How better should Can students be?

much better

 

about as "much more" as a US student applying to Can schools.

 

I refuse to believe any self respecting Canadian student calls themselves a "Can" student... Troll.

 

I keep seeing Canadians post here bemoaning the difficulty of Canadian med school admissions. However, according to my 2007-2008 MSAR Canadian schools don't seem all that picky. Here are some median Canadian MCAT scores: Western Ontario - 29; Memorial of Newfoundland - 27; University of Calgary - 31; University of Manitoba - 31; University of Saskatchewan - 24. Some of the lesser schools like Northern Ontario won't even publish their MCAT scores.

What is the deal here?

 

They're considered more difficult because they have cutoffs.

If you have a 14/8/15 O and a 3.65 you'd be qualified for a quite a few schools in the US, but you'd get rejected pre-interview from most schools in Canada. On top of that you've got Multiple Mini Interviews, fairly rigid checklists for ECs, etc.

 

It's quite unusual for a student to be that good at sciences (14 PS and 15 BS) and that bad at English (an 8 and an O). Is that the only case (doing really well on some sections of the MCAT and badly on one) where a student would be more qualified for US med schools than Canadian ones?

What are these "cutoffs"?

 

Hehehe...canned students. What will they think of next? I'd imagine you'd need some pretty beefy stats to compete with fresh-from-the-vine students.

 

Quite unusual? I've seen several students with scores very high on the science sections and then much lower on the VR section. I feel like this happens quite often. I've seen 15, 15, and then 9VR.

 

Agreed. It's very usual for people to do extremely well on the sciences and fall short in the verbal. Head on over to the MCAT forum to see what I'm talking about.

It's not a big leap in reasoning to assume some science-oriented people aren't gonna do so well on verbal.

 

The published info in MSAR is a little bit off. The University of Western Ontario, for instance has an MCAT cut-off of 30 so no one with an MCAT score below 30 will be offered an interview. I don't know where you got the 29 from. Furthermore, there are individual cut-offs for each sub-section of the MCAT including the writing sample. I got a 34 P (11, 12, 11 P) so I would not be offered an interview because they have a writing sample cutoff of Q.

I think the main thing to keep in mind is that there are *no* private medical schools in Canada. Imagine if you lived in California and the only option made available to you was going to a UC school.

 

on average you have 4 students applying for each spot in a Canadian medical school compared to 2 applicants applying to each spot in a US med school. I think it boils down to competition - that and price. NOSM doesn't publish MCAT scores because they do not require the MCAT, however if you visit their site they have only accepted applicants from rural/Northern Ontario/Native American/Francophone students. NOSM was created to address the physician shortage in rural Canada (mostly).

In response to the OP, I think you would have better luck researching individual schools (only because they can vary a great deal). Of course you'll be applying as an international student, so it would be in your best interest to go above any average stats posted. But I think you will also want to keep in mind the cost of out of state tuition and any additional costs you might incur.

I'm actually a CDN citizen with US permanent residency, if you have any other questions feel free to send me a message.

 

I can jump in here since I'm a Canadian guy with a US permanent visa...

Canadian shcools are harder to get into...mostly because the "in-state" ratios at a lot of schools are in the 90% range. (Yes, 90% of students selected will be "in-state"). That combined with the cutoffs, less schools and the larger number of students applying per spot makes Canada a hellish place for medical school admissions. It boils down to the fact that most people here have only 1-2 schools with a realistic shot of being interviewed at. If you don't get into one of those two schools you're probably out of luck. In the US, with so many more US schools, and more importantly, many more private schools, the guy that doesn't get into his state school still probably has a decent shot a 5-6 other schools. In Canada, there are only about 15 schools total.

A good analogy would be:
Imagine being limited to apply to 15 schools total, where you are required to apply to all California schools counting in those 15, and you're an OOS.

To answer the OPs question, you don't actually have to be that much better. a 3.7-3.9 w/ a 33+ might get you looked at, at a few private shcools that accepts Canadians. (Think Wayne State). If you have a 3.7+ and a 35+ with everything else solid and a personable attitude, you have a decent shot. It's worth applying if you know which schools actually consider Canadian students.

 

This may be of interest: http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/176/8/1069
Its slightly off-topic - its a brief article regarding Canadians studying medicine abroad and within Canada.

 

Please don't say Aboooot in your interview though. Also, try to hide the fact that your face separates into two when you talk.

If U.S. admissions committees can get past these two down falls in Canadian applicants, then you should have a chance.

I think this is the reason why it's harder to get into U.S. schools for Canadians.

 

Provincial status. If you come from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, Newfoundland, etc., you can get into your province's school fairly easily. If, on the other hand, you're from Ontario, where we get no special in-province status, but still can't apply to OOP schools because there's no point (McGill, for example, takes more international students than it does OOP students).