Nik-

They're contacted as soon as you input their info.

I've tried all these tips and it hasn't translated to any better results. I do agree the life experience reflection is helpful and will certainly continue to update that.

Thanks for that. I didn't expect any books to be useful; I'm more concerned about their simulations and if the feedback was useful enough to improve upon.

I am seeking information about people's experiences with casper prep companies. Did you feel this was a worthwhile investment? I'm looking at a few different companies and am seeing a wide range of prices ($500-$2000) for what seem to be similar offerings.

I just used the princeton review CARS books and some of the berkeley review when I had spare time.

2012 was burgundy woops just saw the second page of this thread

Yea I got rejected today

I've sent an email yesterday night asking what my verdict is and haven't gotten a response. Since software testing was on Friday I'm going to just assume it's rejection time.

I've never had an invite in 3 cycles. I've always been rejected from everywhere by the end of January. Still no rejection!!!! I love the suspense. I always described toronto as my lottery ticket since I'm only at 3.79cgpa (not eligible for weighting) and it really feels like it now hahaha

I love the long wait. I'm just picturing admissions reading my short answers and thinking "Wow! How could someone with such a low gpa write such great answers? Let's give him an invite" It's my first time not being rejected by the end of January hahah

Start solidifying your planning. Don't pass up on opportunities because of a potential interview. If worst comes to worst you can find a way to drop whatever you're doing and take that interview/acceptance. Look out for your own best interests.

The reason could be to send out two mass emails: rejections and invites.

I would start focusing on an alternative plan, although to be fair, I don't know what the competition is like at all schools across Canada because I don't meet the admissions criteria for many of them (I lack many course pre-requisites and I don't know what the admission stats are at schools I'm ineligible for). Even with the 4.0 GPA this year, I don't think you can turn that 3.58 around. Your MCAT score is probably only good for schools that look only at CARS and/or assess it as a cut-off. Your ECs seem to cover the usuals: work, volunteering, campus involvement, and "interesting category" (sport, choir and the arts) but the only real way to judge their value is how you describe them in your ABS sketch and discuss their significance in an interview. I think your best bet is to start working towards another option while targeting schools that will allow you to leverage certain gimmicks (ie: Queen's 2-year GPA, Toronto's wGPA). That other option could look like pursuing a different career, doing a graduate degree to boost your application and/or opening up doors for employment. Just for comparison's sake, here are my stats: Location: Ontario cGPA: 3.79 (wGPA Alberta: 4.0, wGPA Queen's: 3.9+, wGPA Toronto: ineligible) MCAT: 127/128/129/129 513 ECs cover all the usuals and are long-term: volunteering, employment, campus involvement, research, and interesting hobbies. Since I graduated in 2017, I have gained a boat-load of relevant experience and would expect to be above average in this department (thanks to the growing amount of responsibilities that come at work as time passes on top of the fact that I am not in school so all I do now is spend time on ECs). I am just waiting on Toronto to reject me to make this my 3rd cycle, 12th straight rejection and never to receive an interview. This is a common reality so I suggest not backing yourself into this corner because it is always good to have options, despite how difficult it can be to accept them.

Status : Rejection (MD) Time: 12:36 Location: IP MCAT: 127/128/129/129 (513) GPA: 3.79 (wGPA 3.9+) Year: Graduated 2017 Ecs: extensive with healthcare employment in a variety of care settings (medicine, oncology, surgical, emergency, rehab, home care, public health harm reduction + school health), worked throughout undergrad, small amount of tutoring younger-year students through my faculty while in university, some research (no publications), volunteering with children and patients in high school and undergrad (1000s of hours), interesting extracurriculars (soccer, barbering, automobile club). Nearly all commitments are long-term (spanning many years) with at least a few hundred hours. Shame since the most improved part of my application was the way I did my sketch. It was seriously overhauled from previous years to incorporate those canmeds criteria.

I used the princeton review textbooks from 2015 because someone let me use them for free. If you buy your own then I'm sure the newer resources would be even better since 2015 was when the exam changed and I felt like the company included way too much info for certain topics like physics. After that I used the AAMC practice question banks. This was where 99% of the studying took place. The following were minor supplements so don't focus on these too much. I didn't even remember doing them until you made me think about it. I did dabble a little with "the berkeley review" CARS prep because I found it for free online and it was at the same difficulty as the hardest passages in the princeton review stuff. This was just a very minor supplement and I only did it when I was really in the mood for it (~10 passages in total). The same goes for uworld. Uworld is a really good resource as I am sure you've already heard (it's the best and only thing I used for the nclex) but I only used it infrequently while I had the free trial to solidify some concepts I had trouble grasping (like organic chemistry). I used the khan academy free stuff on my breaks at work. It wasn't really useful but served mostly as a confidence booster since the questions were very easy. I really tried to keep the costs to a minimum.