R Score - Criticism

Criticism

Firsthand experience suggests that the R score is not as ideal a tool as it was meant to be. A recurring complaint from students is that the ISG does not seem to sufficiently offset the advantage enjoyed by students in weak groups. Such students have the opportunity to obtain grades much higher than the low average of their class, thus earning an elevated z-score, whereas students in strong groups cannot earn such high z-scores. The presence of the ISG is supposed to work to the advantage of students in strong groups. Thus, sometimes, the best students in weak groups have lower R scores than the best students in strong groups (for example students in enriched programs). Nevertheless, the average R score in a strong group is generally higher than the average R score in a weak group due to a low standard deviation which helps bring the Z score up. Furthermore, students are not given a different R score after fixed intervals of time. Their R score constantly changes, and it is sometimes unclear whether this oscillation is due to a correction or an evolution taking new grades into account.

Such perceived weaknesses of the R score are particularly worrying, because it is the main and sometimes only criterion considered by Quebec universities during the admissions process. Since the R score is perceived as an absolute measure of a student's academic performance regardless of his/her College academic rank, differences smaller than 0.5 are often used to discriminate between candidates applying to programs with fixed quotas, such as medicine, podiatric medicine, pharmacy, dentistry or law.