What's up with Canadian medical schools?

[Jolie South]

I'm a dual citizen, and I'm just wondering if it would benefit me to look into schools in Canada as well at the US.

Are their schools hard to get into?
Are they good?
Anyone have any kind of experience with them?

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[knio]

I'm a dual citizen, and I'm just wondering if it would benefit me to look into schools in Canada as well at the US.

Are their schools hard to get into?
Are they good?
Anyone have any kind of experience with them?

if you don't get into a US med school, chances are you won't get into a Canadian med school either. Most Canadian schools have very strict GPA/ MCAT cut-off (e.g. Queens ~3.8 GPA cut-off that changes every year depending on the applicant pool, nothing below 10 on the MCAT). Are you a currently living in Canada or the US? All Canadian schools, except for Toronto, give heavy preference for in-province applicants. All Canadian schools are LCME-accredited (so you'll be eligible for residency in both Canada and the US and provide good education. And of course they are a lot cheaper than many of the private schools in the US.

 

[Meatwad]

You need to do some more research on your own before asking that question; I'm sure alot of canucks will jump on you for the first part. Are they hard to get into? **** yes. Seems like all the applicants are extremely qualified, and a very small percentage get in. I'm not Canadian so I never plan on applying, but I'm almost certain it's much harder to get into a Canadian school.

 

[mms2k7]

canadian school stats for matriculants are basically insane. yup. that about sums it up.

 

[jochi1543]

Come visit our Canadian forums at premed101.com/forums.


In short, yes, it's hard as hell to get into a Canadian school, especially if you do not have residency in a province outside of Ontario. Some schools have more lenient standards for their in-province applicants, but ON schools don't distinguish between IP and OOP, except NOSM and Ottawa. NOSM ONLY takes rural applicants and UO's cut-offs for non-Ottawa residents were 3.83 last year, I believe.


2 schools you could consider as a non-resident in any province would be UWO and Queens. As mentioned above, a 3.7+ in at least 2 FULL-TIME undergraduate years is required (full-time by their definition, not your school's definition - e.g. I did one year full-time at 26 credits, but at UWO and Queens, full-time is 30 credits). Also, your MCAT must be 10 or more in EVERY section, and you must get a Q or higher on WS. That'd put you into running at UWO and Queens.



Also, McMaster is an option, but over 50% of their class last year had a GPA of 3.9+, and they don't consider the MCAT, which puts you at a disadvantage if you had a strong MCAT but 3.7 or less GPA.




Bottom line - I know a ton of people who REPEATEDLY applied to Canadian schools and got rejected, and yet had multiple acceptances in the US.

 

[omegaxx]

Here on SDN, ppl say "you're in great shape" if you have 3.6GPA and 30+ MCAT.
In Canada, it's more like 3.8GPA and 32+ MCAT (with nothing below 9--10 if you don't have in province status for any province other than Ontario, to give yourself a shot at Queens and U of Western Ontario).

About half of the applicants get into a med school in the US every cycle.
About a quarter (some say one-fifth) of the applicants get into a med school in Canada every cycle.

So if you don't have in province status for any province other than Ontario, you pretty much have to be able to get into a top 20 school in the US.