Medentry feedback score

[excal]

Seriously. Some people go to that exam without any prior preparation yet they pull off a perfect score.

Yes. You'll find this is the reality in pretty much every assessment you do, anywhere.

And not only this, if you tell people to posses this idiotic mindset that they if they are not doing well at something so their chances of succeeding are slim then what are you going to get? Failures after failures after failures.

Or...you could give them a realistic assessment on whether they should continue to spend time and effort, given their performance. We only live for so long.

But I'm not going to argue, maybe Pi and yourself are Einsteins who never scored below 100 so I don't blame anyone.

I'm not sure if I like the passive-aggressiveness of this.

And I understand what Pi's trying to do- encourage people indirectly but sometimes it's necessary to concile them instead of spitting out critism.

Setting unrealistic expectations and having a rose-coloured lens is far worse than telling it like it is and addressing the real issues. I like to think of the failing relationship as an analogy - you can either ignore it and keep going (to your detriment, in my opinion) or pause and work out where you both want to go.

At the same time, I'd like to offer that it's never too late if you want to get in - there are other ways - but, given current performance, it might be a long shot.

Cheers, this is my opinion and I hope it has not offended anyone.

Likewise.

[pi]

But I'm not going to argue, maybe Pi and yourself are Einsteins who never scored below 100 so I don't blame anyone.

lol you know nothing about me and how I got to where I am.

I never said anything about how good the OP's Medentry scores were. I know I'm not one to say whether those scores are "good" or not, so I didn't actually refer to them. I know Medentry is inherently different to the UMAT. I know this.

But hey, I'll change my stance, just for you: Hey guys, you're all doing really really well! As long as you're trying you're defs gonna get there, anyone who says otherwise is a physics genius like Einstein and/or a dickhead who shouldn't be listened to because they're just trying to demotivate you. As long as you have a belief, you can get there. When I was 4 I had a dream of flying with my arms, I maintain that belief and have been flapping my arms everyday to improve, anyone who tells me that I can't achieve my goal is a horrible person who should be down-voted. In fact, yesterday I jumped and I swear I hovered for a second, I'm improving and that's all that matters right? Please support me in my belief.

Happy? #passiveaggressive

The fact is (this isn't related to the OP), improving is a /good/ thing. But not everyone improves as much as others. The UMAT isn't a test for everyone, some people are naturally good at it and will do really well, others are mediocre and may take a good year to improve, others are honestly hopeless as their mind ticks in another way (which is /fine/). If someone was in the latter category, I definitely wouldn't be giving them false hopes because I think it would crush them if things didn't go their way. Instead, I'd offer them other options. JCU, graduate-entry medicine via GAMSAT, ANU 99+ pathway, and so forth. I think harm is done by being unrealistically optimistic.

Now back to the OP, I can't say what a 65-75%ile Medentry score means, no-one definitively can, so I didn't try. I simply stated the fact that if that percentile was the score you got in your real UMAT, then you'd be in a bit of trouble in securing an interview, to quote: "that's probably not going to get you anywhere near an interview". That statement was for Australian medical schools, not Monash or any other specific medical school. Sure, there's the odd kid that does get one with those scores, but it's rare. Very rare and very unusual. You shouldn't be happy with that score if that's what ACER delivers you if you're truly serious about medicine. I prefer a realistic outlook when there's less than 2 weeks to the exam, not a great deal of time for the "improvement" you're talking about, especially if said person has already been doing a lot of prep.

To put a medical spin on it (I mean we're all med students or wannabe's right?), you'd never tell a patient or their family information that would give them false hope (eg. having all smiles for someone diagnosed with late stage cancer), so I'm not sure why it's ok here... I mean sure, there's that small percent of patients who will recover, but we don't apply small percentage stats to the whole population, that logic bamboozles me.

edit: Just missed this.

I wonder if you'd tell your patients that their illness has progressed to a dangerous stage so they won't survive. You won't right? You'll display optimism and work with them to overcome the illness or at least try to.

Uhhhh..... I'm not sure you understand how all of this actually works. "Breaking bad news" is definitely something doctors have to do, almost on a daily basis. So yeah, you definitely will tell them.

[datfatcat]

That certainly is not what I intended to say.

Sense asked "do you really think you should tell someone they have a chance at someone when they don't? "
Do you think that's a fair thing to say? When I referred to Pi and Sense as 'einsteins', my point was that unless they are Einsteins, they should be able to relate to the OP.
And yes, you are right. People don't need to be Einsteins to get into medicine. As a matter of fact, they need to be willing to improve. From personal experience, every successful person I've met particularly uni graduates have always reiterated the same thing, "I failed, then picked myself up and began to improve" Isn't this negative outcomes? OP hasn't had her UMAT yet so of course she doesn't have any failure (mind you, I don't want to see her or anyone here fails their umat). I believe with my heart that OP is someone who is willing to improve. I really do, otherwise she won't ask questions on ATARNOTES. But the thing is how much does she need to improve. Is her current score good enough for getting an interview? I cannot speak for OP herself but these are the sort of questions you always see on ATARNOTES, medstudentonline, other student forums and everyone's mind when they are preparing for their UMAT (at one point I also had these questions in my head). If I got 98%tile for my medentry papers, my desire to improve would probably drop to zero because I knew i would be okay in the actual UMAT (to be honest, even some of those who did amazingly well in medentry didn't do so well in the actual UMAT. This is just another fact) On the other hand, if I got 40%tile and someone here told me hey fatcat, your score is sh*t and if that's your actual UMAT score, you are not going to get into undergradute medicine except JCU, I would actually be scared and worried and i would do my best to find ways to improve my score (and knowing in my heart that there is still a chance of failing in the actual UMAT). So getting back to the question that I asked earlier, "how much does she need to improve", assuming you can actually improve the scores (some people say you can and some say you can't but just say you can here), you would only know how much to improve on if you know what sort of marks you need to get to have an interview and how far are you from the score required. From that point, you can work out what to do. If you got below 20%tile all the time, you may tell yourself to choose an alternative pathway. If you got 80%tile, you have a very small chance of getting into undergraduate medicine and you know with more practice, you have a chance of getting an interview. If you got high 90%tiles, I would still suggest you to work hard, but you know you have quite a good chance of getting an interview if luck and everything is on your side on the day of the actual umat. **Of course, you still need to take into the account that medentry is quite different than the actual umat in terms of the difficulty of questions and the sample size that determines such percentiles.

And thanks, I'm not asking for a pat on the back. I was using my progress an a clear example that one CAN improve. You are one of the lucky ones. Some people tried doing UMAT several years in a row (look at med student online forum) and their scores only improved slightly, and some of them actually got worse.

I wonder if you'd tell your patients that their illness has progressed to a dangerous stage so they won't survive. You won't right? You'll display optimism and work with them to overcome the illness or at least try to.

And I'm not trying to be a smart ass here or anything- everyone is different. Maybe that works for Pi- to imagine the negative outcomes and use that as a source of motivation. That may also work for many others. Some people however don't appreciate being told that they won't succeed just because of their current grades,etc. Many patients do not want to be told they only have 5 months to live. But if that is the case, would you (1) tell them the truth or (2) tell them they have a good prognosis and they can live more than a few years? Look, i know sometimes truth is harsh, but if some people really want something (say medicine for example) and their grades are poor or they are not lucky enough (Those who tried very very hard to study for UMAT but the score doesn't reflect on their hard work), I think it is best to tell them the truth, so they have time to plan for the alternative (GAMSAT, JCU...)

Honestly, I don't want this turn into a debate. And I apologise if I've been rude/offensive. As I mentioned, everyone shares a different opinion.

And although I'm still in high-school, I do my best to motivate those around me and prove that anything can be done. Why? Because I know people who scored 80 on the UMAT with 99+ ATARs and yes although they qualified for SEAS, they managed to smash the interview. Had they been told that with a UMAT percentile of +/-80 they wouldn't be called for an interview, do you think they would have tried just as hard to attain high study scores- no. I think they would if medicine is really something that they want because there are other alternatives (JCU doesn't require UMAT and you need an ATAR of 98 or above to have a decent chance, or the University of Melbourne Guarantee entry if you have an ATAR of 99.90-99.95). Even if they give up medicine after the UMAT release, most of them would study really hard and hope to get into their 2nd desired course, which most likely also requires high ATAR (such as law or engineer with commerce). If I were in their position and someone had told me that, I probably would have given up and thought "what's the point, so and so mentioned I won't get in anyway"

[drake]

I wonder if you'd tell your patients that their illness has progressed to a dangerous stage so they won't survive. You won't right? You'll display optimism and work with them to overcome the illness or at least try to.

i don't want to get too involved in this heated conversation, but in this example with a patient, you will at least need to acknowledge (to them or family) that there illness has progressed. at the same time, you need to continue treatment optimistically. now, with this in mind, i think it would be best to answer the OP's question that his UMAT score is currently not enough to get into medicine, but encourage him to continue to work hard at it because he still has time to improve.

[pi]

at the same time, you need to continue treatment optimistically.

Off-topic, but this isn't actually true. Sometimes you have to accept the situation as a bad situation that is very unlikely to be reversed. Palliative Care becomes the mainstay of treatment in these patients, ie. cutting all treatment and keeping the patient symptomatically happy, maybe get a DNR form organised.

[excal]

This is a relevant article:

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/how-terminally-ill-artist-joannah-underhill-is-changing-the-conversation-about-death/story-fnihsrf2-1226946396537?nk=87f7517a36dad610ebade9722066c601

[pi]

As an addition, one of my excellent Pal Care consultants organises this page with one of his colleagues, worth a "like" if you're keen on the medical pathway, especially as so many high-schoolers and pre-clins (myself included as a jaffy) seem so ignorant about some of these issues https://www.facebook.com/PalliativeMedicineTeaching

[Equilibriaas]

wow, thank you guys for all those feedback...I knew it wasn't good enough, but just wanted to know from those who did medentry whether they got an expected percentile like me and then ended up doing way better?

[drake]

wow, thank you guys for all those feedback...I knew it wasn't good enough, but just wanted to know from those who did medentry whether they got an expected percentile like me and then ended up doing way better?

i think i had similar results to you when i was doing medentry practice exams, i ended up getting 88 percentile on the actual one though. hope that helps!

[zvezda]

[pi]

I think this thread has gone off-topic one too many times now. OP's question has been debated and answered by those who are in medicine, those who aren't, and those who apparently have an "idiotic mindset". More answers can be found through searching through the UMAT board where the same questions have all been asked before.

/locked