Hey everyone!

Back from a long hiatus, I'm here to answer anyone's questions/worries/concerns about medical school!

If you've never met me before, I'm a second year medical student at Mac and I've been a member of MacInsiders for many years. MacInsiders helped me helped me get into my program, so I think it's only fair that I give back the same If you haven't read my previous thread "Medical School Advice #1, check it out here: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...1.html?t=29571

Post if you have any questions about extracurricular activities, applications, interviews, MCAT, etc. You can PM me if you want a private reply. I'm here to help and I've got a lot of free time on my hands to answer questions because this is the start my enormous 1 week summer vacation!

Cheers!

Mitch

I've noticed that on forums, people talking about their interview answers tend to beef them up with flowery, sophisticated sounding words. Do you think that's important? Or is it okay to just "speak from the heart"? I don't mean using slang, lol, but does it have to be completely formal?

Wow... your last thread is awesome! i just read through the entire thing... thanks for all the advice
thats all i wanted to say... i dont have a question atm!

Hey Ooburii!

That's...a very interesting question, haha. Beefing up interview answers with flowery, sophisticated words. I've never heard that one before. I think once you start planning your answers like a script and second guessing each word that you're saying, it's going to hurt you more than it's going to help. Interviewers don't need you to be "sophisticated" or "flowery", they want to see that you can think on your feet on both sides of an issue. They want to see that you have a good head on your shoulders. Being passionate, enthusiastic and unique during your answers is 10x better than being sophisticated. That's not saying that they don't want to see intelligence and maturity, but the majority of interviewees are already smart and beefing up their dialect with a thesaurus probably wouldn't help as much as a fun, friendly, smart thinking person. It's more about how you explain your answer than what you are saying. Be yourself

Nonetheless, you probably shouldn't be saying things such as "like, um" 20 times.

Speak from the heart, but be prepared prior by reading up on topics that might appear during the interview. Practice with friends so you are comfortable with the MMI. Once you have a base set of knowledge and experience, you can speak from the heart and you'll show off your unique self!

Hope that helps!

Mitch

Originally Posted by mitch

Hey Ooburii!

That's...a very interesting question, haha. Beefing up interview answers with flowery, sophisticated words. I've never heard that one before. I think once you start planning your answers like a script and second guessing each word that you're saying, it's going to hurt you more than it's going to help. Interviewers don't need you to be "sophisticated" or "flowery", they want to see that you can think on your feet on both sides of an issue. They want to see that you have a good head on your shoulders. Being passionate, enthusiastic and unique during your answers is 10x better than being sophisticated. That's not saying that they don't want to see intelligence and maturity, but the majority of interviewees are already smart and beefing up their dialect with a thesaurus probably wouldn't help as much as a fun, friendly, smart thinking person. It's more about how you explain your answer than what you are saying. Be yourself

Nonetheless, you probably shouldn't be saying things such as "like, um" 20 times.

Speak from the heart, but be prepared prior by reading up on topics that might appear during the interview. Practice with friends so you are comfortable with the MMI. Once you have a base set of knowledge and experience, you can speak from the heart and you'll show off your unique self!

Hope that helps!

Mitch

Thanks~! That's really helpful.

Hey Mitch, I'm not sure if you mentioned this in your previous thread, but how many extracurricular activities did you get involved in during undergrad? I'm strongly considering med school but I haven't really done much in terms of extracurriculars so far, and I'm entering second year, so I suppose I'll need to start doing something soon.

Also if you don't mind, could you share some of the extracurriculars you got involved in? I really don't have much of an idea of what to do besides the typical stuff like volunteering at a hospital, joining clubs, etc. so it would be nice to get some more ideas.

Thanks in advance!

Hey Oranges!

Like you, I didn't do too many extracurriculars at first because I wasn't 100% set on medicine at the time. I really started ramping it up after second year with a job, volunteering at a hospital, a research position and about 5 or 6 other volunteer positions. And then there were the kinesiologist jobs during my extra year off. So don't worry if you haven't done too much yet. Start finding a couple things to do this year and you'll be ok.

There are tons of great clubs at Mac to be a part of, as well as programs around the university. Search the internet for events happening around Hamilton. The online OSCAR system is a great resource for finding jobs and research positions. Most become available on OSCAR early in the new year so keep checking often. Also, you could look into volunteer programs offered overseas if you're interested in that sort of thing.

In terms of what specific programs I was part of, PM me and I'll give you a list. I don't like posting specific details in public for obvious reasons. The same goes for anyone else that's interested.

Hope that helps!

As another note to everyone reading this thread, if you have any questions, chances are other students have similar questions. Don't be afraid to post questions on this thread so that other students can read them as well. So far I've gotten many PMs, which is fine (keep them coming!), but if we could move some of the PM questions to the main thread, others can benefit from them as well! As for the PMs, I'll try my best to answer each one within a day or two.

Till next time!

Mitch

Wow this is perfect!!! Thank you for offering your time and advice! I had a question about the weighting of GPA versus extra-currculars and the interview. I know a lot of schools have different weighting systems, but is the GPA really treated as just a cut-off or do they specifically look for those with higher GPAs to invite them to interviews?

Hello! Thank you for doing such a thread, I think it'll help a lot of people to ask someone with first-hand experience.
I've always had the ambitions of going to medical school and eventually becoming a paediatrician, but after going to university (I'm in 3rd year Life Sci now), I'm not too sure myself. My grades have ranged from a 1 to a 11 since 1st year, and I'm VERY worried about my chances of getting into medical school now. How high of a chance do you think I would have?

Hey Mac-lover!

Nice username

As you said, each school has a different formula to weigh GPA vs ECs vs MCAT vs interview scores. You can check out each school's formula on their websites. The GPA is usually incorporated into the formula in some respect. Sometimes it's worth more than the other factors, sometimes it's worth less. Either way, having a higher GPA increases your chances of getting an interview at most schools, but a really high GPA doesn't always mean that you will. Schools are looking for well-rounded students. I've known students with really high GPAs that didn't get accepted and students with lower than optimal GPAs that did get accepted, because marks aren't everything.

An example of a formula is Mac's pre-interview one: GPA is worth 25%. Then there's 25% VR of MCAT, 46% CASPer and up to 4% bonus for graduate degree. They will assign each student a number based on this formula, and use that ranking to invite for interviews.

UofT is 60% academics(GPA and MCAT) and 40% non-academic (application ie. ECs).

The cut-off that's mentioned by the schools is the minimum GPA required to apply. Meaning that anything lower than that GPA and they'll throw out your application. Same goes with MCAT cut-offs. But yes, usually (I say usually because there might be an exception in a school that I don't know about) a higher GPA will help your cause.

Hope that helps!

Mitch

Hey Hello New York!

For wanting to be a paediatrician! That's what I'm working towards as well. Just got back from working at a paediatric clinic, super fun but you'll always get sick from your patients

As for your chances, it's VERY difficult to tell without specific details. Saying that your marks range from 1 to 11 could mean many different things. If you're willing to post your averages here or in a PM, we could get a better picture of what's going on.

Either way, always remember that marks aren't everything. If you have excellent EC's and MCAT score, you can focus your application on things other than your gpa. Some stats are that the average acceptance gpa is around 3.8/4 for Canadian schools. However, students have gotten in with much lower marks if they have other unique things about them. At Mac for the class of 2013, 6 students got in with <3.5 gpa. Here's the statistics for that class if you're interested:

http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdprog/documents/Classof2013.pdf

If you're still worried and finding it difficult to get into Canadian schools with your marks, US and international schools are always an option. Wayne State in Detroit, the most friendly school to Canadian students, has an average science gpa of 3.62. International schools like in Australia and the Caribbean have even less stringent gpa requirements for the most part. I've attached a document from 2008-2009 detailing all the average gpa and mcat scores for all 130 medical schools in the US.

So it's hard to tell based on the information you gave me. If you want to be more specific I'll be happy to tell you what I think.

Just wondering HOW it's possible for 17 people to have been accepted at age 19 or under?! I mean a 19 year old had written the MCAT, done 2 years of undergrad (is that needed at Mac?), done CASPer and the MMI and been accepted all before turning even 20?

Also that guy who was accepted who got 15 on verbal is a monster.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

Just wondering HOW it's possible for 17 people to have been accepted at age 19 or under?! I mean a 19 year old had written the MCAT, done 2 years of undergrad (is that needed at Mac?), done CASPer and the MMI and been accepted all before turning even 20?

Also that guy who was accepted who got 15 on verbal is a monster.

Well, my uncle started university at 16, he started med school at 19, so it's possible that some people can be accepted under 19 years of age, I just assume it's rare.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

Just wondering HOW it's possible for 17 people to have been accepted at age 19 or under?! I mean a 19 year old had written the MCAT, done 2 years of undergrad (is that needed at Mac?), done CASPer and the MMI and been accepted all before turning even 20?

Also that guy who was accepted who got 15 on verbal is a monster.

If their birthday is after September, an average highschool student graduates at the age of 17. That means after 2 years of undergrad they would be 19 come September.

Originally Posted by jhan523

If their birthday is after September, an average highschool student graduates at the age of 17. That means after 2 years of undergrad they would be 19 come September.

Yeah, but they were accepted at 19 years old, correct? Not "they've applied" at 19?

That 19 year old kid going into third year wouldn't be going into third year, they'd be going into first year of medicine.

So that guy wrote his MCAT after his first year, which is pretty rare, and also applied to medical school in the summer after first year.

Most people wait until the summer after second year, and more commonly the summer after third or fourth year.