Wait! What schools do not require a "science portion"?
Grade inflation is what usually comes to mind.
While concrete figures are difficult to find for Canadian schools, the available info suggests that the applicants to enrollees ratio for Canadian schools might, at best, be a little higher than that for the US ds.
Do keep in mind that about 1/3 of US ds do not accept the Canadian DAT.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...ian-consideration-without-dat-scores.1074519/
Yes, the University of Alberta doesn't require the "science portion". The school believes that the applicant's GPA is sufficient to evaluate the applicant's science knowledge. They also look at specific GPA from the selected required courses. Also, more than 90% of the student pool is in-province, meaning most students are from the 2 major universities in the province. So, GPAs are too dependent on how "easy" or "hard" the school is.
From reading some of doc toothache's previous comments, you seem to think that Canadian schools are easy with grades. Many of the classes are curved (at least almost every class I took), and sure it's different from school to school, I don't think the Canadian grading system is too different than one of the US. I don't have any numbers with me, but it's a little absurd to think achieving high grades in Canada is easier than in the states. Let's just say schools vary rather than countries.
There are a couple reasons I can think of right now why GPA of accepted students is high in Canada. Although I don't agree with the system, many Canadian DSs don't require shadowing, ECs, LORs and PS, and select students based solely on GPA/DAT scores and interviews. The reason applicants to enrollees ratio in Canadian DS isn't too off from one of US schools is because students with lower GPA don't even think about applying. Just from my experience, many of my classmates give up applying to DS because their GPA is 3.6 or even 3.7 (they actually have little to no chance in most schools). They move on to a different career, or apply to US schools. The dental student to population is lower in Canada as many Canadian students study in the US or Australia, and practice back in Canada. Lastly, as you know, physicians in most areas here in Canada cannot have private practice as health care is free here. This seems to be a factor in many students pointing their career path to dentistry, and give a little boost in the popularity of the career. Dental school GPA is higher than medical school GPA in most Canadian schools.
I might be a little bias towards Canadian schools since I've been reading some misinformation about Canadian schools, but I just wanted put it out there.
