benhc911

1. Accepted - Applied to the Ontario 6 - Interviewed at NOSM, Queens, UWO and Mac - Accepted at NOSM, UWO, Mac - I took my NOSM acceptance after much deliberation... not sure I'm happy with the decision but I had to decide eventually 2. GPA 3.85 ish im not exactly sure 3. A fair amount of volunteer work (what I could fit around my program), an NSERC placement etc... not too much but the volunteering was in environment and HIV/AIDS (spent a month overseas on a project I planned) 4. Born 2 hours north of north bay

as a chemical engineering student I feel you!

well, I was hoping that they would serve as a good character reference... I can't really think of anyone else that is considered 'respectable' with regards to honesty, and yet has an opinion of my character outside of academics... thoughts? I could get someone from the charity, but the president is pretty young... like... 23 ish? and I know him as a friend... I don't consider that to be a very good choice. as an aside, thanks for the compliment on the MCAT, it really made my day/week/month/summer when i saw the mark, I was expecting far worse

if you get a good MCAT why not, depending on the different weightings and formulas for different schools, your GPA goes from great to meh to good *shrug* For example, for uOttawa, they use a wGPA that would give you 3.76, which wouldn't be good enough, but some schools take last two, best two, all years, years minus bad courses if full time blah blah... so on gpa you have a shot in a lot of places, especially in your own province or region. Are you from an underserviced region? that affects applications too... As for the high LSAT that (according to some people) correlates to a better VR section on the MCAT, which would help with schools like McMaster... but you dont have the score yet... and the lack of pre-reqs might would make the other sections a bit of a battle... Not all schools require the pre-reqs, and not all require the mcat, but usually they will require one or the other... best of luck, and keep volunteering in what you care about! don't just end up shadowing and doing soup kitchen's like 95% of people on here who treat volunteering as a box on their todo list that needs a checkmark!

Academic Info: So I just got my MCAT mark, I wrote on May 22nd 2010: PS 14 VR 11 BS 14 WS T so thats a 39T GPA by year, with the number of courses for the year (for weighting purposes) 1st: 3.77 with 11 classes 2nd: 3.89 with 9 classes 3rd: 3.97 with 12 classes /edit/ I forgot to mention this is at uOttawa in Chemical Engineering /edit/ that makes a cumulative of... 3.88? and a uottawa WGPA of 3.91? I'm not so concerned with my academics really, I feel like I make most of the relevant cut offs, even if I'm not the best applicant they've seen... its more my ECs that worry me... Although I am currently taking 3 summer courses... anyone care to enlighten me on how these could effect me? I'm wondering if I happen to have the right balance of academics and ECs... because next year is 13 classes for me... so no more ECs if I don't get in this year... Volunteering based ECs: I volunteered with an HIV related organization for 3 years, co-founding a program that addresses both Health and Environmental issues - all of the initial prep, proposal, planning etc - went to mexico city for the international aids conference - went to south africa and lived in a rural community for a month, doing a large number of projects such as workshops, peer education networking, started a community garden etc. random volunteering as a tutor to peers in university art camp volunteering (one summer) volunteering at a conference called ideacity every year for the past 3 random volunteering for local churches and the like... nothing major Other ECs: lots of awards in highschool... not like it matters much haha - euclid math competition - top mark in: bio, phys, all three maths, english, exercise science etc. - governor generals medal - blah blah blah other random crap admissions scholarships - 4k a year from school - 1k first year from faculty of engineering - a few random merit scholarships, usually about 500 NSERC USRA (for right now, the whole summer) I dont know if I will be able to get a paper out of it... and the supervisor's english is terrible so I won't really want a letter of recommendation... Other things: I'm from Northern Ontario, a town called Haileybury with population <<<20 000 people I studied chemical engineering *shrug* for letters of recommendation I was thinking a prof that I am close to, a doctor that is a family friend (went to medschool with my father) and is the chief of anesthesiology, and a priest (I'm atheist now, but was raised religious, and I help around the church still when I can). In terms of where I want to go, I'm not too picky... and I have the finances for most places (outside the Caribbeans... but honestly I wouldn't want to study there). Last year I only applied to uottawa (no mcat, and starting third year at the time...) I got past the academic cutoffs, but didn't get an interview. For what its worth, if I don't get in this time, I might just end up in engineering. So here's the (in)famous question: What are my chances?

Unfortunately you cannot simply pick and choose which score to release, otherwise you only only ever release your best, and that would negate the whole point... you could retake and retake all throughout your undergraduate career, then just pick the best in the end. What you can do, however, is choose to not have your mcat marked. When you are completing you mcat, it asks you if you want to have them mark your test or void it. If you void it, then you will never know how you did, and neither will they. Because most canadian schools only look at the best, I wouldn't recommend voiding it unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you bombed it, and you are worried about UofT or US schools. Many people have performed far better than they expected... but if you didnt write a whole section, I could understand. It is to my understanding that the purpose of the void is more for american applicants, as some american schools look at all mcat scores, and some look down upon repeated attempts. I hope this cleared up your question a little bit... in summary... you can't choose after you know the score, but you can bail right after you finish the test (or mid test I suppose...) Cheers