Help - please and thank you!

[phaetos]

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Just wanted to say that you guys have a great site going here.
In the interests of keeping this brief, my stats are as follows: Canadian (no green card/permanent residency). non-URM. cGPA: 3.81, sGPA: 3.77. MCAT: PS14/VR12/BS12 38S. EC: ~100 hrs of clinical volunteering, 2 years as VP communications at my sorority (biggest thing is to organize/run formal recruitment), 2 summers of research + 1 independant research project. Other stuff is just misc Mcjobs for the money and recreational fencing.
My biggest concern is that I geared my app to canadian med schools, which means: no shadowing (but much patient contact in the volunteering - which involved providing buzz haircuts and wig fitting/rental for cancer patients) and no non-sci prof LOR (the most I can get is a regular - X was a student in my class and did well).
Should I apply this year then - or wait another to strengthen my EC's/GPA/research (will be doing honours thesis)?

 

[Stratego]

Why go to a US school when your application is competitive in Canada where the schools are cheaper for you?

As far as shadowing, it couldn't be too difficult to get in 2-3 eight hour stints with 1-2 types of physician before you apply. And there must be someone you can cadge a decent non-science letter out of by bringing in a copy of your CV and AMCAS application, and sitting and chatting for 30 minutes to remind the professor of who you are. If you can do these two things, I'd say you're good to go for this application season.

 

[phaetos]

Thank you so much!
As for why U.S., I'm one of the unlucky ones without a school that counts me as an in province applicant - and my GPA isn't good enough for 2 of the 3 schools that is location-blind (UofT and Western). So I really only have one reasonable shot at med school up here.

 

[Stratego]

Unbelievable that your GPA isn't good enough. Well, I can understand putting your eggs in more than one basket, even if you have to cross national boundaries.

Good Luck.

 

[phaetos]

Yeah - the ontario schools have their own GPA scale which kinda screws me over. But thanks for the encouragement.

 

[JJMrK]

You don't need a non-sci letter to apply to US schools. Just don't apply to the schools that require it (there are about 20 or so). With your GPA, MCAT score, and clinical volunteering, I think you should definitely apply this cycle.