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Interview Invite Email / Letter


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  • 3 weeks later...

I reeallllyy hope Bio does not raise o 129.

 

PLEASE UWO.

 

I LUV U.

 

I will bring all Adcoms cookies if I get a chance here

Damn. If that doesn't happen, CARS would stay the same. Unfortunately I am in the feck 130 CARS group.

 

CAN THEY JUST TELL US THE CUTOFFS PLEASE. You don't need to send invites. Just gimme gimme gimme cutoffs.

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Obviously biased opinion here, but if the old MCAT cutoffs drop again (or to a lesser extent, do not increase to account for the dwindling pool), I can't see admissions having a good time dealing with the outrage.

 

Keeping the cutoff at 130 for CARS would be a fucking injustice given the recent changes in percentiles...at the very least the MCAT should be weighted per section to allow some flexibility and give a chance to those who managed a 129 or something in CARS which is still comparable to an old MCAT 11. This pass fail cutoff is so ridiculous when a single question on the 7 hour exam could have been the difference between a 129 and a 130 or a 128 and a 129. Rant over, yes life isn't fair, nonetheless, I'm expressing a thought.

From what has been said before, I'm fairly certain they set the cutoffs merely to achieve a certain number of invites. I don't think there's anything subjective or unfair. It's life! They pick cutoffs to ensure a specific number, if you make it, you make it, if not, them's the breaks. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it goes. That being said, REALLY hoping for LFO Harmonics to get what he/she wants. Similar situation over here! (Although lower chem/phys score for me!)

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From what has been said before, I'm fairly certain they set the cutoffs merely to achieve a certain number of invites. I don't think there's anything subjective or unfair. It's life! They pick cutoffs to ensure a specific number, if you make it, you make it, if not, them's the breaks. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it goes. That being said, REALLY hoping for LFO Harmonics to get what he/she wants. Similar situation over here! (Although lower chem/phys score for me!)

The point though, is that they picked an iteration of top 10% (they interview top 10 iirc) based pretty much entirely on CARS. There are multiple ways to achieve top 10 % which are way more balanced (I.e., using 85th percentile in all MCAT subsections rather than a 98th percentile in just one).

 

Obviously invite criteria is up to their discretion. It's just weird how whether you scored 48/53 on CARS vs. a 47/53 was the deciding factor, and doing relatively poorly in the other sections was A-ok.

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From what has been said before, I'm fairly certain they set the cutoffs merely to achieve a certain number of invites. I don't think there's anything subjective or unfair. It's life! They pick cutoffs to ensure a specific number, if you make it, you make it, if not, them's the breaks. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it goes. That being said, REALLY hoping for LFO Harmonics to get what he/she wants. Similar situation over here! (Although lower chem/phys score for me!)

I don't argue that their selection process is subjective at all. In fact, Western's pre-interview selection process is the most transparent in Ontario (Canada?) and that is something I appreciate as an applicant.

 

However, it is a different matter when it comes to discussing whether or not their selection process is fair/unfair. Last year, the old MCAT cutoffs were more easily attainable than that of the new one. You may say "this is because the majority of applicants were applying with the old MCAT," which is fair, although this same pool was held to a higher standard for two consecutive years prior (9/11/12, 32). They were able to relax this cutoff at the expense of those applying with new MCAT scores. 

 

This year will be interesting. What were once "low" scores within the old MCAT pool will be considered high relative to the other scores that remain. Now to answer the bolded - hypothetically, if because the majority of old scores have expired/applicants using them have gotten in, and 9/11/9 is deemed to be the cutoff because it is top 10 %ile within the old pool (likely will not be the case), would this be fair to applicants who have written the new exam?

 

Conversely, if we are to follow Western's own logic behind how they determined MCAT scores (based on how many applicants are applying from each pool), then it would only be fair for cutoffs of the old exam to increase and cutoffs for the new exam to decrease for this cycle.

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The point though, is that they picked an iteration of top 10% (they interview top 10 iirc) based pretty much entirely on CARS. There are multiple ways to achieve top 10 % which are way more balanced (I.e., using 85th percentile in all MCAT subsections rather than a 98th percentile in just one).

 

Obviously invite criteria is up to their discretion. It's just weird how whether you scored 48/53 on CARS vs. a 47/53 was the deciding factor, and doing relatively poorly in the other sections was A-ok.

 

I don't argue that their selection process is subjective at all. In fact, Western's pre-interview selection process is the most transparent in Ontario (Canada?) and that is something I appreciate as an applicant.

 

However, it is a different matter when it comes to discussing whether or not their selection process is fair/unfair. Last year, the old MCAT cutoffs were more easily attainable than that of the new one. You may say "this is because the majority of applicants were applying with the old MCAT," which is fair, although this same pool was held to a higher standard for two consecutive years prior (9/11/12, 32). They were able to relax this cutoff at the expense of those applying with new MCAT scores. 

 

This year will be interesting. What were once "low" scores within the old MCAT pool will be considered high relative to the other scores that remain. Now to answer the bolded - hypothetically, if because the majority of old scores have expired/applicants using them have gotten in, and 9/11/9 is deemed to be the cutoff because it is top 10 %ile within the old pool (likely will not be the case), would this be fair to applicants who have written the new exam?

 

Conversely, if we are to follow Western's own logic behind how they determined MCAT scores (based on how many applicants are applying from each pool), then it would only be fair for cutoffs of the old exam to increase and cutoffs for the new exam to decrease for this cycle.

You guys are right. I didn't really consider the fact that there are other ways to get the required number of invites. My bad. Very sorry. Shouldn't have overlooked this possibility. Does not bode well for MMI!  :wub:

In other news, does anyone know the subject line of the interview email? (Sorry if this has been asked before. I didn't see it if it has.)

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I feel like it might be Tuesday/Wednesday. The Schulich website says the interview invites will be sent "late January/early February."

Could be today though! Hahah basically everything's speculation at this point...

 

no you never know :) even silly things can cause the date to shift (this is an extremely important day for premeds - but in the office they have other issues. I mean it can be as simple as someone has a vacation to move a date forward or backward a little bit). 

 

I suppose the correct answer is it will be "soon". 

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western is pretty straightforward. You make the cutoffs you get interview, you don't make the cutoffs you don't get an interview. I think a lot of people are hesitant to post about rejections because it doesn't add much information for other people. For other schools rejections are helpful because it helps you get a sense of the GPA and mcat distributions, and types of activities. But for western it's pretty cut and dry. 

 

Do they send out invites in waves?

 

Many people have been posting "invited" posts on the stats thread, but I have yet to see a regret. As I haven't heard yet should I probably just assume the regret emails are coming in a second wave later today?

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