Guest macdaddyeh Posted November 29, 2002 Report Share Posted November 29, 2002 Hi everyone. I'm new to this site and I only applied to Mac this year. I would like to ask, FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO KNOW, what the quality of the admissions essays is like IN THE CASE OF MCMASTER this year. Good, bad, lots of spelling and grammar problems, a lot of monotony or creative answers? Just wondering..Or are there are a lot of solid candidates, especially considering the increased number of applicants? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted November 29, 2002 Report Share Posted November 29, 2002 I don't know, but i suspect the answer to your question is: "All of the Above." With more applicants, you are going to have more extremes at either end of the quality spectrum. In other words, there'll be lots of very high-quality essays and applicants, and lots of other applicants who are more borderline. Certainly spelling and grammar mistakes will not be the norm for most essays, but they will definitely be there, and this does nothing to improve the look of one's application. Regardless of the increased applicants, your own goal needs to be simply to submit the best essay that you can, and emphasize your strengths and why you believe that you would be a strong McMaster med student. It's always tough when you think of all those other people out there, but you've just got to keep your confidence level up that you're a good candidate. Ian UBC, Med 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MDWannabe Posted November 30, 2002 Report Share Posted November 30, 2002 Hey Macdaddyeh, I understand your angst and pain, having gone through the long waiting process like so many last year. I am now on the other side of it, and like each of my classmates, I am marking a number of submissions as a cog in the big admission review process. Ian had some good points to make, but the main take-home thing to realize is that no one could yet come close to having any idea what the bigger picture looks like yet. None of us, and, I suspect, no one on the AdCom will have any idea how this will play out until much closer to the March 1st letter. One could make assumptions based on what I have seen, but I think an overall extrapolation with such a small sample would be meaningless. I strongly suggest, for what it's worth, that you don't take any assertions about the quality of the applicant pool seriously unless you hear it directly from the AdCom. The rest of us (ie students in the programme) would just be talking out of our hats, and you don't deserve to be driven around the bend by people who aren't really in the know (even if they seem close to the know). The terrible waiting aspect of this process can't be avoided, except by taking a break until March and not thinking about it. I know, easy to say - hard to do. Better though to use the time to prepare yourself for the hoped for interview - not second guessing yourself about an application on which you must have already invested a significant amount of time. I wish you the best of luck, and please, PLEASE...try not to think about something that is now completely out of your control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peachy Posted November 30, 2002 Report Share Posted November 30, 2002 Wow.. Reading your post was the first time that I actually imagined somebody READING the essays that I wrote Is it fun? Are you blown away by some of it? Is it mostly boring and all sounding the same? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest macdaddyeh Posted November 30, 2002 Report Share Posted November 30, 2002 Ian and MDwannabe. Thanks for your replies. I understand it would be very difficult if not unfruitful to leak out any information concerning how the essays really appear to be; it is likely a gruellingly subjective process. I believe I did well, but became nervous, like I know many other applicants are, when I found out that the applicant # is way up, particularly at MAC (the only school I applied to for now...doing MCAT next summer). One question I still have then, particularly for mdwannabe seeing you're on the "other side" is, how exactly does the marking of essays process work? Do you receive the essays randomly and weigh the quality of those given essays against each other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JS28 Posted November 30, 2002 Report Share Posted November 30, 2002 Hi MDWannabe, You mentioned that you and your classmates are marking the submissions. (Does this mean that you've already received them and have started on the sorting process?) I ask because my application is still being processed by OMSAS! Thanks! p.s. are only the first year med students marking the essays (or students from all the years who volunteer)? I'm just curious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest macdaddyeh Posted November 30, 2002 Report Share Posted November 30, 2002 JS28, I hear ya. This was exactly what I was getting at when asking my initial question. I simply wanted to know how the process works, and, by default, what the quality of those applications received is like. Maybe it's just first-time jitters. As I settle into final exams and had a few minutes to reflect, I started thinking about med school again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest WesternGirl Posted November 30, 2002 Report Share Posted November 30, 2002 Hi JS28 and Macdaddyeh, I am also a first year med student at Mac and yes, we started to receive the applications last week. I'm not sure what it means that your ( JS28 ) application is still being processed. Maybe that means that your reference letters or transcripts are still being processed? I'm not really sure but it probably is not something to worry about, especially if other applicants are also "being processed". Reading these essays is pretty much "mandatory" for the first year class and many upper year students also volunteer to read them. We are given 30 submissions each to read. Each essay is evaluated by three people - a student, faculty member and a community member. I haven't started reading mine, so I don't know the quality yet; however remember that each person is only reading 30 out of the 3800, so, like it was said before, no one knows the quality of the entire applicant pool yet. *Try* not to worry. Easier said than done, I know. Good luck on your exams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MDWannabe Posted December 1, 2002 Report Share Posted December 1, 2002 Hi Peachy, JS28, Macdaddyeh: Peachy: It's been made very clear to us that we can't really comment on the quality of the applications we're reviewing. There are major confidentiality issues involved. I seem to remember there was a (possibly inadvertent) leak last year and the ensuing trauma wasn't pleasant for anyone concerned, so we all have to be very careful. Macdaddyeh: the applications are meant to be looked at in an absolute sense. For example, everyone in my group is potentially interviewable and/or rejectable. Comparisons must no doubt come into play, since the pile we receive is really the only thing we have to go on. I probably also have in the back of my mind the quality and backgrounds of the people I have met in all years of the programme, and that helps me to develop a baseline. From discussions with my peers, my sense is that we are all taking this very seriously, recognizing that we aren't far from where we were last year at this time, sitting in your position. That being said, this is clearly a subjective process, and personally I'm sure my application could have easily rubbed some reader the wrong way and been ruled out. To be the approximately 1 in 10 that gets interviewed, I think, involves no small amount of luck. The luck factor is reduced somewhat by having 3 readers review your application, but I'd guess (and this is my opinion only!) that you wouldn't be able to see a huge quality difference between the 300th best application (interviewed) and the 500th best application (rejected). Certainly the process could be more perfect, but the machinery it take to run this process already is pretty overwhelming, given 3680 applications. Maybe it's not great that first years are reading these, but given that 2nd years are already halfway out of the school towards clerkship, the 138 available first year students are in a better position to help. I think we also provide a good balance with the faculty and community members to get a multi-perspective view of each application. I know there will be inevitable comments on this site, as there were last year, that this is all a subjective crapshoot. And yes, there is some subjectivity involved. I think this is also true of the other schools. I think it is only at Mac (although I invite correction on this point) that you get your percentile ranking on your application if you are rejected, and many have noted the wide variances they see from year to year with the same content. I'm sure you'd find that variance at other schools too - they just don't give you that information to complain about. Again, I say, you can't do anything about it at this stage. Your time would be much better spent preparing for interviews (which as you may know, is quite an involved process). Good luck to all of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peachy Posted December 1, 2002 Report Share Posted December 1, 2002 Thank you for your comments MDWannabe! ... (I really meant to ask in general what the experience is like reading these kinds of things, which you answered to some degree, I guess, not about the quality of the applications) Anyways, enjoy your reading Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest macdaddyeh Posted December 1, 2002 Report Share Posted December 1, 2002 You really clarified some things for me and now I also recognize how serious a "leak" of information would be. Instead of divulging to us the quality of the essays within your pool and among peers, are you able to tell us what it is that graders look for. What makes a submission really stand out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted December 1, 2002 Report Share Posted December 1, 2002 Hi there MDwannabe, There is at least one other school within the nation that provides rejected applicants with information regarding their relative position in the applicant pool: UBC. They provide this information if you are rejected either without an interview or rejected post-interview. I feel that it would be positive for more schools to release this information to give applicants an idea of where they stand in the ocean of applications. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MDWannabe Posted December 2, 2002 Report Share Posted December 2, 2002 Hi Kirsteen, I completely agree with you. Better to have a general idea whether you are on track. The problem with only a few schools doing it is it seems to have opened those few up to accusations of more subjective treatment vs the others. It also really makes obvious the clear fact that 2 people reading the same application can have radically different views of who you are. Peachy: I wish I could give you a straight answer to your question, but it's pretty hard to talk about my experience marking these things without being more specific about individual things I saw. I certainly see it as an important responsibility and it's a difficult task to separate and grade a group where the differences in the high quality level amongst the bulk of the group was for me not monumental. I think it's safe to say that there are probably a lot of quality applicants and that it's pretty competitive out there. But you know that already... Macdaddyeh: As to what Mac is looking for, yes, there are criteria, but markers are given a lot of leeway, so there are definitely no hard and fast rules. No real "secrets". Generally, just intelligent, analytical, communicative well rounded individuals. For me personally, the key is the phrase you mentioned: "stand out". When I was applying, I wrestled long and hard with injecting some humour into the application. All my contacts at Mac, current and alumni, encouraged me to do so. To actually include some humour is so much more meaningful than saying you have a sense of humour. In the end though, a doctor who I strongly respect (nonMac) urged me to keep humour out. His thought was that some humourless individual would see my application and dismiss me as frivolous. To my regret, I listened to him; but I got in anyway - which leads me to my point (you had to know I was getting there sometime): If you go out on a limb, you do it at your peril. You can wow someone with it (I personally would have lapped up any appropriate humour included), or you could count yourself out. If you think you are a mid-stream applicant, I'd think going out on a limb is worth a shot. Your aim I think is to balance broad appeal without seeming too watered down. I attempted to do this by trying to be as creative as I could. But I still regret that I wimped out in the humour department. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ploughboy Posted December 2, 2002 Report Share Posted December 2, 2002 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi MDW, Thanks for commenting on the evaluation process. Like peachy I'm going through the "ohmigosh, somebody's actually evaluating my essays!" phase right now. I'm sure you remember what it's like. Ever had a song stuck in your head ? I had my essays stuck in my head yesterday (I have the damn things memorized!). Talk about torture! I'm feeling much better now... Couple of trivial but quickly answered questions for you: Back in the archives somebody credible (maybe gucio93 or Carolyn - I'm too lazy to look it up) said she spent appr ox 60 hours reading applications. Is that pretty standard for evaluators? (two hours reading my app - talk about being under a microscope!) Also in the archives an evaluator mentioned that the distribution of essay marks in her batch wasn't Gaussian - th ere were lots of outliers in both directions. It sounds like your batch is a lot more uniform, do you feel that is typical of most batches? I realize you might not feel comfortable answering this question (and you might not hav e enough data to do so), it's no big deal if it goes unanswered. I'm just trying to add to my little mental model of Mac's process. Thanks, pb -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (OpenBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE96rTK/HNgbK3bC2wRAvgiAKCI6YRdafzJXS/Wnunipj/+0nCHIwCePa7B P7xLHBjJg3il9hcDYTzl3ic= =w9b/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AJ Posted December 2, 2002 Report Share Posted December 2, 2002 MDWannabe: I realize how difficult it is for you to answer everyone's questions without "leaking" things out. Everyone else: I think it's been mentioned many times before that the quality of our "small" piles does not offer an accurate indication of the quality of the entire pool. Similarly, it will be hard for us to tell you whether or not there are a lot of outliers because again, we only know of the ones in our piles. From reading all those essays, one thing I realized is that a good essay is a good essay. Even if someone else has more life experience than you, or has travelled to more exotic places than, if you have shown that you have put in the time and energy to think through those questions, it does not make your application weigh less than theirs. What we're looking for is whether this person would make a good physician, and more specifically, would the Mac progarm be suitable for them. Seriously, like MDWannabe wrote earlier, there is a lot more to worry about when your interview invite finally arrives (e.g., what you're going wear, how you're going to answer certain questions, etc.). For now, everything is beyond your control. There is nothing you can do to change your applications now. Please try not to think about it too much, or over-analyzing things! I understand that it will be difficult, and I wish there is a magic potion which will ease your angst and anxiety. We (my classmates and I) are all taking this job seriously, and as I said before a good essay is a good essay no matter how you cut it. We will try to help you by answering your generic questions. Please keep in mind, however, there are certain boundaries which we cannot cross! Hope this helps! Best of luck! AJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ploughboy Posted December 2, 2002 Report Share Posted December 2, 2002 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? pb -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (OpenBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE9600u/HNgbK3bC2wRAokEAJ9szJBav2OsnkQh9dLTb0fA/SpPgACfWs1f wEDXLwrMinGi1PFUx/hOkG0= =PubC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest macdaddyeh Posted December 3, 2002 Report Share Posted December 3, 2002 Hi there. Based on what I am seeing on other posts, people are surprised that Mac has already received our submissions and is grading them. Are they all received at Mac in one huge bunch? Are you receiving more daily or weekly? Also, do you receive and read our transcripts and/or our autobiographical sketch list, or ONLY our responses to the 15 questions. For the sake of curiosity (and likely that of fellow posters), I simply want to know how the process works. Thanks and happy reading... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest WesternGirl Posted December 4, 2002 Report Share Posted December 4, 2002 Hi Macdaddyeh, As per the submissions, we are only given the 15 questions for marking - not the transcripts, sketch, or the reference letters. I would guess that someone else (i.e., the computer!) would calculate GPAs and eliminate those who don't make the cutoffs. As for the sketch and letters, I really don't know who would read them. Perhaps they play a role in the interview or in the final decision. I think Mac has received all of the essays (that is, we are not receiving them daily or in batches). I believe tomorrow is the last training day for reading the submissions and all of the applications will have been given out to the students to read. Mac students: please correct me if I'm wrong. Other schools might not have started reading their essays yet, because they could still be waiting for MCAT results. That is just my guess though. Or perhaps they are still setting their cutoffs and therefore, have not begun to read (they don't read essays of people who did not make the cutoffs). At Mac, the cutoff (3.0) has been set, so they could begin reading right away. Does this make sense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peachy Posted December 4, 2002 Report Share Posted December 4, 2002 You guys have a training day? Cool. Would I be right in guessing that you're not about to tell us whatever it is they tell you in training? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest macdaddyeh Posted December 4, 2002 Report Share Posted December 4, 2002 Yes, that process makes sense. May I ask what you mean, westerngirl, by "training" concerning essay grading? Also, may I ask what happens after you read the essay. You score it, but then to whom do you hand it over and how does it work from there? Now that you have made it and you are on the other side in med school, are you finding it difficult to grade these essays and be subjective, especially when you see some really poignant, well-written essays? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gucio93 Posted December 4, 2002 Report Share Posted December 4, 2002 I know your question is for Westerngirl, but I thought I would answer and let her add whatever she wishes. In terms of training, it is a session meant to familiarize the assessors with the overall quality of applicant that would be suitable for the programme. Qulities such as understanding of the programme, ability to follow instructions, credibility, honour, altruism, etc. are being stressed. The assessors are also familiarized once again with the mission statement, code of conduct of the medical school, and the fact that applicants cannot be rejected on the basis of sex, religion, age, race, etc. After the essays are read, they are returned to the admissions' coordinator who (along with her assistant) checks the scores. If the scores from the three assessord for a particular applicant are very disparate, the assessors are approached to justify why they felt the applicant deserved the given score, and the essay is reviewed by one more independent party in order to assure a process that is as fair and as unbiased as possible. The three scores are then averaged and the average is entered into the computer. Based on this plus the GPA, approximately the top 400 applicants are invited for the interview. Immediately prior to the interview, the interview team (community member, medical student, and faculty member) receive the autobiographical sketch for the applicant and they have 10 min to read it over. This team does not see the 15 question essay or any other information. At the end of the interview, each of the interviewers individually completes an evaluation form and gives a score out of 7 along with some qualitative comments. These are sealed in an envelope and given to the interview coordinator immediately after they are completed (so the scores cannot be discussed and changed). Once this whole process is completed, a collation group is created and these individuals go over every piece of information for each of the candidates invited to the interview. At this point, the interview scores and comments are assessed, along with GPA, essay scores, and reference letters and the candidate is placed into one of three groups: accepted, rejected, or maybe. The accepted will get their acceptance letter, the rejected will get their rejection letter, while the maybe's will either make it to the accepted group (if class has not been filled) or will go to the wait-listed group. Hope this is somewhat clear. Good luck everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest macdaddyeh Posted December 4, 2002 Report Share Posted December 4, 2002 Wow; I likely speak for others when I say that was comprehensive and totally bang on in terms of enlightening us as to how the process works. Two further questions: 1. How are the assessors determined? My understanding is that they are not all medical students, are they? 2. Do you see what mark the other assessors have assigned to an individual's submission? Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peachy Posted December 4, 2002 Report Share Posted December 4, 2002 Thanks so much for your comments, gucio93. I definitely agree with macdaddyeh! The last paragraph was especially useful - explains why we shouldn't bother trying to average our percentiles together at the end of the process One quick question - what if the collation committee decides to "accept" too many applicants? Or are there never that many obviously outstanding applicants? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Shahenshah Posted December 4, 2002 Report Share Posted December 4, 2002 gucio93..I just have one word to say - AWESOME! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Carolyn Posted December 4, 2002 Report Share Posted December 4, 2002 I can try to answer the questions: 1. How are the assessors determined? My understanding is that they are not all medical students, are they? You are absolutely right - one assessor is a med student, one is a community member and one is a faculty member. With the increase in applications this year, there ended up having to be a bit of a recruitment campaign! 2. Do you see what mark the other assessors have assigned to an individual's submission? No Not at all - not only that you don't ever find out who the other assessors are - unless by some really huge fluke you end up sitting next to them in the training session and look over their shoulder at their list of names. I would only add that at the training they emphasize that you do not have to have a normal distribution of marks amongst all of the submissions that you mark -- i.e. you could give 30 out of 30 submissions 7/7 if you felt that was really appropriate or of course 30 out of 30 1/7 - but that would be pretty unlikely -- I doubt either of those situations happen very often. take care Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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