The supplementary essays required by McMaster HS has been legendary. Students with great academic achievement in highschool may overlook or miss some key points in that effort. Not to judge whether the reviewers can use their rubric in a fair and consistent manner but their eyes are trained to have acumen for self-reflection, communication, leadership, creativity, critical/analytical thinking, and most important social responsibilities. Extra curricular activities count but not that much if they do not directly contribute to these mentioned qualities.

In order to reflect their doctrination of nurturing leaderships in public health, McMaster Health Science therefore offers very strong programs in epidemiology, population diseases, Global Health, and research ethics. MOH and PHO are two government agencies that are very much in favor of grads from this program.

Western Med Science on another hand is an execellent and perhaps one of the most prestigious programs. Being old-schooled and heavy on science, they offer a quite interesting modular curriculum preparing students to become ... well, to become good doctors. Many surgeons, oncologist, and geneticists I worked with are from Western (and Queens). By the way the campus is beautiful, too.

Understood the disappointment but it's in fact a great honor to be accepted by Western. Take your kid to Western for a day trip and let them to taste the vibe. Read some good books during the summer so they learn more about the true meaning of medicine, and its significance and power to human kind as well as the political body. Some of my favorite books include "the great influenza", "the band plays on", "the code breaker", "premonition".

Congrats!