Especially considering he was against this whole MD thing to begin with.
Exactly. I don't worry much about the prospect of taking out Canadian loans - I'll have a guaranteed job after graduation, after all. But then again, we generally take out less in loans than Americans do, unless you happen to get into an IS school with ridiculously low tuition....but Canadian tuitions of appx 15,000 are hard to beat. I know someone who graduated from McGill as an IP w/o a dime in loans! Their IP tuition for meds is like $4000 or something, and he continued working as an EMT all through med school to pay for his living expenses. Enviable, but in that case, I'd prefer loans over having to work on top of a med school courseload.
Crap. I think it may be time to look into loans........
Assistant mod. We had some changes implemented on the forums this weekend, and there are some more to come.
Yeah, but US has "easy" schools to get in, and unless you're from Cali, you are often pretty much guaranteed a state school admission is you have a 3.5 and 28+. There are no "easy" or "backup" schools in Canada. It's basically like entering the app process with Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Yale being your ONLY options. That changes things significantly.
Gotta correct this because this is misinformation....the 3 schools with rigid cut-offs are Ottawa, Queens, and UWO. Ottawa - weights your GPA with the more recent coursework getting more credit (e.g. your junior year grades will be weighted at 3x the value of your freshman year grades) - so definitely encouraging of the upward trend. And if I remember correctly, their cut-off was 3.83 for non-Ottawa Ontario residents and something like a 3.89 for non-Ontarians. Hardly a walk in the park.
I am sad
. Nobody got the joke. I guess nobody watches the office.
I am sad
Could SDN give me an "Asst to the Mod" label?
I imagine it would depend on their specialty, how much they took out in loans, and how aggressive they feel like being with repayment. you could pay the minimums and take 30 years or you could continue to live like a poor resident and probably get them paid off in 10 or less with a high paying specialty.
LOL, I don't watch TV at all...and never seen an episode of The Office.I am sad
i am not really sure about that...but i heard that if you compare a person that gets a full time job right out of high school and a person that goes to college, then medical school, then residency that the two are not equal in net income until they are 36 years old. the idea of going into medicine for "the money" is ridiculous. unfortunately.
I'm talking about schools that everyone seems to use as a "back-up" - Drexel, RFU, etc. There's no such concept in Canada, because there is no one school that has acceptance averages of 3.5-3.6 or less and 30 or less.Really? What "easy" schools are these cause I have both your critera.. but must have missed them last application cycle.. cause here I am applying again
To my knowledge, McGill and McMaster are the only Canadian schools that take international students. You would be outside of the in-province pool for both.
I think I read somewhere on the University of Toronto's website that 7 med-school spots are reserved for international applicants.
They need pass the U.S. medical boards like everyone else in order to practice.
Canada also has a shortage of doctors, and the schools are working on increasing the number of seats. I believe UBC increased its seats by something like 25 this year and plans to double the enrollment within the next 3-4 years or something like that (not applying to that school, so I may be a little off with the numbers). There have also been special residency spots open for IMGs, to allow foreign doctors to become able to practice in Canada - but this goes hand-in-hand with the increase in immigration. It'd be silly to keep shunning IMGs when you both have a doctor shortage AND a steady influx of highly educated immigrants, many of them with MDs.
Canada has its own boards - MCCQE/LMCC.
No, it's not much in the scheme of things, but forming good financial spending habits WILL matter. You could save a lot of money throughout med school by living with a roommate, driving an older car, not going on expensive vacations you can't afford, etc.
Yeah, you're right, I checked. As I said, I just listed the schools I knew for sure. There are also schools that definitely do not accept any international students - U of Calgary (contract agreement countries only), U of Alberta, U of Manitoba I know for sure.
I meant in the U.S.
I think the simple fact that we have Canadians flocking to SDN to apply to medical school attests to where it's harder. I don't see Americans on our Canadian site....not a single one in my 2+ years on there. And the fact that every year we have someone from there who gets into like 5 American schools (and that's with the uphill battle of being international, don't forget, and no state schools to fall back on) but either gets rejected flat out or waitlisted at Canadian schools supports this idea. There's someone who applied THREE times to Canadian schools with no success and then got multiple interviews (and an acceptance very quickly) in the US on their first try, and there was my other friend who applied to Canada with a 3.8 and 34S and didn't get in anywhere on her first try....then on her second try, secured 3 US acceptances and 2 waitlists in Canada (although she did eventually get off the Canadian waitlist - at her in-province school - and stayed home). On the contrary, I've never heard of anyone being admitted in Canada and rejected in the US (though I know at least 1 person who's been rejected at both). With the tuition being 3x higher in the US and various roadblocks related to citizenship status and its effect on residency success, etc, it's pretty obvious what would keep motivating Canucks to apply to medical school in the US. And I constantly advise Canadian med hopefuls to take courses which would make them eligible to apply to the US (such as physics and English), b/c we've all heard many a story of the Canuck with great stats who had to apply 5 or 6 times. Which is why I'm applying to the US this summer, even though it'd be much more troublesome for me to attend a US medical school - but it's better than no medical school, which could easily be the outcome if I were only applying to Canada.
I don't know how most of my friends are dealing with undergrad debt - at least with med school, you will eventually have a well-paid job. I know so many people who graduated with 20-60,000 in undergrad loans (I went to a private college), and all they do is waitress or work all these jobs that are supposed to really help you with your career, but pay $7 an hour and somehow never end in a long-term employment offer. And then they still somehow manage to buy sick amounts of weed and booze. I just can't help but wonder how they get by.Hopefully money will be a huge motivating factor to get accepted. I think I feel even worse because my parents are helping me out. But debt from medical school is all mine.
I don't know how most of my friends are dealing with undergrad debt - at least with med school, you will eventually have a well-paid job. I know so many people who graduated with 20-60,000 in undergrad loans (I went to a private college), and all they do is waitress or work all these jobs that are supposed to really help you with your career, but pay $7 an hour and somehow never end in a long-term employment offer. And then they still somehow manage to buy sick amounts of weed and booze. I just can't help but wonder how they get by.
