collegedude22

You should not base your ROL on the salary. It is a minuscule difference in pay that amounts over 5 years to less than 1 month’s pay as a staff physician. Ironically, Québec has some of the most generous billing codes in several specialties once you are staff. This quickly negates the differences in resident salary between provinces.

If you have a reasonable base knowledge of French, that is enough to understand most of what you hear, and you make a reasonable effort to learn the medical vocabulary, you will be fine. While you don’t need to prove you’re highly proficient in French to match to McGill for residency, you will need to pass the French exam of the Office québécois de la langue française to become a member of the Collège des médecins du Québec before you finish your residency if you want to be hired as staff. You can find information about the exam on their website.

Yes, of course they ask

This means the program did not rank you. Sorry

IM programs generally prefer IM letters. People will wonder why an IM gunner couldn't come up with 3 IM letters. This is especially true for Toronto. Although many programs value diverse elective experience, this would be evident elsewhere in your application. Remember, you're competing against other IM gunners, most of whom will have 3 strong IM letters. All things being equal, a strong IM letter trumps a strong FM letter. If it's an extra or bonus letter, then go for it. But if a program asks for, let's say, 3 and only 3 letters, I would submit 3 IM letters, period.

Oh, that’s not true for those specific specialties, but for the match overall. I thought you were talking in a general sense about CaRMS, not those in particular.

Just a note - most people do get their #1 choice of program and location.

No

That depends on what kind of programs you’re applying to and whether there are red flags in your application. Small programs on average get fewer applications so people might remember you. Larger ones probably won’t. Obviously you will be remembered if you did an elective. Programs are only interested in matching the best candidates, and not matching in itself does not mean you are incompetent or hard to work with. If you applied to something like plastics/derm/ophtho and didn’t match, programs will be understanding of that and will be more interested in seeing how you bounced back. If you applied to something that is less competitive and didn’t match, programs might be suspicious. Make sure your letters are all good and make sure you back up properly (apply to 20+ programs). Plenty of people who go unmatched end up in desirable programs. Keep your chin up and good luck.

If a program decides not to rank an applicant post interview, it's BECAUSE the program would prefer to have an empty spot rather than match that applicant. Most programs plan to rank all applicants they interview unless the interview goes poorly or there is a red flag.

I’m not sure you have a complete understanding of the match. It’s not as if the program was aware it hadn’t filled all its spots before the first iteration results were released. They program probably incorrectly assumed it had interviewed and ranked enough applicants who had in turn ranked the program high enough for the spots to be filled. That and/or not enough applicants were interested in the program and matched to more preferred choices. In all likelihood, the program probably wished it had ranked more applicants after the results came out. The second iteration is a lot heavier for programs in terms of the sheer number of applications to evaluate from a pool of possibly (but not necessarily) less qualified candidates.

The problem is the CaRMS match happens first, so if you match to a Canadian residency program you will be automatically withdrawn from the American match. You don't get to match to a program in Canada, subsequently match to something in the US, then get to pick between the two. Basically, you have to not submit a rank-order list to CaRMS at all if you seriously want to match to the US; however, you then risk not matching in either country at all. It's a very risky move. In most cases, it's not feasible to apply to programs in both countries as you only have so much elective time in fourth year and have to focus on one match. And it goes without saying that CaRMS is becoming tighter every year. One thing you can do to get a sense of how strong an applicant you might be in the US is to take the USMLE step 1. If you score > 250, you can be reasonably sure of matching in the US as long as you're not applying to rads/ophthal/anesthesia/derm/plastics.

You definitely have a good shot at Dal, just prepare well for the interview (it's worth 40% of your application). Your academics look great, but are only worth 25%. Do you have much work experience? It's worth just as much as your medically-related volunteer work. Something to keep in mind...

I'm an NS resident and I finished my BSc in Chemistry and Physics in 2011. My GPA was 3.42/4 (most recent 2 years) and my MCAT scores were: Physical Sciences: (14) Verbal: (12) Biological Sciences: (15) Written Sample: ® EC: Marching band, pops orchestra, worked part-time (20 hrs/week) grading calculus assignments during undergrad, OR ward volunteering, emergency room volunteering, summer jobs at science museum working with kids, retail jobs, other stuff I'm probably forgetting. I was first waitlisted and now ACCEPTED (August 16th, 2012) by Dalhousie. This is my first time applying (first completed application; withdrew my first application pre-interview 2 years ago because I ended up taking a year off before finishing my degree). Dal is my first choice. I'm pretty excited to be waitlisted given my GPA. I felt good about my interview, personal statement, etc. - here's to hoping the WL moves a bit this year! Good luck to everyone on the waitlist and congrats to those accepted! And to everyone who was rejected - don't give up!