Great thread Q! My advice will probably be more helpful for Canadian students, because the process is different up here, and the schools in general are far
less receptive to non-trads. Each school calculates applicants' GPA in its own way, and each one weights the various aspects (MCAT, GPA, personal letter, references) differently. My first piece of advice is do your research on the med schools before you start the process, there's only 17 (14 English) in the whole country, it won't take that long. Look at their websites, figure out how they calculate and weight everything, and figure out which ones you want to apply to (and which ones might be most likely to take you, e.g. in-province schools, or less competitive schools). Also, believe what the websites say. The admissions actually do work exactly how they say they work... except when they don't. If you want to go to a school but wonder if you'll have a shot - email, call, or visit them, and ask. The admissions people won't steer you wrong.
GPA: This was the killer for me - I had graduated years earlier with a 2.5 overall GPA (humanities). I went back to school part-time (working full-time to avoid debt) to do my prereqs.
This was my first and biggest mistake. Hear up, fellow Canadians: don't
ever go part-time. Most schools will not take into consideration anything else you were doing (work, raising a family, whatever), and will simply not count any grades obtained part-time. Or, you will lose the possibility of having your most recent grades count for more in a "weighting" scheme (Ottawa and UofT have these, and some others I'm forgetting right now, but you have to be full-time for it to be applied). I figured this out late. Did a year and a half at 3 courses/term, a year and 4 courses/term, and only during final (app) year did I do 5 courses/term - so of course, since app year courses don't count... I wound up completing another degree entirely (with a 3.74), and even then got refused at 9 schools out of 10, without interviews - most because they just lumped everything together and I didn't make the cutoff, some because I didn't have enough
full-time grades in my recent studies, so they included some of my old grades to calculate GPA. (Western: "you don't have any full-time semesters, so you don't have a GPA at all since 1998"). And remember, current year's courses don't count when you apply, but they can and will rescind your acceptance if you bomb out in your last year (try to stay in the As and Bs).
Moral of the story: if you have a really bad GPA to overcome, you must go back to school full-time (
full course load, 5/term) and prepare to do at least two years of full-time study (and THEN apply, meaning apply in your third year). Even so, you'll have to pick your schools carefully. McMaster, which historically likes non-trads, might look at an "upward trend" (will have to be a real sharp peak though, average accepted GPA last year was 3.88) - but your total GPA (bad+good grades, all weighted the same) must still be above 3.0. (Mine was a 2.98 at app time, so I didn't bother applying, the computer would've cut me.) Find out how your target schools calculate, figure out your chances, and plan your studies accordingly. If it's been a very very long time since your bad grades, UBC is for you -
upon request, they will ignore any grades achieved over 10 years ago. (Meaning you still need a new, better degree though.)
MCAT: Do as well as you can. (Western's cutoff for in-province interviews was 32 last year.) I got a 35S, so it wasn't a hindrance in that respect. If the MCAT is your strongest asset, try U of Manitoba - they count MCAT for 50% of your admissions score (and they drop a certain number of low grades from your transcript too!). If MCAT is weak but GPA is stellar, McMaster and Ottawa, and the French schools in QC, don't require the MCAT... meaning that a
strong MCAT won't
help your app at these schools either, mind you.
Personal letter: don't lose your mind and write one about how all your faults will make you a good doctor, as I did for UofT (what was I thinking?). Each school wants their own kind of letter, with their own priorities, so get ready to have a lot of time sucked away for these. Research the admissions websites. Try to stay consistent from school to school, both in style and content, and get people to give their opinions. Take advice. Get proofreaders. Don't be too cliche, but don't be "wacky" either (I must have been smoking crack, I swear...) Be very confident without sounding arrogant, sell yourself, all the usual stuff... But relax, remember that most schools don't weight it that highly anyway.
"Extracurriculars": Make sure to emphasize all the experiences you have, in such a way that they will be blown away when they compare you to yer average 21-year-old. This is best done in the personal letter, with a "stunning display of maturity". Get great reference letters from employers, esp. if you help people, or teach, or do intellectual work for a living. Be able to show them
why you know that medicine is for you. Clinical experience is probably
more important/essential for non-trads up here than it is for the kids. For some reason they never doubt the kids who say "my dad is a doctor, so I know it's for me" - but the older folk have to explain and justify themselves.
References: check with the schools whether you really have to have professors do it, sometimes you don't and employers/professional contacts can work just fine. Make sure they really like you, as they will have to fill out different reference forms for each of many schools, as well as writing a standard letter to enclose. And they will have to send it to the schools (or OMSAS) themselves, so offer to reimburse postage.
Interviews: show up on time, be neat and friendly, express passion and determination, don't be afraid to express who you really are. (Note: I only went on one interview, so grain-of-salt time... but hey, they took me.)
Oh, and one last thing. I know this sounds incredibly daunting (i.e. tell me about those American schools maybe? How about the Caribbean? Ireland? Australia?) but don't let it discourage you. It's TOTALLY WORTH IT once you're in. Tuition is cheap, the education is world-class, and you just can't go wrong with any Canadian school.
Good luck to all my fellow Canuck non-trads!!!