Dear Applicants,
Thanks to all who have posted. We value your opinions and your suggestions on this blog and on other blogs. For those of you who were supposed to interview this weekend but grasped the unique nature of the situation and recognized the concept of protecting society and the greater good…congratulations and thank you.
As background, as of late 03/12 we were planning to run the live MMI with risk mitigation strategies. However, in a short period of time things drastically changed including recommendations from the Government of Canada, Alberta Health, and the University of Calgary regarding mass gatherings. On the Government of Canada website for consideration of canceling or postponing gatherings we checked all the categories for medium of high risk weighting.
Therefore, first and foremost we needed to ensure we were acting in a socially responsible manner and protecting the health of our applicants, our assessors (many of which are frontline healthcare workers) and our support staff.
In addition, many of our assessors were dropping out for a variety of reasons and even the concept of trying to run a virtual MMI that mimics our full MMI with existing technology was not going to be feasible this weekend. We rely on over 100 assessors to run one day in our present format. These are volunteers from all walks of life —and I want to stress that they openly and willingly give of their time and are the cornerstone of what we do in MMI assessment. Without assessors there is no University of Calgary MMI…live or virtual.
Approx. one third of our applicants for 03/14 were flying in to interview and therefore we needed to make a swift decision after much discussion and exploring feasible and logistically realistic options.
The bottom-line is that here will be an asterisk in human history in 2020 because of COVID-19 and that will include medical school admissions.
We recognize how hard everyone has worked to get to the position you are in and that this is an emotionally charged and stressful time for everyone.
Some metrics for the three interview days:
Feb 29th: (n=192)
Mean Pre-MMI score: 104.66
Mean GPA: 3.84
Mean CARS: 127.17
Mean File review: 104.41
March 1st: (n=191)
Mean Pre-MMI score: 104.69
Mean GPA: 3.85
Mean CARS: 127.10
Mean File review: 105.66
March 14th: (n=190)
Mean Pre-MMI score: 104.67
Mean GPA: 3.85
Mean CARS: 126. 87
Mean File review: 105.52
The groups are strikingly similar.
With this being said we have decided to proceed as follows:
- Those who have already interviewed will consist of one cohort (Cohort 1). Applicants from this cohort will be assessed against each other. We will select 2/3 of the offers/waitlist from this group.
2. Those who have had their MMI cancelled will comprise a second cohort (Cohort 2). Applicants from this cohort will be assessed against each other. We will select 1/3 of the offers/waitlist from this group.
3. We have tentatively scheduled April 4th to run a virtual mini-MMI for Cohort 2. Please reserve this day in your calendar if your were scheduled to interview March 14th.. The details will be distributed shortly but will require 30-60 minutes of your time. Please note because of the fluid situation and ongoing unknowns with COVID-19, we may need to cancel this date, change this date, or restructure depending on guidance that may be out of the hands of the admission office to protect public safety.
4. Those applicants not admitted from Cohort 2 will still be granted on interview in the 2020-21 admission cycle if they choose the re-apply to the U of C.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS ALL SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDING ON WHAT TRANSPIRES WITH THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC LOCALLY, NATIONALLY, and INTERNATIONALLY.
