Guest another applicant Posted March 7, 2002 Report Share Posted March 7, 2002 I would like to ask anyone who knows whether the GPA/autobio combined score (50% each) is based upon percentile score in each category or some evaluation mark in each. That is, If my GPA is 3.6 (50th %ile) and autobio sketch is 90th %ile; would my score be the average of 90th %ile and 50th %ile (70th %ile), or it would be an average of 3.7 out of 4 (GPA) and an autobio score out of 4. This makes a difference because in the latter case, GPA differences above 3.0 won't amount to much, and autobio mark would be the important factor. BUt if percentile ranks are averaged, even an autobio mark of 100% won't get someone with a 50th %ile in the top 13% or so that are interviewed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Liana Posted March 7, 2002 Report Share Posted March 7, 2002 I think a lot of people around here have been puzzling with the same question. I'm not a Mac med student, so perhaps they should provide the definite answer, but I think someone mentioned that you can either be chosen for your academic + personal qualities, or just your personal qualities. I know that in the Mac admission literature, they provide the stats for last year's entering class, and one categorical breakdown was based on the number of students in these two categories (I don't remember the exact stats, but most applicants were admitted based on academic and personal qualities). From what I can figure, as long as you meet the minimum academic requirements, Mac will only consider your average if it will help boost your application. They may compensate for this by only interviewing the applicants with extremely high personal ranking (eg, say the 95th percentile and above) whereas they may consider a larger cohort of students who also had the academic qualities (eg, perhaps the combined 86th percentile and above). I think Mac's admission procedure should be the 8th wonder of the world. No one really understands it, but it evokes strong emotions in all who come near it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gucio93 Posted March 7, 2002 Report Share Posted March 7, 2002 Just to clarify a little bit . . . The average is definitely considered alongside the essay questions (50/50). However, if the assessors of the questionnaire feel that a particular applicant is so outstanding that they should be granted an interview even if their academic average would not permit them one according to the 50/50 formula, they can indicate so on the marking sheet. This does not happen often (as you can see from the fact that the majority of applicants are indeed admitted based on both personal and academic qualifications); however, the truly amazing individuals who have had rich and diverse life experiences and "stand out from the crowed" are given the opportunity to interview. Hope that helps a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JSS02 Posted March 7, 2002 Report Share Posted March 7, 2002 My friend and I were thinking about this, and merely averaging the percentiles would never work... 60 of the 128 students have under a 3.6 (I believe 3.56 is the 50th percentile, so let's say a 3.6 is 54th or so). Only 23 applicants were interviewed based on the "personal qualities" stream. So if they averaged your GPA and sketch percentiles, the maximum you can get is 77, and you'd need 100 in the sketch for that. If you got 100 in the sketch I think that's enough to make it into the other stream. I know of several people, including myself with an "average" (done this way) over 77 but with no interview. What makes more sense is if they take your score out of 21 (three evaluators, each giving a score out of 7), convert that to a score out of 4, and then add it to your GPA to give you your total. Obviously the variation in sketch scores (as low as 0, as high as 4.0) is much greater than the variation in GPA scores (as low as 3.0, as high as 4.0), and the percentiles don't reflect that. So this way McMaster can say they use the GPA/sketch 50/50, but due to the way the evaluation works, actually favours your sketch much more than U of T and Ottawa, which are 60/40 and 50/50 respectively. I guess at these schools the GPA is counted in a different way such that a 4.0 is actually much more than 11.1% better than a 3.6, which is why most people interviewing there have 3.8+ GPAs. Well, that was long winded. I think it does help to explain things a bit, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Liana Posted March 7, 2002 Report Share Posted March 7, 2002 Not to beat on Mac's credibility any more than the pounding it has already received, but I have to wonder about the validity of the *academic* percentiles. I've heard more than one person tote around the stat of 3.60 GPA and 60th percentile. Is this an approximation, or are those numbers expressed in sig figs? Because here's the thing. Originally my OMSAS GPA was 3.58, but this was because they had incorrectly informed me of how to weigh an oddly weighted course I had taken. When I received my confirmation from OUAC, my GPA was officially listed as 3.55. Regardless of what it actually is, that's still less than 3.60, yet my academic percentile was listed as 65th. A piddly remark, yes, but it would be odd if even the academic percentiles were a bit questionable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JSS02 Posted March 8, 2002 Report Share Posted March 8, 2002 The person that gave you that number probably rounded it off... although I'm not fond of the Mac application process, the last thing I'm gonna do is accuse them of making up numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.