Oops I accidentally deleted my previous post. Hate posting from my phone.

Anyway I found the stats: http://www.mcmaster.ca/a...20092010/20092010B.html

Scroll down to section B3 "other degrees". Turns out that it's closer to 60:40 ratio for 95+ vs. 90-94 admission average for admitted health sci students. I don't personally know anyone who went into BHSc with a 90% avg but they probably wouldn't want to share anyway because of other people having 99/98 averages.

Edit: Apparently there was though because someone got in with a 89.something (rounded up to 90, I'm guessing) admission average in my year (I entered health sci in 2008).

http://www.mcmaster.ca/a.../20082009/20082009B.html

Who was it that got in with a 90.3? Link to his or her app, please? :)

And it really does make sense that the ratio is around 60:40 because there should be much more people with low 90 averages dragging down the mean than there are people with 99s and 100s.

Anyway, the average DOES count for a lot (as seen by the statistics). After all, I highly doubt that out of the 3000+ people who have applied, 60% of them have a 95+ average. Marks does play a huge role in getting into this program.

They didn't call mine. No idea if they call them at all or if applicants are randomly selected to have their reference contacted.

Someone else didn't post their first answer because it's being used again this year. I'd feel immoral if I did, so here are the other two. Also, I don't have the exact questions, so I'm paraphrasing what I think they are...

What word should be expunged from the English language?

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Perhaps the most important purpose of language is to facilitate efficient and clear communication. This is why inane words like “dude” need to be expunged from the English language. “Dude” prevents thought-provoking conversation and encourages repetitive interaction. Commonly used as a substitute for any contribution to a conversation, it is verbal filler: “Dude, I’m right here, dude.” Unsurprisingly, removing dude from this sentence has no impact on the sentence’s actual meaning. Furthermore, dude is the catalyst of the deterioration of one’s English ability and contributes to a modern culture of laziness. What starts as a casual usage of dude could lead to fatal grammatical errors such as ending sentences with prepositions or even worse, forgetting apostrophes in contractions. The simplicity of dude is alluring, but is often a gateway to a realm of poor English communication. Personally, I am captivated by the art of writing and have an extensive history with the English language. I helped reform my school newspaper, the Woodlands Woodstock, and have also written for many short story contests. My experience with English has taught me that almost every word has context, as all words have an appropriate time and place. This rule is ultimately true with the exception of dude, which has no legitimate role in our language. Realistically, no power could rid the English language of the abomination of dude, but its removal would surely be the start of a better future for us all.

What area of research does not deserve to be funded?

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In a constant battle against superficiality, teenagers are tasked with the duty of developing a quality moral character. Surrounded by breast augmentations, tummy tucks and the glamourization of sex, it is no surprise that teens often lose that battle. A large contributor to our society’s branding of sex is cosmetic surgery, the branch of science that deals specifically with physical enhancement towards an alleged ideal. Elective cosmetic surgery buys heavily in the belief that people are inadequate, a notion that causes people to grapple with their identity. The science is revolutionary for helping burn victims or the injured recover, but is ethically questionable when used solely for beautification. Instead of letting their natural character develop, teenagers often suppress their identity to try to achieve society’s standards of “beauty”. Cosmetic surgery puts an irrational emphasis on physical attractiveness and is a root cause of self esteem issues and can be a precursor to self-mutilation and suicide. In this way, science is a double-edged sword: it propels mankind forward with innovation, but when used immorally can threaten society’s wellbeing. It is the duty of reasonable citizens to prevent superficiality from dominating the highest values we have – our ethics and morals. In reality, there is a limited amount of funds available for research. We should address the problems of those truly in need and ask ourselves, who can we help the most with our research funding?

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Look how loftily I speak! Anyways, good luck to all of you in the pursuit of the HealthSciDream. I suppose I personally wrote with a lot of flowery words, but it's definitely not necessary.

It's very much a collaborative and teamwork-based environment. Because of the number of group projects we have to do, everyone gets really efficient at working in groups. The admin try to make it so that you're never in the same group with the same person more than once. Because of this, you develop close friendships with many of your peers (since you'll spend easily up to 50 h together in one semester during group meetings). When it comes to studying for exams, people post up their own notes on LearnLink, set up lab times to go into the lab together, share past midterms they found etc. For example, I took immunology last year (a 3rd year health sci elective) and the exam was a take home exam with 8 essay questions. Health scis who were taking this course started dividing up into groups, each group took on 1 question and we all shared our answers afterwards. We also made it so that only people that contributed to the answers received the other answers (to be fair). This cut the workload by at least 70% since all I had to do for the rest of the questions was read them over and make sure they were correct rather than spend the time to write out 8 essays on my own.

Thanks for the information. Definitely looking to group work now! :) In first year, we have less than 20 hours of classes/labs per week. Around how much extra time do we have to allocate for group work? And for your immunology example, the prof was alright if everyone submitted the same essays?

That sounds great! As another poster asked, did the prof mind that the same essays were handed in by others?

Ahh I'm in a similar situation. I took grade 12 english last year and ended up with a 90 (which is still unheard of at my school so I'm rather satisfied with the mark). Getting 96 in all of my other courses seems intimidating now though :S

Just like Aeria, I'll be happy to help with supp apps too if you guys need input. =)

And those who worry about not getting a 95 average with a low English mark, don't worry. My top six average was 95.5 and my English mark was only 88, so it is definitely not impossible!

Yup, the sixth mark could be for any course, but it has to be either 4U or 4M.