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What conditions "guarantees" one an interview?


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Background: 3rd year student that applied to Toronto McMaster Queen Ottawa this cycle. I'm planning to apply to those 4 schools + Western (maybe rest of Canada as well, we shall see) next cycle. Not too many expectations for this cycle as it's extra hard to get in as a 3rd year. Banking on Western next year fingers crossed.

Question: Is it true that Western only looks at your GPA and MCAT score competitively pre-interviews, assigns you a rank, and invites the top 400ish students to an interview regardless of SWOMEN status or not? Or are seats reserved for SWOMEN students. I was wondering if my stats would "guarantee" me an interview. "Quotation marks" because I know schools, in general, can't guarantee anything without putting themselves in legal jeopardy. 

GPA 4.0 - No red flags, fulfills the 3/5 rule but I did overload 5.5 2nd years courses in 2nd year

MCAT 525 (132 129 132 132)

Thanks in advance!

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We don't believe there are set SWOMEN seats hard coded - effectively the cutoffs give them the class mix they are looking for. They do look only at your GPA and MCAT for interview (with the exception of any "red flags" and making sure you have the right number and grade level for the courses). and yeah schools are never going to guarantee sometime if for no reason than they need to be able to subjectively exclude people that the medical field won't accept anyway (the college isn't going to let a convicted criminal likely practice for instance).

so yeah you are almost certain to get an interview etc. 

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@YesIcan55 Imho I feel like my GPA and MCAT isn't helping or giving me an edge over someone with a 3.9X and a 52X. Like I guess one can find comfort in knowing the reason why one didn't get an interview or acceptance is not cause of the MCAT score or GPA. But I feel like you really have to be a next level human being or applicant to get an interview and offer 3rd year. I feel like schools prefer a 4th year over a 3rd year, and 3rd years simply have a low % compared to everyone else to get in which is another low %. So the odds don't look too good ahaha, I applied this year more for practice I guess and a "why not?" attitude

 

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@YesIcan55 I was just focussing on Ontario for 3rd year. If I wanted to leave before I got my Bachelors, I wouldn't want to go TOO far. I also don't have a 1.0 English (taking this summer) You need that for UBC what else? Also I heard it's much harder to OOP students to get in to those schools.

Worried about CASPer tbh, not sure how that went & My writing isn't the best either so not sure how my essays turned out. Hoping for the best!

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On 10/19/2017 at 7:48 PM, celciuszoo said:

@YesIcan55 I was just focussing on Ontario for 3rd year. If I wanted to leave before I got my Bachelors, I wouldn't want to go TOO far. I also don't have a 1.0 English (taking this summer) You need that for UBC what else? Also I heard it's much harder to OOP students to get in to those schools.

Worried about CASPer tbh, not sure how that went & My writing isn't the best either so not sure how my essays turned out. Hoping for the best!

-

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I have heard that MCAT and GPA are about 50% post-interview but no one really knows. They don't look at your ABS before the interview to determine if you should get one (or even afterwards from what I have heard). I am actually not sure about LOR's I don't think its really looked at. I actually know this person who got in recently with stats right on the cutoff (they were swomen though) and they got in so your interview really does mean a lot. I also know someone with excellent stats who was waitlisted and I don't think they were a bad interviewer because they got into a lot of other schools, so you can't be overly confident with good stats but it definitely helps! 

I honestly think it is good that you are going into this with a modest outlook! I saw a lot of people who were extremely disappointed with no interviews and excellent stats (3.9+ 515+). I really think you can do it though! Hopefully the schools are receptive to the other parts of your application :)

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@youknownothing95 This process is so much of a crapshoot I don't think anyone can say that they're for sure gonna get in unless they've multiple first-authors, NSERC 528 MCAT 4.0 GPA etc. (jk, kinda). That's interesting because I know that the interview is closed-book correct? The physician medical student and community member know absolutely nothing about you. This did make me feel better about my chances of getting an interview there. Thanks!

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@celciuszoo Nope not SWOMEN! 

What do you mean by do they look at them competitively? I don't know if you just need to meet the cut off and that's all they care about or if they assign a rank, if that's what you mean. I don't think anyone knows that. 
Western doesn't look at ABS at all and, based off of other people's speculation, LORs are just looked at for any red flags.

You have great stats so just apply broadly and don't get discouraged if you need to go through more than one cycle!

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20 hours ago, trj03 said:

@celciuszoo Nope not SWOMEN! 

What do you mean by do they look at them competitively? I don't know if you just need to meet the cut off and that's all they care about or if they assign a rank, if that's what you mean. I don't think anyone knows that. 
Western doesn't look at ABS at all and, based off of other people's speculation, LORs are just looked at for any red flags.

You have great stats so just apply broadly and don't get discouraged if you need to go through more than one cycle!

 

They may not look at the ABS at all (and we don't know if that's true as they may very well look at it post-interview), but I imagine it still comes up during your interview (my speculation, of-course) 

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20 hours ago, habromania said:

As someone who interviewed there, I think you have to highlight experiences from your ABS to have a good interview but I do not think they assess it or use it like Ottawa, for example.

as long as you answer the question asked, ha. People can be so obsessed about the fact they have these good experiences they think will convince people to let them in that it can distract them from answering the actual question. Make sure you answer the question and if that involves using some of your own experiences great. 

 

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On 10/25/2017 at 2:02 PM, ysera said:

 

They may not look at the ABS at all (and we don't know if that's true as they may very well look at it post-interview), but I imagine it still comes up during your interview (my speculation, of-course) 

as far as we know they don't look at it post either :)

when you think about it the entire ABS as a tool for evaluation is against the philosophy of how the school selects people at all (there is always a logic to a school's approach and it usually is consistent. If you use purely objective pre interview criteria it would be usual to swing the other way completely somewhere else)

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