english or french). Hence, MCAT could be a way of eliminating non bilingual applicants. I know even in the english stream - all things being equal, applicants that are bilingual get admission.

 

3) uOttawa has policies that discriminate co-op students and do not acknowledge their GPA when they took two co-op terms in 1 year. They also have casper (test that discriminates people who cant type fast). One can also claim they discriminate students based on geographic regions/socioeconomic status.For ex: one cannot volunteer in three places for hundreds of hours if they are poor and have to work full time to pay school fees. They can lose points for 0 volunteering on their ECs. We can keep ranting about all unfair policies but that wont do any good. 

 

- G

 

1) There is no disagreement about this, although it may really be challenging for applicants, particularly this year as many have noted.

 

2) I agree that the MCAT will favour applicants with stronger English skills, and that there is an official bilingualism policy.  I'm just wondering if the testing in the french stream will lead to a situation where MCAT scores are more important than French proficiency, leading to an erosion of the meaning of the french stream (also looking at the local context of franco Ontarians).   Ultimately, those doctors will be responsible the french patients.  

 

3) Socioeconomic and broader equity in medicine is still very much a work in progress unfortunately.  

[geriatricsdoc]

1) There is no disagreement about this, although it may really be challenging for applicants, particularly this year as many have noted.

 

2) I agree that the MCAT will favour applicants with stronger English skills, and that there is an official bilingualism policy.  I'm just wondering if the testing in the french stream will lead to a situation where MCAT scores are more important than French proficiency, leading to an erosion of the meaning of the french stream (also looking at the local context of franco Ontarians).   Ultimately, those doctors will be responsible the french patients.  

 

3) Socioeconomic and broader equity in medicine is still very much a work in progress unfortunately.  

I do not think it would lead to an erosion in the meaning of French stream.

 

All applicants selected in the French Stream would know french. Therefore, they could still communicate with French patients in French and study medicine in French. There are native french speaking applicants in USA that do the MCAT and practice. There are native Spanish speaking doctors in USA that do the MCAT and still utilize their language skill of spanish. Learning two languages does not mean its a negative. Learning two languages is a positive.

 

Even though in principle, what uOttawa did is fair. I still feel for the French applicants who wanted to apply this cycle. It is pretty unfortunate for them to write MCAT at such a short notice. It is also unfortunate for aboriginal applicants/english applicants.

[immuno_goblin]

NOOOOOO!!! No! No! Ugh. 

[rmorelan]

100% guarantee you guys that this year's requirement for the MCAT will purely be a scholarly exercise of determining their weighting of it for next year. I interviewed at Ottawa this past cycle and my CASPer was atrocious (I mean seriously, if you had read my answers you'd question how I was even capable of using a computer), and that was the first cycle they "implemented" it.

 

Beyond that, you play the game to get in. Being angry at injustices gets you nowhere. A sense of entitlement won't get us far in this career.

 

maybe purely scholarly, ha, but you will still need to have it in order to apply and you can never be sure what they will do with it

 

interesting times

[rmorelan]

I do not think it would lead to an erosion in the meaning of French stream.

 

All applicants selected in the French Stream would know french. Therefore, they could still communicate with French patients in French and study medicine in French. There are native french speaking applicants in USA that do the MCAT and practice. There are native Spanish speaking doctors in USA that do the MCAT and still utilize their language skill of spanish. Learning two languages does not mean its a negative. Learning two languages is a positive.

 

Even though in principle, what uOttawa did is fair. I still feel for the French applicants who wanted to apply this cycle. It is pretty unfortunate for them to write MCAT at such a short notice. It is also unfortunate for aboriginal applicants/english applicants.

 

Still restrictive - In the US for instance neither french nor spanish are official languages (not that ottawa has to accept both - I mean of course all the other schools don't - but there is a bit of politics at play for sure with it as it is the nations capital and some hospitals in the area do use primarily french). You can expect and insist that in the US a test should be written in the nation's official language. More blurry here.

 

Compared to before, since learning a new language is very hard the school realistically just excluded a large fraction of french speaking applicants. Maybe they don't care about that as their service area is better served by true bilingual students (?)

[lcs.tmng]

I do not think it would lead to an erosion in the meaning of French stream.

 

All applicants selected in the French Stream would know french. Therefore, they could still communicate with French patients in French and study medicine in French. There are native french speaking applicants in USA that do the MCAT and practice. There are native Spanish speaking doctors in USA that do the MCAT and still utilize their language skill of spanish. Learning two languages does not mean its a negative. Learning two languages is a positive.

 

Even though in principle, what uOttawa did is fair. I still feel for the French applicants who wanted to apply this cycle. It is pretty unfortunate for them to write MCAT at such a short notice. It is also unfortunate for aboriginal applicants/english applicants.

Bwahahahaha

 

Try again fam

 

I'm proficient in 6 languages, but that's not the point.

 

You'd be singing a different tune if you had a beast of a test that is the MCAT (particullarly the CARS part) in a different language than the expected language of your program and workplace.

 

It's not even the TOEFL, that would actually make sense since you'd be working in an functionally bilingual city, it's the f* ing fuc*ing MCAT; a standardized test, a big one at that, culturally and linguistically biased against French Canadians.

[thethirdlaw]

It sucks, the process isn't fair. You can't type >80 WPM? Say goodbye to Mac and Ottawa. Can't speak French? Say goodbye to UdeM, Sherbrooke, Laval and Ottawa. ESL and low verbal? Goodbye Mac and Western. Poor and can't afford all the MCAT courses and time away from work to build ECs? Say goodbye to pretty much everywhere. Born in an urban centre in Ontario (but not SWOMEN)? Say goodbye to in-province preferences essentially everywhere. 

 

Each school builds its class in response to the needs of its "catchment area" and any perceived deficiencies in the class admitted the year prior. They aren't here to balance the whims and feelings of betrayal of applicants. You buy tickets to the lottery by being competitive in as many places as you can, whether that's by focusing on GPA, MCAT, ECs, research, residence status or language proficiency. I repeat, it sucks, there's no way to make it fair and objective. And I feel your pain, I wasn't happy with the system while playing by its rules either, they suck, you just have to respond to them in a way that give you the best shot.

 

Besides, for 26% of all medical seats in Canada to be in French schools or streams with a Francophone population at 22% is more than fair.

[geriatricsdoc]

It sucks, the process isn't fair. You can't type >80 WPM? Say goodbye to Mac and Ottawa. Can't speak French? Say goodbye to UdeM, Sherbrooke, Laval and Ottawa. ESL and low verbal? Goodbye Mac and Western. Poor and can't afford all the MCAT courses and time away from work to build ECs? Say goodbye to pretty much everywhere. Born in an urban centre in Ontario (but not SWOMEN)? Say goodbye to in-province preferences essentially everywhere. 

 

Each school builds its class in response to the needs of its "catchment area" and any perceived deficiencies in the class admitted the year prior. They aren't here to balance the whims and feelings of betrayal of applicants. You buy tickets to the lottery by being competitive in as many places as you can, whether that's by focusing on GPA, MCAT, ECs, research, residence status or language proficiency. I repeat, it sucks, there's no way to make it fair and objective. And I feel your pain, I wasn't happy with the system while playing by its rules either, they suck, you just have to respond to them in a way that give you the best shot.

 

Besides, for 26% of all medical seats in Canada to be in French schools or streams with a Francophone population at 22% is more than fair.

Hahaha this is true! ahah

[geriatricsdoc]

Still restrictive - In the US for instance neither french nor spanish are official languages (not that ottawa has to accept both - I mean of course all the other schools don't - but there is a bit of politics at play for sure with it as it is the nations capital and some hospitals in the area do use primarily french). You can expect and insist that in the US a test should be written in the nation's official language. More blurry here.

 

Compared to before, since learning a new language is very hard the school realistically just excluded a large fraction of french speaking applicants. Maybe they don't care about that as their service area is better served by true bilingual students (?)

If this is the case, then every university should reserve spots for franco applicants since french is an official language of Canada.

[indefatigable]

It sucks, the process isn't fair. You can't type >80 WPM? Say goodbye to Mac and Ottawa. Can't speak French? Say goodbye to UdeM, Sherbrooke, Laval and Ottawa. ESL and low verbal? Goodbye Mac and Western. Poor and can't afford all the MCAT courses and time away from work to build ECs? Say goodbye to pretty much everywhere. Born in an urban centre in Ontario (but not SWOMEN)? Say goodbye to in-province preferences essentially everywhere. 

 

Each school builds its class in response to the needs of its "catchment area" and any perceived deficiencies in the class admitted the year prior. They aren't here to balance the whims and feelings of betrayal of applicants. You buy tickets to the lottery by being competitive in as many places as you can, whether that's by focusing on GPA, MCAT, ECs, research, residence status or language proficiency. I repeat, it sucks, there's no way to make it fair and objective. And I feel your pain, I wasn't happy with the system while playing by its rules either, they suck, you just have to respond to them in a way that give you the best shot.

 

Besides, for 26% of all medical seats in Canada to be in French schools or streams with a Francophone population at 22% is more than fair.

 

These are generally valid points, but not specific to the context here.  Basically if you are a franco-Ontarian, you have access from one to three seats in Quebec (at Sherbrooke, UdeM, and Laval), outside of Ottawa and if applicable NOSM.  Otherwise, if you have weaker English skills, you now have to face one of the biggest hurdles for even native English speakers.  And what really for? - all of immediate the subsequent education will be in French.  Yes - having more than one language is beneficial, but the Canadian (especially Ottawa area) bilingual model of officially accepting French is based on the population within the area.  Franco-Ontarians were excluded from learning French at schools, which really impacted their society.  Wynne made a formal apology recently for treatment towards Franco-Ontarians.    

  

 The overall percentage you give at 26% is based on including all the Quebec seats, which really doesn't mean that much to the general French context, since Quebecers almost overwhelming (especially francophones) stay in Quebec.  I agree that there are many other disenfranchised linguistic minorities in Canada, but that doesn't mean the concerns of the franco-Ontarians should be just brushed aside.  

 

Also, outside of the French stream at Ottawa, I've never seen that French is needed to apply there.

[HappyAndHopeful]

As someone who will be applying to Ottawa this year and was not planning on writing the MCAT (I will be applying to Ottawa and NOSM), this announcement comes as a big surprise. I had heard about a month ago that they would be implementing it for this year, so I contacted the admissions office to get some more info. They told me that the MCAT would indeed be required for THIS upcoming application cycle, but that they would not be releasing which sections would be evaluated. I was not able to get much information from them beyond that.

I am very upset that the entire MCAT will be required, and not just CARS. I do feel that it is unfair to give such short notice, especially since the MCAT cannot be written in certain cities (ie. Where I live), thus requiring a trip to write it. Not to mention the fact that I am working full time this summer, and only have two months to study. I understand that many people applying will be writing it for other schools, but had I known about this earlier, I would have started preparing much sooner.

Having said that, I recognize that we have to adapt, and do our best with the time that we have to prepare. Does anyone know how the MCAT will be weighted and taken into consideration in the application process (or if this info will be release, and when)? I'm going to do the best that I can, but I do hope that further details are released. I will be applying to the English stream.

I also plan on calling the admissions office now that the requirement is formally released, to inquire about whether more info will become available. I will let everyone know what the result of that call is!