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Switch from Lifesci to health sci program by 2nd year??

 
Old 07-05-2010 at 06:17 PM   #1
m0nica
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Switch from Lifesci to health sci program by 2nd year??
Hey guys, I kind of need tips and informations to get me all prepared for my plan in switching from life sciences to health sci after first year. I've learned my lesson when health sci rejection downright hit me in the face this year. It was a huge blow to my confidence but I must admit.. I owe the lack of success only to myself cause I was not prepared enough (hastily wrote the supplementary application with minimal thoughts) I didn't know then how insane the competition was, (i'm a first gen student/parents are clueless, teachers never told me) I thought my above 90 average would get me in for sure 100%. So nooowww, I do not wanna make the same mistake. I want to get into medschool (reallly really passionate about helping kids :( ) and I believe (as I was also told by many) that health sci is going to pave my way there. And as much as I'm sounding foolish, I want to start preparing for my supplementary application.. And I was hoping to get feedbacks and help from the Health Sci upper years students regarding this matter. Any pertinent information would be very much appreciated! Help out please!
THANKS

-Requirements
-Tips/Recommendations on answering supplementary applications (like how to meet their standards)
-What are the plus points that would make you stand out from the crowd?

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!
Old 07-05-2010 at 06:21 PM   #2
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You can get into med school through life sci as well....health sci isnt the only way. More people get into McMaster medical school from the faculty of science than health sci. Keep that in mind.
Old 07-05-2010 at 06:26 PM   #3
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I understand that, But my chem teacher had emphasized that if I want to get into medschool, I should really switch into health sci.. But if that information you said above is legit then I guess I shouldn't be worrying more bout switching as much as I should be in getting a high CA?
Old 07-05-2010 at 06:58 PM   #4
goodnews.inc
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Some common responses you'll hear in this thread:
"I guess I should focus on my CA more than my program?"
"Ah but Health Scis all have high CA's."
There's this rumour/myth/truth that Health Sci averages exceed all other averages because students are given preference because they are "Health Scis". Supposedly, "life is easy" for them and it's easier to get into "med school as a Health Sci" because it's "such a cushiony ride.

From the Health Scis I know and speak with, I really don't think this is the case.
They struggle the same way we do, but I will admit that their program seems easier because it has more space for electives and because they get so much support from their faculty (that's bound to happen with small numbers and good funding).
Health Sci marks may also "appear" better than everybody else's but...let's look at the statistics. You're getting some of the best students in the world in this small population WITH a fairly broad choice of electives over 4 years and with good faculty support. It makes sense that Health Sci marks > Life Sci marks.

How you do in university however is totally dependent on you.
The Health Sci program offers some marvellous things:
- Electives
- Amazing courses with hands on work with cadavers
- Great sense of community
- Competitive peers
- Good faculty support
- A nice library

However, so does the Life Sci program.
In terms of rigor, I'd suggest you go with the Life Sci program if med school is your ultimate destination because HS's get a lot of elec. freedom and if you don't plan your prereqs carefully, it's easy to get screwed </quotefrom4thyearHealt hSci>

However it's not about that.
I'm very passionate about helping children as well but as I type out in many other responses, do you want to be a doctor, or do you want to get into med school? Those are two very different things and you have to really assess what they mean to you.

A good doctor, I would imagine, is one who pushes and challenges themselves to get the best education they can to allow for the best possible medical practice they can have.
Let me put it this way.
In first year, you'll hear a lot of Life Sci's complaining they hate Chem, they can't wait to be done with Chem, they can't stand the work in Bio, they loathe Physics etc but they want to be doctors nonetheless.
Medicine is a gruelling journey that begins now.
You have to put in the work to get what you want out of it.
I don't know about you but I'd rather have a chemist as my doctor than a musician simply because...I would want somebody to have a more intimate knowledge of the pills they're prescribing me.

This doesn't mean I don't think musicians can be doctors; what I'm saying is that you need to challenge yourself and decide whether Health Sci really offers that to you. Are you going to use your electives to gain an enriching educational journey or are you going to lean toward bird courses, etc?


Another thing about confidence. Just my two cents here, competition and confidence, have never really served me well. In the beginning of first year, I vowed that I would stop seeing things as "how good I was compared to Sally" or "How good I felt coming out of that test" but "how hard I worked for that" and I got some of the best marks I've ever gotten.
Second semester, I seemed to have forgotten that and focused on "the competition" and "confidence" and while having a healthy dose of self esteem and faith in yourself are good things, I personally found that I was more stressed out that "somebody else got ____" than I was that I didn't understand something and I just didn't feel like I got that much out of the term.
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Old 07-05-2010 at 08:06 PM   #5
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I was considering switching to health sci a while back, and the lady directly told me do not mention med school or being a doctor. Health sci has a rep as only existing for the purpose of getting people into med school so they kind of don't want you to apply for that reason. If possibly I would try to focus on explaining other reasons why you want to be in the faculty. And if you don't get in, you can still take their courses, your life sci pre reqs should be sufficient if the course is open. Good luck, but don't think it's the end of your med school dreams if you don't get into health sci! You could even come to university and change your mind completely!
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Old 07-05-2010 at 08:20 PM   #6
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I've read in other threads that one of the big no-nos for health sci applications is to NOT stress that "i want to get to med school and health sci is the only way to do that". They're looking more for well-rounded, open-minded people--hence the ton of electives they give you. They want to give you freedom to be an individual, explore your interests, instead of just being totally focused on med school. Health sci is NOT a pre-med program (according to their website). For example, orgo is not required for the health sci program, however, many med schools require orgo. Not taking orgo could screw yourself over--as Bushra was saying, you must plan your electives carefully in health sci, whereas in most bio specializations, most of the required courses are med school requirements.

Also, there are many many specializations that you can go into in second year after life sci--take the time to seriously explore your interests. You can go into physiology or chembio or biochem or molecular bio or biophysics or anything like that, and still go to med school. Heck, you can be in ANY program (not just science/bio) and get into med school, provided you have the required courses/grades.

Quote:

The Health Sci program offers some marvellous things:
- Electives
- Amazing courses with hands on work with cadavers
- Great sense of community
- Competitive peers
- Good faculty support
- A nice library


You can get these in other programs too, not just health sci. You want cadavers? Take Kin 1Y03/1YY3. You want tons of electives? Go into Life Sci or general Bio. A sense of community? Chembio Competitive peers? Pretty much any program. Faculty support? Depends on the person...I find the chem and math depts are very good with this. And, anyone can go to the health sci library Each program has its own benefits, you need to pick which one interests you--any of them can get you to med school. But, as Bushra pointed out, getting into med school is VERY different from being a good doctor, and med school won't make you a good doctor--you have to do that yourself. You can be in health sci but take all sorts of bird electives, get fabulous grades and sell yourself as a well-rounded person, but at the end of the day, you won't have the knowledge to be a good doctor or to succeed in med school. Health sci is a relatively new program, your chem teacher likely wasn't a health sci student and doesn't have first-hand knowledge of the program. It has a really good reputation because of the inquiry/problem-based learning, but you'll get exposed to that (although not as much as you would in health sci) in any science program at Mac. You might even hate it Personally, I could never be in health sci because the inquiry would drive me insane (I have quite a bit of it in my program, and I definitely couldn't take any more), and there's so many required courses I find boring/pointless.

I'm not saying you shouldn't go into health sci, but you should definitely research it a lot more to make sure it's what you want to do. In first year, you'll likely meet many health scis...ask them about their program and what they're doing, but also look into options other than health sci--there's a TON of majors within science. Go for something you love! My program (chembio) is often regarded as one of the more difficult/GPA-killer programs, but there are already people who have gotten into med school, so don't discount something you're interested in as being "too hard and won't get me into med school".

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Old 07-05-2010 at 09:01 PM   #7
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I don't think you need to worry much about the supple app now. See how first sem goes and how your GPA is first.
Old 07-05-2010 at 09:21 PM   #8
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=p so many flagged comments.

You can get into med school without being in health sci ... :|
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Old 07-05-2010 at 10:02 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jdia View Post
You can get into med school through life sci as well....health sci isnt the only way. More people get into McMaster medical school from the faculty of science than health sci. Keep that in mind.
food for thought: there is also thousands and thousands of more people in the faculty of science than in health sci.
Old 07-05-2010 at 10:14 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by etoilex3 View Post
food for thought: there is also thousands and thousands of more people in the faculty of science than in health sci.
I don't really understand what this means.
If it's to elaborate that Health Scis have better chances, I disagree, because I don't think their chances are based on the fact that they have a smaller faculty. It's not as though med schools only select the top 5% of each faculty, of every faculty.

Unless you weren't referring to numbers, in which case, I'm still interested in the argument
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Old 07-05-2010 at 10:18 PM   #11
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I interpreted that comment as, even though more people get in from the science faculty, there's also many many many more people--a percentage of people from each faculty would be more representative of the point jdia was trying to make.

Since not everyone in these faculties applies, however, a better representation would be the percentage of people who APPLY to med school from each faculty that get in. There might be statistics online somewhere, however I'm far too lazy to look for them It's not really that important how many people from health sci vs science get into med school--even if one person out of a thousand gets in, you could be that one person.

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Old 07-05-2010 at 10:22 PM   #12
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If you're set on medicine, go for it. A higher percentage of health sci grads are accepted to med school compared to science grads.
Old 07-05-2010 at 10:23 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by goodnews.inc View Post
I don't really understand what this means.
If it's to elaborate that Health Scis have better chances, I disagree, because I don't think their chances are based on the fact that they have a smaller faculty. It's not as though med schools only select the top 5% of each faculty, of every faculty.

Unless you weren't referring to numbers, in which case, I'm still interested in the argument
haha, I just meant that of course more people from science are going to get in, because the faculty is so much bigger than health sci.

If you look at the percentage of people who get in in health sci versus the total number of people and ditto for science, I think health sci would have a higher percentage of people who go to med school just because it's a smaller program. Science is a wider field and have people interested in a lot more things. Just because there are 400 people from science getting in, and 90 from health sci getting in doesn't mean your chances from science are better because science has so many more people. (numbers totally arbitrary)

That isn't to say that EVERY health sci for sure wants to go to med school, since I know plenty of people who don't want to and there are so many other options.

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Old 07-05-2010 at 10:38 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by etoilex3 View Post

That isn't to say that EVERY health sci for sure wants to go to med school, since I know plenty of people who don't want to and there are so many other options.

We liked the conspiracy theories that you guys worked with the WHO to decide what vaccines to release at what time.

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Old 07-06-2010 at 06:39 AM   #15
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if you like problem based learning and group work, then by all means, go for health sci.
if you don't and if you think you are better off with learning from textbooks (which is not a bad thing at all), then stay in life sci.
It was quite a struggle for me at first to get used to the style. Also No, health sci won't guarantee you anything and as someone mentioned you will need to plan out your electives well for some pre-requisites.



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