But Raigon, assuming 'no interview' => 'lower quality' merely because interviews are standard practice, is like saying that thousands of Chinese herbal medicines must work because they've been used for thousands of years (er, except under Mao, when their use was discouraged).
Research supports the notion that interviews don't increase student quality.
Hmm... I guess I never looked at it that way. I don't like interviews, never have, but I guess I just assumed that because interviews are used world-wide for university and special school admissions (except the majority of Asian countries like Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, China, Korea, etc where test scores determine your university and major), that interviews, tests are important for selection.
Chinese herbal medicine could work, or it could not - that has to be determined by researchers, dissecting each and every one and running experiments. I guess it could be the same with interviews: Whether interviews work or not, I guess I could not argue with evidence right now, because there are very little research comparing them. I'll leave that up to others to determine.
As I've stated, a cutoff for consideration does not imply lower acceptance stat. The school is saying, if you don't meet the hurdle, don't bother applying. It is not saying that if you meet the hurdle, you're in.
Moreover, if interviews were a further criterion for acceptance, then one would expect a *lower* average acceptance GPA +/- MCAT than without having them. Meanwhile, *with* the interview a few years ago, the MCAT average was 28 -- not awesome, but respectable.
The question can be boiled down to whether interviews have some added value in measuring something that MCAT and GPA do not, something which is impossible to standardize, and which the evidence I've seen says apparently doesn't exist.
At the very least, the value of interviews is contentious, not assumed. One can decide to ignore the evidence saying that interviews don't help produce better outcomes, but at the very least one ought to be skeptical of any entrenched view.
Well, this may be the part where I wish to strongly argue - the part about using only test scores. I was knocked out of medical school in Taiwan because I didn't complete my education there, but my college entrance test scores (for students in Taiwan, medical schools are undergrad combined courses only) were literally 0.8 points away from getting in out of a score of 600 (432.5 was my score the medical school cutoff that year in 2006 was 433.3: which is basically something around a 38 MCAT score) - so even if I did complete my education there, I was 0.8 points off. You are ranked according to test scores only and you then fill out your desired school and major and your scores determine where you land, the cutoffs are different each and every year depending on the difficulty of the test and student quality.
Medical schools in Taiwan are the highest scoring major and almost impossible to attain. Out of 100,000 test takers a year, there are less than 1000 total medical school places nation-wide. It's literally less than 1%. That means the majority of people in medical school will pick the medical school because they can; otherwise it'll go to waste. Next will be law and electric engineering.
Surveys in our school show (I would post the link, but assuming you guys can't read chinese, I'm not sure it's fitting) that 2/3 of the doctors don't like their job in our country: they were pressured by parents or they were pressured by their scores. We want the best deal for the best price. Picking, say, forestry or art as a major with a score of say, 540 (which would be the top 3 scores in the country, always), will not fill it out as their first rank even if it's because they don't want their scores to go to waste. They think it's like paying 600 dollar for a 400 dollar product; not worth it. It leads to a very wrong sense of thinking. We have outstanding doctors in our country (well, the highest-scoring), with only 1/3 of the doctors actually wanting to be a doctor. And there will be those who want to become doctors getting shot down because they are a few points off. And there are also those who had bad luck and forced to retake, but sometimes taking the test once already drains a lot of stamina, and retaking will not boost scores.
Solely using test scores and academic performance should not be used alone. We need to look at other things as well, such as extracurricular experience, leadership qualities, etc. Test scores and academic are quantitative, but there should always be the same amount of qualitative assessments, even if it means interviews, essays, or filling out other experiences to waive your test score.
I think Queensland needs that qualitative assessment. I'm sorry if I'm being biased because I feel so strong about this, but I'm posting this out of personal experience from Taiwan. I don't want there to be people "almost" making it to medical school. Those who "almost" and by only a point or two off should be reconsidered and given another means of being in. Because if you didn't make it to medical school because say, the cutoff was 28 and your MCAT was 27 would really, really suck.
Maybe the interview serves that purpose, maybe not. But if not interviews, then at least there should be a means of qualitative assessment. And many other universities in Australia do give consideration to those who almost, but didnt meet the cutoff if they have another quality that is readily accessible and can overpower that cutoff score.
The fallacy there is in the implication that resources are a constant. More students also means more money, which is a big part of the point for having larger sizes. I do think that the school is stretched for admin purposes, but as the school has increased, so have the number of locations, and campuses, along with the increased revenue allowing them to happen. So while I agree that increased size does have some issues (quite specific ones I've *seen*, not inferred by numbers), and might result in other issues, one cannot infer that increased size dictates a general decrease in resources per student, just as it doesn't imply (though certainly *could* result in) a decrease in student quality.
Medical tsunami: increasing the class size no matter how you look at it, will make getting internships harder, especially if there are only a limited number of intern spots available with an explosive increase of students, then the number of resource increase can't keep up with the number of student increase. It makes it harder for us internationals. If other kinds of resources are available, then that's good and they are willing to match resource to students, then all is good. I'm hoping it to be that way, because I will choose UQ over Caribbean med and I want UQ to maintain its world class quality.
I don't think you're reading the site correctly. It says that the applications for all int'l students (for 2010 UQ Med) have indeed closed, but that students can still apply to Oschsner. Oschsner was created for years 3 and 4, so it makes perfect sense that there'd still be spots left -- the students they're now seeking for the 1st Oschsner cohort are *already* part of the medical program, thus not implying any additional market pressure to decrease standards.
Hmm... I emailed mededpath last week and they're telling me that if I want to apply for 2010 New Ochsner entry, then I should hurry because it's closing, but it's still available until about 2~3 weeks after the first day of school. But they were maybe made for years 3~4 as well.
Now don't get me wrong, Raigon. To repeat what I've long said, I think UQ has some issues to work out as it continues to grow. However, some of the inferences being made, particularly by outsiders, are not fair ones. They are similar to ones that people on these forums have made for many years about many schools, shaping people's attitudes but which pan out not to be true, in no small part because of a tendency to uncritically accept faulty reasoning. So I apologize for taking you to task, because what you argue reflects honest concerns, but the assertions just don't ring true to me and what I've seen and been privvy to as a very active former int'l student, school rep, and member of academic boards.
My apologies for making it seem that way, because sometimes from personal experience, there are a few things I feel strong about. Maybe I'm biased on it, if I am, I'm sorry in advance.
My university, the National Taiwan University has been accepting way too many students to the point that there are 200 people per major or more. Electronics has 400. We have a total of 10,000 undergraduates a year entering the school, as opposed to the 2000 or 3000 back in the 1990s. NTU is the top school in Taiwan, the hardest to get in, but 10% of the country could get in because we've been accepting too many students. Our classes, even the humanities and electives, have hundreds of people a class and I've seen people falling behind because there aren't enough TAs to cover them, and the percentage of people failing courses are increasing because our resources can't keep up with the increasing number of students enrolling in our school.
And thus, for many of the licensing exams, jobs, interviews (we have interviews for jobs, just not for universites, what's with that? =/) etc, we've been assailed by the news for the constant decrease in 1st attempt job or graduate school success rate.
***NEWS FLASH: NTU IS NO LONGER NUMBER 1 AND IS BEING BEATEN BY LOW CLASS UNIVERSITIES SUCH AS...***
Our students couldn't take it of course and we've reacted. We definitely did. And so there was a society formed called the "fake-test takers" who are skilled test takers in our school and take the college entrance exams, apply for our schools, then withdraw after the 2nd round (we have two rounds, sort of like a ranked waiting list to fill in spots the first round didn't fill in, and after 2 rounds, the school must accept the students, even if it's not filled out). There were hundreds to possibly over 1000 places in NTU taken by our own and current students who are already enrolled. It was big news so it worked for about 2 years before our local government made it illegal to withdraw after round 2 (our university got very angry and took it to our national government). But they've made our point.
Maybe I was unfair, and again, my apologies. I'm trying my best not to be biased. And if I was, then I'm sorry. There are some things that come from personal experience that I don't want happening to other schools, especially schools that are already world class like my school NTU or UQ.
