r/premedcanada

For context my first year gpa- was significantly hindered due to both my grandparents dying during exam seasons in both semesters which caused me to be Ina dark place. My years are 2.5,3.48,3.92,3.95

With these grades can I get into any schools? I also took MCAT and got 520 130 cars. Do I have a shot at Ireland? Do I have a shot anywhere else?

I have 2 years researching in biomechanics lab,

500. Hours volunteering at hospital with different patients who have neurological diseases,

volunteering with a physio group for placement course-400 hours

1000 hours of volunteering with deaf community of Canada and also teaching sign language to people,

Working on project for 3 years in community to bring low income kids and people together

Also volunteering at indigenous hospital-400 hours

I honestly cant wait to get into medical school. I know that sounds like a given but I truly cant wait for that part of life. I feel fulfilled everyday working towards that goal so I cant imagine how id feel actually in and finally practicing. I am such a people person and I know I am meant to be helping everyone out and sharing my knowledge and skills.

we all work so hard, I cant wait for all of us to become amazing doctors

-Politics Major 3.9
-Psych Minor 3.9
-Volunteer in 3 Wards in my City for Councillors
-Run a baking business
-Do photography
-Have a backstory of homelessness

This application form was put together with hot glue and toothpicks under a 5 min deadline. The wording of these questions is so poorly done ToT

Was any housing and/​or food assistance provided to you or paid on your behalf by family, friends, an employer or other entity (other than Financial aid or social programs)? 

Did you and/​or your spouse receive financial gifts or financial support from family, friends, or other entity?

WHATS THE DIFFERENCE??? If I include something as housing support, does that mean I exclude it from financial support?? Also, do I count money that came from my parents when I already included their income? That would be counting their money twice, so does this field only apply to additional family/friends not mentioned in the application? ARGHH. Also. They don't specify the timeframe for government assistance (I'm assuming its annual instead of monthly given how they ask for everything else annually, but I would expect them to be clearer). Idek. Rant over. Send help :'D

I’m entering my 5th and final year of undergrad. My 4th-year GPA ended up being 3.73 because of one bad grade, despite most of my other grades being in the 90s (couldn'r been 3.96)...

If I get a 4.0 this year (which is very probable), my best 2-year GPA for Schulich would be around 3.87.

My situation is a bit different because after graduating, I’ll likely need to take 2 gap years to get Canadian PR before applying to med schools.

Would you recommend:

1- Applying to Schulich with the 3.87, or

2- Taking a Special Year while applying? (which would make my best 2 years a 4.0)

I haven’t taken the MCAT yet, and I think my ECs are fairly strong with both long-term and diverse experiences that are related to my own personal experiences...

Is a 3.87 competitive enough for Schulich, or would a Special Year be worth it?

I know that for schulich, as long as i meet the cutoff, i'll have a shot for interview, but gpa will be important for post-interview ranking...

Thank you in advance everyone!

Is there anyone in this sub who was personally admitted to UofT Med, or knows someone who was, with a sub-3.91 cGPA? Would really appreciate it if you could share your experience!

I find it hard to wrap my head around the idea of references being used competitively since people can pay people off, referees can lie, etc. I assume it would make more sense to just ensure there are no red flags but I’m not sure. Any insight into this is appreciated :)

Hi i recently founded a neurodivergent club at my uni.

Im NOT neurodivergent, I made the club on a whim because our school doesn't have representation for neurodivergent people which i thought wasn't fair to them.

Already this one guy contacted me and was super happy to be part of a club for neurodivergent ppl because he has adhd and autism and has a hard time making friends. He even included it in his insta bio already lol even though the club isn't even official yet!

Anyways thats great and all, but recently I told a few ppl abt the club and their initial responses were all "wait...ur neurodivergent?!" which i should've expected would've happened.

I told my parents this and they're a bit worried that med schools will also have that same initial reaction. Ive heard med schools dont really prefer people who are neurodivergent, such as autism.

Idk any advice?

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone knew the answer or had any idea about an issue that came up when i sat down to write my abs.

So, I'll be starting 2 new research course things in sept. (the first week) and I'm planning on submitting my omsas stuff on sept. 30 so I was wondering would it look bad if i put these 2 things down on my abs (i'm currently some items short) but only had say 15 hours for each one? i suppose it would say sept. 2026 - ongoing for each of them, but i'm not sure if it'll seem kind of like me trying to score any last little things i have to fill up 32 spots you know?

Thank you all for your help and insight!

Hello everyone!

I am applying for the upcoming cycle and have completed my draft application for all OMSAS schools except NOSM.

For some context; I have a 3.93 cGPA (OMSAS)

last capser score: 4th quartile

MCAT: 515 (130/128/128/129)

I would really appreciate any med students who could review my application and essays with me (specifically my ABS and my essays).

This is my second time applying and really would love some feedback!

Hi all, looking to seek some guidance on what I should be focusing on in third year. Im writing my MCAT in 2 days, but I honestly dont see myself doing good on cars so I might have to rewrite that next summer unfortunately. Im currently a crisis line volunteer, volunteering in two labs with data collection (dont know if this counts as research or not lol), hopefully going to be volunteering at a food bank soon, uni rep, and help out with martial arts classes. I also dk if this is good or not, but I plan on working next summer and getting my third reference there. I keep seeing posts on tiktok/ig of people with some insane ecs (especially for uft), and im afraid that mine are too cookie cutter. I feel I dont have anything that makes me standout, and I dont really know what to pursue to get that appearance on my apps. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!

Hi guys, I’m wondering if working as a psw is a high impact ec. Would med schools look at it as low tier like hospital volunteering or would they consider it as you having actual clinical experience?

So I’m re applying this cycle, and I know that to even get a waitlist for a school that only accepts 94 people is a big deal, but it clearly wasn’t good enough as I didn’t get off. I’m wondering if geographical location had a significance in them choosing their cohort?

I did see people with much lower gpa’s than me get off the waitlist (3.7x and even 3.5x) and i understand that having mature experiences can make a difference in an application. So if you were one of those people with a lower gpa, can I ask what sorts of experiences you had that made you stand out? I am starting a masters degree and TMU seems to value that so hopefully it will help this year. I also am not from Mississauga but live on the east border (so non peel regional) and have family business in the city that I’ve worked for for years and so much significant research experience that is directly in Brampton.

I just feel sad because I really did prep for this interview a lot, my weakest station was probably MM1. I’m just looking for advice on what sorts of experiences people had that they got in with lower gpas, or because the bias for Mississauga/brampton residents was very strong. I live less than 30 minutes from the school and would love to practice and stay in peel. Just that I grew up in the city right beside sauga :(

I just found out that the last person i personally knew who was trying for med just got in this cycle making me the only person left and the future looks very bleak. Idk what to even say or do.

For those who were invited to interview at TMU, what were some of your EC’s?

Hey all. I test on Saturday. My goal score is minimum of 126/127 in each section to be eligible for Western. Only IP Ontario. I took FL 4 yesterday and plan to review it today after my 9-5. I've been taking FLs every other day for about a week, and have improved on average 2 points each time but the section I improve in is always variable (breakdown below)...

In this one, I thought the CP section went decent, I was expecting around a 124 or 125, but I though BB was very tough, I didn't know a lot of answers and most of them were 50/50, so I was extremely shocked to see the 128 there. Is that normal?

https://preview.redd.it/twyvx4f625kh1.png?width=1872&format=png&auto=webp&s=1ed01ab17416735c877cf3d3d7297e90245fdf8f

Hello everyone,

My mcat is this friday but unfortunately I've gotten pretty sick with most days having a high fever that in conjunction with other health issues I have I have come to the conclusion I may not do as well as I had hoped, because this has affected my ability to study and concentrate. I am wondering since I am past the 10 day deadline if I should go write the exam (of course with a mask) and have it be scored anyways just to see how I do. I understand if I don't void my mcat score even if I do poorly that score will be on my record, but if I plan on taking the MCAT again is there any harm in having a bad score since from my understanding all Canadian medical schools either take ur best or most recent score? I dont plan on applying anywhere internationally.

thanks so much for any help or insight you could provide !

Hi! I’m currently working on my UofT med essays and I’ve done a lot of brainstorming, but I’m struggling to figure out which ideas/stories are actually worth sticking with and developing.

I don’t really know anyone who’s gone through the UofT application process, so I’d really appreciate a second set of eyes from someone who has applied before/currently attends UofT med and would be willing to talk through my ideas with me.

If anyone is open to helping, please DM me! I’d be super grateful and happy.

Help 😭 Everyone I see getting into U of T seems to have 8 research experiences or have gone to Mac Health Sci. Has anyone with more “average” ECs gotten an interview? I’m starting to feel like I’m severely underestimating how competitive the ECs are 😭

ok imjust gonna rant bc i am going a little crazy and need some outside perspectives/experiences if anyone would care enough to read all dis, i would post this to the PA community but its dead asf so sorry if this is annoying just ignore it; im going into my 3rd year of undergrad, and as an indecisive person i always knew i wanted to go into healthcare but never knew what. ive been between dental, pa, med, anesthesiologist asisstant, etc and have only been able to narrow it down to PA or med bc i although i like dentists lifestyle im not passionate about teeth. also i would want to be an AA but for whatever reason in canada they want ppl who were RNs or RTs beforehand, all imma have is a bio degree + i want to interact and care for patients directly which AAs dont rlly do. when i first heard about the PA profession all the research i did was based on US PAs who have a much broader scope of practice and earn alot, so i felt a sense of relief because it seemed like my dream career and i could finally commit myself to something, but when i found out thats not the case in canada im back to square one. i want to help people and study medicine but i dont like school and cannot fathom going to med school for yearsss after im done undergrad. med school is also really expensive and i dont want to be in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, so i would only really want to commit to my current universities md program as the tuition is lower, its 3 years instead of 4, id have a higher chance of getting in by being an in province applicant and i could live at home to avoid living expenses. with this logic i dont know if its worth it to even try for med school because theres only one id really wanna go to plus i know its insanely competitive and i just dont think i could compete with all my crazy smart peers with millions of extracurriculars. i also get sick to my stomach thinking about the MCAT or going through all of med school jsut to not match into what i wanted (derm, peds, or psychiatry which are all fairly competitive), and im also an easily depressed/demotivated person and consrtantly stressed so i think med school would chew me up and spit me out. everything about the PA profession appeals to me - learning medicine (obv not to the extent of a doctor) in a shorter amount of time, being able to practice and provide patient care after 2 years, lateral mobility, i like working in teams and i dont really care to be the top boss as long as im respected and can still have autonomy to treat and diagnose, etc. Its just the compensation and job scope in canada. Not being able to practice in the US is another thing deterring me, because originally i thought id just do PA school here inmy city to pay less tuition but then practice in the states and make US money. I could go to PA school in the US which would let me practice in both countries, but i have no idea how complicated that process can be as a non-US citizen and tuition is way more expensive there not to mention id be paying as an international student. i do know that the profession is growing in canada and if compensation went up with it i would probably just choose PA but i cant guarantee the future and that rlly scares me bc school is a big commitment and i am not from a wealthy family so i dont have any money to throw away. if any canadian PAs are out there (its hard to find any) pls give me some insight and your job satisfaction, or if anyone is/has been in a similar situation how did u make ur decision pls and ty