Gamsat 2013

Stephan Grundy

cathy2013 wrote: »

In regard to any problems with appealing your documentation, all internal appeals can now be appealed via the ombudsman if they're unsuccessful.

Many thanks for letting us know!

Has anyone any clue when we'll hear back on appeals? Or is it just a case of waiting until we get acceptance letters...or not?

amorris452

Stephan Grundy wrote: »

Many thanks for letting us know!

Has anyone any clue when we'll hear back on appeals? Or is it just a case of waiting until we get acceptance letters...or not?

I was talking to a current student at UL who used the appeals process last year and she said to expect a letter in the post this week telling you if your documents were accepted or not so I'm hoping we'll hear something tomorrow? I assume nothing would be processed til after the closing time yesterday.

cathy2013

No worries!
I think they're held tomorrow-but that is based on what a friend told me who rang the CAO and talked to someone there

letsdothis

Not sure if anyone posting on here has UL down as first choice this year but Mark Larvin (head of UL medical school) spoke at a health conference in Limerick tonight and discussed GAMSAT scores for this year's entry and the decreased number of applications due to lack of funding from the banks. He suggested they are expecting to take in students this year with lower scores than last years 53, possible down to 50. He has brought the funding issue up with the Minister for Health and hopes the situation will improve in a few years. In the meantime, GAMSAT score requirements are expected to stay low.

demure

letsdothis wrote: »

Not sure if anyone posting on here has UL down as first choice this year but Mark Larvin (head of UL medical school) spoke at a health conference in Limerick tonight and discussed GAMSAT scores for this year's entry and the decreased number of applications due to lack of funding from the banks. He suggested they are expecting to take in students this year with lower scores than last years 53, possible down to 50. He has brought the funding issue up with the Minister for Health and hopes the situation will improve in a few years. In the meantime, GAMSAT score requirements are expected to stay low.

Woohooo Letsdothis, sounds like it's good news for all of us, aplicants ! Is UL your first choice?

letsdothis

demure wrote: »

Woohooo Letsdothis, sounds like it's good news for all of us, aplicants ! Is UL your first choice?

It is but I'm currently sitting on a GAMSAT score of 0! Hoping for 2014 entry in UL.

j.mcdrmd

letsdothis wrote: »

Not sure if anyone posting on here has UL down as first choice this year but Mark Larvin (head of UL medical school) spoke at a health conference in Limerick tonight and discussed GAMSAT scores for this year's entry and the decreased number of applications due to lack of funding from the banks. He suggested they are expecting to take in students this year with lower scores than last years 53, possible down to 50. He has brought the funding issue up with the Minister for Health and hopes the situation will improve in a few years. In the meantime, GAMSAT score requirements are expected to stay low.

demure wrote: »

Woohooo Letsdothis, sounds like it's good news for all of us, aplicants ! Is UL your first choice?

Both of you seem to be happy about that, I'm not so sure.

Stephan Grundy

I don't really think GAMSAT scores will make any significant difference at the other end. Everyone who gets in, on whatever GAMSAT score, has already shown that they are capable of buckling down and getting a 2.1 or better in their regular degree, whereas the GAMSAT is...well, I realize it is supposed to test reasoning ability, but I really am not in any way convinced that it selects for the abilities required to get through medical school (memorizing - and memorizing - and memorizing a whole lot more, then remembering how to sort through the mass of information and apply it in real life, as far as I can tell), and only peripherally for the ability to be a good doctor. I mean, no one's patients are going to care if their doctor can write a beautifully worded essay on an emotional topic, with current-events references, etc. I cannot imagine any working clinical situation where the ability to look at the Fischer projection of a molecule and tell whether it is chiral or not could be helpful (possibly crucial if one goes into research, but that's a different animal). And Section I included an awful lot of questions that struck me as a matter of pure opinion - the personal opinion of whoever wrote the questions, which sure was dicey in a number of the official ACER practice questions.

nomoreexams

Find it quite irritating that we're being over-looked for financial help when there's a huge number of students (I think 600 students In 4 years is a massive underestimate) being offered free (or minimal cost) education after living here for 3 years out of the last five years.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/migrants-win-concession-on-third-level-education-fees-1.1475054#.UfF8zodjMF4.email

TheKingslayer

letsdothis wrote: »

Not sure if anyone posting on here has UL down as first choice this year but Mark Larvin (head of UL medical school) spoke at a health conference in Limerick tonight and discussed GAMSAT scores for this year's entry and the decreased number of applications due to lack of funding from the banks. He suggested they are expecting to take in students this year with lower scores than last years 53, possible down to 50. He has brought the funding issue up with the Minister for Health and hopes the situation will improve in a few years. In the meantime, GAMSAT score requirements are expected to stay low.

demure wrote: »

Woohooo Letsdothis, sounds like it's good news for all of us, aplicants ! Is UL your first choice?

j.mcdrmd wrote: »

Both of you seem to be happy about that, I'm not so sure.

If anyone thinks it cause to celebrate that GAMSAT scores dropping is a good thing they are in for a rude awakening. There are countless horror stories of students from UL who have failed first year, then failed again and are kicked out with debts of 30 - 50 k hanging over their heads. Ask any student in UL and they will regale tales of poor misfortunes. There's always two or three in every year but the numbers increased significantly in the past two years with lower gamsat entrants getting in. over 30 people from the class of 2015 failed first year, subsequently 12 of them failed the repeats and had to resit the entire year at gargantuan expense.

GAMSAT score isn't the be all and end all. However, medicine is an intellectually challenging course and honestly a GAMSAT score in the lower fifties does increase the likelihood of a person having a lower mental capacity to deal with the course.

demure

TheKingslayer wrote: »

If anyone thinks it cause to celebrate that GAMSAT scores dropping is a good thing they are in for a rude awakening. There are countless horror stories of students from UL who have failed first year, then failed again and are kicked out with debts of 30 - 50 k hanging over their heads. Ask any student in UL and they will regale tales of poor misfortunes. There's always two or three in every year but the numbers increased significantly in the past two years with lower gamsat entrants getting in. over 30 people from the class of 2015 failed first year, subsequently 12 of them failed the repeats and had to resit the entire year at gargantuan expense.

GAMSAT score isn't the be all and end all. However, medicine is an intellectually challenging course and honestly a GAMSAT score in the lower fifties does increase the likelihood of a person having a lower mental capacity to deal with the course.

I am not hoping for UL personally, but as you may imagine, a slight drop in cut off points will be welcome as good news for most of the applicants, as opposed to increased requirements, wouldn't you agree?

I feel sorry for the people you mentioned here who didn't do so well in UL, however, I do believe that if you're determined to do well you will do so indeed. Perhaps GAMSAT is to some extent a reflection of such drive and determination, rather than actual intellectual capacity. Many things come to play in the exam, I think it is erroneous to equate one's GAMSAT score with their ability to study. Intelligence in itself is an arbitrary concept and to this day psychologists cannot agree whether it's inborn, learnt or otherwise.

But to discount anyone's abilities upon a low GAMSAT score would be rather narrow minded and misjudged. A lovely friend of mine who did considerably poor in the GAMSAT is now one of theotop students in her UL class. She is dyslexic and a foreign national but by no means lacking in intelligence.

It's best not to be judgemental or you will miss out on many valuable people.

Best of luck to everyone on Thursday :-)

Stephan Grundy

I did notice, when preparing for the GAMSAT and doing any sample questions I could get hold of for anything that looked related, that the MCAT (or at least MCAT sample questions) seemed to be a lot heavier on pre-memorized knowledge and lighter on the pure reasoning - and I haven't yet heard sad tales of overseas students, who have to take the MCAT to get into Irish graduate medicine, running into significant trouble. So different things are being tested for...and I suppose we'd really have to have a series of data on the GAMSATs of everyone who's failed the course (rather than various anecdotal experiences) to establish whether there really is any relationship between a lower GAMSAT score and poor performance in medical school. Though, ironically, what I have read about Limerick's PBL setup suggests to me that it might be the likeliest school of all for GAMSAT score to correlate with performance in some way, as my impression is that more self-direction and independent logic are required there than in the more traditional/didactic schools? Would you say that's the case?

TheKingslayer

demure wrote: »

I am not hoping for UL personally, but as you may imagine, a slight drop in cut off points will be welcome as good news for most of the applicants, as opposed to increased requirements, wouldn't you agree?

I feel sorry for the people you mentioned here who didn't do so well in UL, however, I do believe that if you're determined to do well you will do so indeed. Perhaps GAMSAT is to some extent a reflection of such drive and determination, rather than actual intellectual capacity. Many things come to play in the exam, I think it is erroneous to equate one's GAMSAT score with their ability to study. Intelligence in itself is an arbitrary concept and to this day psychologists cannot agree whether it's inborn, learnt or otherwise.

But to discount anyone's abilities upon a low GAMSAT score would be rather narrow minded and misjudged. A lovely friend of mine who did considerably poor in the GAMSAT is now one of theotop students in her UL class. She is dyslexic and a foreign national but by no means lacking in intelligence.

It's best not to be judgemental or you will miss out on many valuable people.

Best of luck to everyone on Thursday :-)

that's great news for your friend.

unfortunately nobody other than the fourth years knows their current ranking in the class so your friend is probably feeding you tripe.

secondly, one success story about a dyslexic individual is no cause to champion the gamsat, or UL. My friend in RCSI has aspergers and is top of his class. Who cares.

thirdly, just cause 90 % of the people scrape through the first two years of UL simply by getting notes and exam papers from the years above, there are still a large chunk of people who swung a boot at the gamsat and are now up to their eyeballs in debt with no way of ever paying it off. getting a 50 in gamsat and getting into ul isn't a golden ticket or a lottery prize. getting a 50 in gamsat only means your guesses on the test were better than 40% of other people.

daRobot

TheKingslayer wrote: »

that's great news for your friend.

unfortunately nobody other than the fourth years knows their current ranking in the class so your friend is probably feeding you tripe.

secondly, one success story about a dyslexic individual is no cause to champion the gamsat, or UL. My friend in RCSI has aspergers and is top of his class. Who cares.

thirdly, just cause 90 % of the people scrape through the first two years of UL simply by getting notes and exam papers from the years above, there are still a large chunk of people who swung a boot at the gamsat and are now up to their eyeballs in debt with no way of ever paying it off. getting a 50 in gamsat and getting into ul isn't a golden ticket or a lottery prize. getting a 50 in gamsat only means your guesses on the test were better than 40% of other people.

How would that be the case exactly, when they get exam results each year, which naturally, they can compare and establish their rank?

If your friend does indeed have Aspergers, surely you would recognise that someone who (in your own words) may have been classed as having a "lower mental capacity", is able to succeed within a challenging environment. Who cares? I suppose you should, if you want your previous point to have any validity.

Stephan Grundy

daRobot wrote: »

How would that be the case exactly, when they get exam results each year, which naturally, they can compare and establish their rank?

If your friend does indeed have Aspergers, surely you would recognise that someone who (in your own words) may have been classed as having a "lower mental capacity", is able to succeed within a challenging environment. Who cares? I suppose you should, if you want your previous point to have any validity.

Er, I believe the problems with Asperger's are generally more involved with social interaction, and that it is often typified by intense mental focus on a subject, even superior mental function within the area of interest - the difficulty with "reading" people and communicating on an empathic level could be a real problem for a practicing physician, but Asperger's could actually be an advantage for a researcher - or in the very focused environment of medical school.

demure

Stephan Grundy wrote: »

Er, I believe the problems with Asperger's are generally more involved with social interaction, and that it is often typified by intense mental focus on a subject, even superior mental function within the area of interest - the difficulty with "reading" people and communicating on an empathic level could be a real problem for a practicing physician, but Asperger's could actually be an advantage for a researcher - or in the very focused environment of medical school.

Aspergers has been since abandoned by the DSM, and is now replaced by a broader Autism spectrum. Any disorder of such nature would undoubtedly impair one's performance in an exam that, among other things, is supposed to gauge one's emotive abilities.

daRobot

Stephan Grundy wrote: »

Er, I believe the problems with Asperger's are generally more involved with social interaction, and that it is often typified by intense mental focus on a subject, even superior mental function within the area of interest - the difficulty with "reading" people and communicating on an empathic level could be a real problem for a practicing physician, but Asperger's could actually be an advantage for a researcher - or in the very focused environment of medical school.

Er, so Stephan, do you class a serious inability to socially interact as a mental disfunction or not?

j.mcdrmd

Could we not just focus on the central point and avoid narratives and tangents please?

If you take out a loan you need to pay it back.

If you are asking anyone to guarantee that loan it is a massive ask.

If the powers that be are not willing to take that risk why would you ask a relative or friend to do it?

Stephan Grundy

I think the answer to daRobot's question is, it depends on how serious the inability to socially interact is, and indeed the context in which the person is put. I knew a fair few graduate students at Cambridge who were geniuses in their fields, but were definitely socially impaired to various degrees; in fact, the socially-impaired science genius is practically a caricature (Tesla wasn't exactly Norman Normal, now was he? - nor Einstein either, and so forth). So I wouldn't call it an *intellectual* dysfunction. As to whether it should be classed as a mental dysfunction in a more general sense...(shrug).

As for the GAMSAT and emotive disabilities, I think Asperger's would come out as more of a problem if SI, in particular, involved actual interaction with human beings - reading and conveying emotions by means of facial expression, body language, and vocal tone. I am not even slightly convinced that the SI section of the test, as it stands, bears any relationship to personal social sensitivity. Come to think of it, I've known a few other professional authors who were damned short on anything resembling personal social sensitivity and the ability to socially interact in person, despite the intensely emotional and insightful nature of their own work - people who could easily have gotten massively high SI and SII scores, as long as the test was set up as it is now and they didn't have to personally interact with any real human beings.

demure

Stephan Grundy wrote: »

I think the answer to daRobot's question is, it depends on how serious the inability to socially interact is, and indeed the context in which the person is put. I knew a fair few graduate students at Cambridge who were geniuses in their fields, but were definitely socially impaired to various degrees; in fact, the socially-impaired science genius is practically a caricature (Tesla wasn't exactly Norman Normal, now was he? - nor Einstein either, and so forth). So I wouldn't call it an *intellectual* dysfunction. As to whether it should be classed as a mental dysfunction in a more general sense...(shrug).

As for the GAMSAT and emotive disabilities, I think Asperger's would come out as more of a problem if SI, in particular, involved actual interaction with human beings - reading and conveying emotions by means of facial expression, body language, and vocal tone. I am not even slightly convinced that the SI section of the test, as it stands, bears any relationship to personal social sensitivity. Come to think of it, I've known a few other professional authors who were damned short on anything resembling personal social sensitivity and the ability to socially interact in person, despite the intensely emotional and insightful nature of their own work - people who could easily have gotten massively high SI and SII scores, as long as the test was set up as it is now and they didn't have to personally interact with any real human beings.

Which goes back to my previous point, that intelligence is an extremely complex concept, something that cannot be gauged by a simple test. How you perform on the GAMSAT is a reflection of your particular abilities on the particular tasks on that very day and not a valid prediction of your future performance in the course.

There is no need to discount anyone's ability upon an exam score. On that note, to anyone who hasn't done so well in the GAMSAT in the past, don't despair, keep on trying and follow your dreams, anything is possible :-)!

letsdothis

Jaysus! I unfortunately seem to have started that old GAMSAT score correlates to medical school performance debate again. My post was purely to pass on a bit of information that I came across that might interest applicants. No part of that post showed glee at the dropping points, although two posters seem to have suggested this. However, I agree entirely with demure's points above.

I have neither been to med school nor sat the GAMSAT but all advice on the exam seems to point to its uniqueness and the need to practice GAMSAT style essays, GAMSAT style questions and so on. GAMSAT score says NOTHING about the effort the applicants put into preparing for the exam. Is a 60 from a science grad who put 6 months of specific study in (including prep courses, numerous full scale GAMSAT exams, daily essays, etc.) an equal indicator of med school performance as a 52 from a science virgin who took the exam on a whim after browsing pagingdr and flicking through a LC chemistry book over a weekend??

The reason why schools don't try to link GAMSAT and course performance is that credible scientific research on the correlation between the two is not possible. This is simply because, as demure stated, GAMSAT results are just a snapshot of how well a particular applicant managed to answer GAMSAT-style questions in GAMSAT testing conditions on a particular day! Nothing more.

Anyway, does anybody here truly know the difference between a 51 and a 55 or even a 51 and 60? It could be all of 5 wrong answers for all we know.

Hypnos

letsdothis wrote: »

Anyway, does anybody here truly know the difference between a 51 and a 55 or even a 51 and 60? It could be all of 5 wrong answers for all we know.

No, it really can't be 5 questions under any circumstances. **** me if I'm wrong on this one. There are too many questions to make that even plausible.

Score 2013

51 = 38th percentile

55 = 65th percentile

60 = 90th

So the difference between 38th percentile and 90th sounds more like 50 questions to me (Taking S1 and S3 into account). It's quite the difference and more probably across all sections.:P

letsdothis

Hypnos wrote: »

No, it really can't be 5 questions under any circumstances. **** me if I'm wrong on this one. There are too many questions to make that even plausible.

Score 2013

51 = 38th percentile

55 = 65th percentile

60 = 90th

So the difference between 38th percentile and 90th sounds more like 50 questions to me (Taking S1 and S3 into account). It's quite the difference and more probably across all sections.:P

Possibly! :P

Athough, isn't there a secret weighing for questions that very few get wrong/right? Could bring it somewhat closer to 5 :P

Hypnos

letsdothis wrote: »

Possibly! :P

Definitely maybe

Flange/Flanders

letsdothis wrote: »

Jaysus! I unfortunately seem to have started that old GAMSAT score correlates to medical school performance debate again. My post was purely to pass on a bit of information that I came across that might interest applicants. No part of that post showed glee at the dropping points, although two posters seem to have suggested this. However, I agree entirely with demure's points above.

I have neither been to med school nor sat the GAMSAT but all advice on the exam seems to point to its uniqueness and the need to practice GAMSAT style essays, GAMSAT style questions and so on. GAMSAT score says NOTHING about the effort the applicants put into preparing for the exam. Is a 60 from a science grad who put 6 months of specific study in (including prep courses, numerous full scale GAMSAT exams, daily essays, etc.) an equal indicator of med school performance as a 52 from a science virgin who took the exam on a whim after browsing pagingdr and flicking through a LC chemistry book over a weekend??

The reason why schools don't try to link GAMSAT and course performance is that credible scientific research on the correlation between the two is not possible. This is simply because, as demure stated, GAMSAT results are just a snapshot of how well a particular applicant managed to answer GAMSAT-style questions in GAMSAT testing conditions on a particular day! Nothing more.

Anyway, does anybody here truly know the difference between a 51 and a 55 or even a 51 and 60? It could be all of 5 wrong answers for all we know.

I absolutely agree with this, there are so many factors that can affect you on Gamsat day that I believe negates the intellectual factors that influence your gamsat score. At the end of the day, anyone who gets an offer for anywhere has to have a reasonably strong academic ability based on the fact that they got a 2.1 in a level 8 degree (and dont give me crap about it being easy to get a 2.1 in certain degrees!).

Personally, I got 56 last year, 63 this year. Yet I know that I still have to work like hell to survive med school and once I get my offer, the gamsat will be quickly forgotten!

Stephan Grundy

Just got the good word from CAO - my appeal was accepted! I'm surprised they sent the e-mails out on a Saturday, but I'm not complaining, as now I can relax and enjoy the weekend.

Re GAMSAT scoring: I understand that the questions are all differentially weighted according, among other things, to how many people get what right (one reason it takes so long to get our scores after the exam). So there really is no way to tell how many right or wrong answers might be involved between a 50 and a 55, or even between two different 50's...and that was one reason I put extra effort into physics, because I suspected that it would be the weakest SIII subject for the most people. GAMSAT is carefully arranged so there is no way you can guess from your practice questions how you might actually do on the test (despite all the brain-beating on forums in the lead-up to every GAMSAT), and no way you can even start guessing from your score as to how you did objectively...those guys at ACER have better security than most national intelligence departments (and where was Snowden when we needed him?).

Anyway, I agree with demure and letsdothis - personally I think the required undergraduate 2.1 or better is a much more reliable indicator of the capacity for long-term performance, and everyone who gets into medical school has to have that. Obviously some people still fail out, for whatever reason - nothing's 100% reliable - but I wouldn't look to the GAMSAT as the main predictor.

pc11

We've all gone very quiet again. Are people nervous waiting for the offers tomorrow morning?

How are the various doubts and worries? Anyone who was sure about doing GEM and now having doubts or vice versa?

demure

pc11 wrote: »

We've all gone very quiet again. Are people nervous waiting for the offers tomorrow morning?

How are the various doubts and worries? Anyone who was sure about going GEM and now having doubts or vice versa?

Yes! Very nervous and can't sleep anymore.

100% committed to doing it though.

Just not sure where it'll be :eek:!

Babs_1208

Nervous!! Hoping Galway Races (and the wine that goes with it!) can ease my mind tonight.

Sitting on 56 so a bit gutted I won't get UCD. If anyone would like to offer me a sliver of hope I might eventually get in on Round 512 - please feel free to do so! :-)

I'll still happily take UL or UCC though if I get offered - to be a doctor at the end of 4 years is all I want!

pc11

demure wrote: »

Yes! Very nervous and can't sleep anymore.

100% committed to doing it though.

Just not sure where it'll be :eek:!

Fair play for being certain. What did you put down #1 in the end? I'm the opposite in that I have no worries about the offer (RCSI), but I do have worries about the loan and doubts about actually going ahead. Some days I really feel like it would all just be too much.

I'm still more likely than not to go ahead, but still. For one thing, I just hope fervently the hospital working hours will finally be reorganised by the time we get there.