New Selection Process

[Deleted]

OVC has updated their selection process:

www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/recruitment/en/applyingtodvm/selectionprocess.asp

The pre-interview average is now composed of the academic average (75%) and Casper score (25%). This reduces the weight given to academics in determining who gets an interview, potentially allowing candidates with lower averages to make up for it with a strong Casper performance.

The rest of the process is essentially the same: review of the top candidates followed by an interview (not MMI). The average from the first step (65%) and the interview score (35%) are then combined to provide the final ranking for admissions. The academic average now accounts for only around 50% of the final score, versus 65% in previous years.

I think overall this is a good change and should reduce the extreme grade inflation seen in the last few years.

[Hopeful-student]

There is no info about the deadlines?? Like, when should we have the CASPER done by?

[Ovc2025!]

Sept 2, 2021 17:32:26 GMT -5 Hopeful-student said:

There is no info about the deadlines?? Like, when should we have the CASPER done by?

They’ll probably assign a date for everyone to write it on like the past 2 years, or give assign a designated week.

[Ovc2025!!]

Sept 2, 2021 19:37:45 GMT -5 Ovc2025! said:

Sept 2, 2021 17:32:26 GMT -5 Hopeful-student said:

There is no info about the deadlines?? Like, when should we have the CASPER done by?

They’ll probably assign a date for everyone to write it on like the past 2 years, or give assign a designated week.

Ignore the give, sorry.

[badchoice]

I don't think this is a good change at all. OVC needed to update their admissions procedures, since using only GPA was getting ridiculous. But using CASPer is literally the worst option they could've come up with.

It's an extremely opaque test, run by a for-profit, for which the only "evidence" is promotional material provided directly by the company. I get that for OVC it makes sense to try and outsource some of the hard work of actually measuring non-academic characteristics (and it's free for them, since the students have to pay!), and it will definitely achieve the desired goal of reducing the impact of GPA. But GPA is the result of years of consistent hard work, and the CASPer test is just a one time exam based on vague scenarios that don't at all reflect ethical decision making in the real world.

I'm sure it would've been much more work for OVC to come up with an objective way to measure ECs/animal/vet experience and incorporate that into the process. But it would also have been much more relevant. I'm sad to see that they took the easy/lazy way out and are pushing the cost onto applicants.