Post Interview Assessment

[chickenpoutine]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone knew when/if reference letters are taken into account for mac. Also, I've heard a few people talk about mac dropping your lowest and best stations- has anyone asked the adcom about this? 

Thanks!

[Distancea]

Also interested in this. I have never heard of mac dropping any of the worst or best stations. I don't see why they would not state this on their website but if anyone knows better please post here. 

[markup]

I have heard this anecdotally from medical students regarding MMIs in general, but not really specifically about McMaster's process.

[indi]

I've heard that the letters are used just to screen for red-flags. This is probably the case since they are mandatory but not included in the calculation of your application score. 

[BoardManGetsPaid]

I heard that they look at references post interview for red flags, but not 100% sure

[random_dent]

Echoing what some people had said: they review reference letters post interview to screen for red flags, but that's basically it.  The admissions coordinator said during the information session last year that essentially reference letters can drop you down but not boost you up.  

For the MMI, I don't think they drop any interview stations.  The whole point of the MMI is that it smooths out variation just by the number of impressions, so there's not really a need to drop outlying stations.  From all the articles they've published on using the MMI they seem to use raw average score converted into z-scores.  That being said, they are clear that they do a final file analysis, so there's always some room for them to fudge things.

I think some of the confusion around the MMI is that they do sometimes include a non-scored test station to test questions for future years.  I'm not sure if they're still doing this - makes more sense when they had 12 stations versus 10.