Of course there are students accepted with a 24, that's a given. Apologies for the repetition, but again the point is that there's no reason to assume that anyone with a 24 gets in.
I understand that. But I also have no evidence whatsoever to prove or disapprove your theory. I need facts, statistics, and numbers. Or a quote from the admissions committee there.
When you have a discrete series of small range to rank, with a cutoff (which happens to be 50%ile for all takers!), you will get many 'ties' at the bottom end. A clipped bell curve should be expected, as should rejections.
Yes of course - there will be a cluster of people with similar scores and GPA must be used to break ties.
Not sure what you're asserting here, but if you're claiming that most UQ int'ls don't come from N. America, then you would be wrong.
My apologies - I meant people who are planning to return to the United States. I don't count Canadians (unless they're planning to match) or Americans planning on staying in Australia.
Yes, small samples, and that self-selection theory is (also) plausible. My point, again, is that there are good counter-arguments to *assuming* things like 'get a 24 and you're in' or 'expect USMLE scores to go down' (akin to earlier *assumptions* shown to be wrong that MCAT scores were dropping, when in fact they had been increasing) -- such *assumptions* don't follow logically, and they don't make much sense when many 24s were rejected when MCAT scores were known to be lower, and USMLE scores (limited as the samples are) say that there has not been a high fail rate.
The fact that many 24s were rejected is actually pretty strong support for the "rank" theory instead of the 24M and higher automatically accepted.
My apologies once again for this misunderstanding. I'm not saying the scores were dropping. I'm saying that 28~30 is nowhere near American medical schools and although there really is no solid evidence for what I'm saying, observations have been made that since the USMLE and MCAT have similar reasoning and both require a lot of brute memorization, they have strong correlation. Of course, there are people who messed up on the MCAT but get a good score on the USMLE, and vice-versa. There are also people who've improved and there are also people who aren't good at PS or verbal reasoning on the MCAT, but are solid in their clinical sciences and ACE the USMLE.
However, the majority, in fact (you can look up a thread or dig up rather, a thread in the USMLE section where they posted their USMLE and MCAT scores. (Again, this is not solid evidence, but based on observation, which leads to hypothesis, but only experiments can prove or disprove those theories). Again, that would be only an argument I made on observation.
It makes sense instead to be skeptical. It does not make sense when people ignore the empirical evidence and assume future scores based on something meaningless like class size, or the possibility of self-selection to take the USMLE, while not looking equally at how the same reasoning can lead to arguments for HIGHER scores, which so far, for MCAT at least, has been the case.
For now, I just want to observe and see how UQ/O goes. I
I have never said that USMLE (or MCAT) scores will not go down. I am, again, being skeptical of silly assumptions.
MCAT scores are on the rise. I hope the USMLE will be on the rise, too. The only point I'm trying to make is to hope that UQ can make sure the students at least do well on the USMLEs. Because if UQ/O wants to compete with the Caribbean schools (which have been sending people back to the states with high matching rates, particularly the big 4), they'll need something besides prestige and sheer reputation to convince them to pay that extra 20~30k a year for the UQ/O.
Because UQ/O exists to send students back to the United States. And as I've said before (my apologies for my repetition, too), a high USMLE won't necessarily secure you a residency, but I know that a bad USMLE WON'T get you a residency PERIOD.
And so just based on common sense, which is better? A curriculum that spreads out USMLE material and helps students accumulate the material one step at a time ior waiting for the last second for a prep-course that crams all the material at a time?
I'm not saying it should entirely copy the Caribbean. That would be wrong, because they would never be able to compete. UQ/O needs reason to show that the extra 30k is worth it, because reputation can't do much if your USMLE scores don't compare with the Caribbeans. That being said, just good USMLE scores alone won't convince people to choose UQ/o over the Caribbean. They'd need something else, something that only UQ has to offer.
So I'm propose a curriculum that fuses the advantages of UQ and Australia while instilling the USMLE preparation that's been so successful with the Caribbean. Take the good parts from both and fuse it into an ideal course. Then and only then will it convince people that the extra 30k is worth it.
So the only point I'm trying to make is to integrate USMLE material into the curriculum so that we have a solid foundation to make sure that when preparing for the USMLEs, we're not starting from scratch but just reviewing. And also we need UQ/O to give something that only UQ and Australia can offer, something that they can do better than America.
I'm not going to judge about UQ and its admission scores. That wasn't my point and I don't see reason to argue further. My point (as repeatedly stated in the post) is just what is written in bold.
I hope you don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to turn this into an argument. I just want to make a point. That's all.
Peace.
~Raigon
