University of Toronto Medical School

[sp4k]

First of all, this is not a "I guess I'm moving to Canada now" post because of the presidential election. My very soon to be wife is Canadian and we've been considering moving there for a while now.

I read on UofT's website that there is a separate review process for graduate students (research track PhD's) with high achievements (publications, awards, etc.).

Is there anyone on this forum with experience in this process? If so, what does it look like? What are some of the things they look for in applicants (are they just like US MD schools in terms of ECs?)?

Thanks!

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[summergirl]

U of T loves research, and that part of your application will be even more closely examined if you have a PhD. FYI the average GPA of the 2015 entering class is 3.96. That number might be a tiny bit lower for students with a PhD but it still won't be that far off.

Source: http://md.utoronto.ca/admission-statistics

 

[NotASerialKiller]

U of T loves research, and that part of your application will be even more closely examined if you have a PhD. FYI the average GPA of the 2015 entering class is 3.96. That number might be a tiny bit lower for students with a PhD but it still won't be that far off.

Source: http://md.utoronto.ca/admission-statistics

That's a 3.96 average of almost entirely Canadian students. Out of their ~300 person class size, they accept 10 or fewer internationals as you can see on that page. If you're a star applicant (very competitive for top 20 US) you can apply to some Canadian schools if you want, but don't count on it being fruitful. Your odds are terrible no matter who you are. Canadian applicants with 3.9+ GPAs, 33+ MCAT scores and tons of volunteering still take on average 2-3 cycles to get in, and they're fighting for one of the 290 spots, not one of the 10. My school has even fewer internationals than that, honestly it's a hail mary.

In terms of what they look for, they're a GPA and research heavy school. Apart from that any ECs are fine for Canadian schools. They don't particularly care about shadowing since it's rarely done in Canadian hospitals, they just want to see that you fill your time with something worthwhile aside from university. All Ontario schools use the same application system (OMSAS) and accept exactly 3 letters of reference.

 

[bannie22]

The rare international applicant is generally truly from another part of the world to further diversify their class

Furthermore applications have become much more competitive as described by the above poster

I think it would be an immense long shot