Nik-

I'm already working with Public Health. The program won't offer me much except for possibly the opportunity to work at a management level. I'm not discounting it completely yet, though.

I'm from Ontario. I'll keep the descriptions about the activities in mind for next time; I had someone ready over my application and they suggested the same thing.

I wish I knew what the activity scores really mean... 4/17 doesn't say much. I'm unsure how to improve this.

Thanks, I think I will keep trying since the MCAT score is good for 5 years and it is what I ultimately want to do for the rest of my life. I'm not exactly sure where my weaknesses lie. Maybe it's something in the way I explained my activities or a lackluster reference letter. Can anybody point me to the feedback document from Alberta? I can't find it in the Alberta email or the bear tracks.

Maybe, it's definitely hard to predict. Our healthcare here in Ontario hasn't been meeting the needs of our population for a while now. It seems there is great reluctance to having more staff that would be billing OHIP. It's no secret that having more of certain types of doctors and nurse practitioners would help meet these needs better.

I did consider it, but the PHPM residency has a master's built into it and you could choose to do a public health masters. Also, MPH would not provide me with much benefit in my current role.

Yes but they don't have the full scope of practice. I've also decided I want to pursue a combined residency in public health and family med. I would like to have a family practice at first while working with the city with the hopes of moving into policy influence later in my career. All this is not possible as a nurse practitioner. Sure, you have the ability to set up your own clinic, but you would compete with family practices that offer a full scope of services. It's something I've been asked since I started my undergrad and it's a compromise I'm unwilling to make. Also, many people struggle to find work as NPs (judging by what I see amongst my co-workers who have their licences but still work as RNs).

Yes. In hospital and in my city's Public Health department.

I got the rejection today around 2pm. That's it for this year.

1. Yes I've done many practice scenarios from all over. I even did a few group sessions online with some people from Ontario and Quebec which was fun. I'm not interested in spending hundreds of dollars for third party materials that often aren't representative of the real test. 3. I was going off of the fact that McMaster only accepts a few people from OOP for the incoming class, which I guess isn' t true for the other Ontario schools then. Still, I'm not sure how significant that advantage would be. If I was being given a serious offer from a school that said I'd have to move up there, I'd make it happen. Without that, it just seems way too optimistic for me.

I'm not sure if I'm eligible for the wGPA for Queen's (the website says full-time status is 3 courses per semester which I did have but I'm not too sure how it would work out with the units), but I've attached a picture showing my grades for the courses I took in my last two years as well as a separate picture of my second year in case the third year had too few courses. I'm not eligible for Toronto's wGPA because of the units required to be taken per year; I applied as my "lottery ticket" with my cGPA. UWO also had a requirement like that where you needed 30 units in two years with a GPA of 3.7. I only have two years where I had 30 units (1st, GPA ~3.5x, and 4th year which is >3.9) so I wasn't even eligible to apply to that. It's pretty difficult to offset my grades since every course that I achieve an A+ (4.0) in would only bump me up something like 0.01 points and even less with every subsequent course. I'm not sure how those extra ECs will help me. I have plenty of significant healthcare experience along with a couple other hobbies that I outlined in the app (sports, barbering). I guess next time I could add that I am part of a car club, but I highly doubt that's significant enough to be a deciding factor. I tried to keep my application objective and focused on what experiences that would make me a fit for our desired career without rambling too much. I think I'll be moving on with full-time work. Passing up on full-time work because of studying for the MCAT re-write was the reason why it cost me so much to apply. Where could I find someone who will seriously take the time to critique my application? I can't think of anybody who has gone through the process and would take the time to do that for me. I'll need to make at least some sort of significant change if I am to apply next cycle. I feel like I'd just be wasting my time and money re-submitting the same thing on top of wasting the time of my references again.

Thanks for trying to help and I appreciate the advice here, but here are some practical considerations: 1. I'm not sure what it means to "study hard" for casper since I've exhausted quite to a bit of online resources , most of which I didn't even bother doing because they weren't representative of the real exam (I've done 4 of them so I know what to expect). I can identify multiple perspectives on the issue and give a potential solution that I believe would bring the most amount of good and least amount of harm. I also read up on ethics. 2. I would've applied to Ottawa (english) if I met their course pre-requisites. Also, ;earning French would be at least a couple of years, I imagine, and then there is no guarantee I'll have a working proficiency of it. 3. This is perhaps the most costly and riskiest option. I can't just spend all that money on rent/buying a place to live there, give up my work that is as relevant as it gets to my desired residency, and skip out on building a life in my city just for a shot with IP status for other schools. I'm in Ontario and I can't even get an interview here so my IP status here has been useless so far.

cGPA: 3.79, wGPA for Alberta 4.00. Whenever I was given the option (Toronto and Alberta) I explained why my first year was in the 3.5 range due to having to pay for my own schooling and how difficult it was to adapt to so many new commitments. I learned the importance prioritization here.MCAT: 513 (127/128/129/129)Degree: Graduated nursing 2017Geography (IP/OOP): OntarioExtracurricular Activities (awards, achievements, volunteering, employment, research, etc.): lots of work experience throughout entire undergrad to present day including relatable healthcare work in acute and community care settings (hospitals, home care, community clinics), volunteered at hospital before undergrad, research recruitment volunteer for one year, volunteered with children learning ESL for 5 years, played sports recreationally, learned how to be a barber. Not too many commitments compared to most but spent 100s-1000s of hours with each. CASPer: I feel good at it since this was my fourth time doing it. I read "Doing Right" and spent a fair amount of time doing the free practice resources you could find online. I've had a successful casper for a nursing program in the past. This is the second cycle I'm applying for. I haven't received a single interview ever. My first cycle cost about $2500 to apply (October 2016, applied to Mac, Queens, Toronto, NOSM), this one cost me about $7000 (October 2018, Mac, Queens, Toronto, Alberta), and it will only get more expensive with each application. I've put life plans on hold such as moving and investing. I'm not sure I can keep losing like this. For the first time in 7 years I'm having some serious doubts about pursuing this anymore. I'm not going to do another undergrad to try and improve my gpa. I'm not planning on doing the MCAT for the third time since at this point my score can easily drop (my practice tests ranged from 512-517). Alberta was my best shot at an interview since I am above average for OOP acceptance GPA and right about average for OOP acceptance MCAT. I'm not sure where I can realistically improve my application anymore. I just started a job with public health where one of the doctors is also the director of the residency program I want to get into (PHPM with family med). Maybe they can give me some kind of a boost in this process? I guess I'll just have to wait and see. I wish we knew our Casper scores and the average casper scores for those admitted so that we could make more of an informed decision with our application. I'm not eligible for Western because of not having a 3.8 GPA for 2 years of 30+ units of study. If I remember correctly Dalhousie has the same requirement. I'm from Hamilton so NOSM isn't in the cards. Other schools ask for course requirements I didn't do in my program (such as organic chemistry, English, physics). I've reviewed all the information I could about all the schools in Canada and applied to the schools where I met the pre-requisites and looked like a had a realistic shot at judging by the admission statistics. International schools aren't an option as I must be able to realistically eventually return to my city to practice, and from what I've gained from speaking to doctors in the hospitals, it sounds as if you're basically restricted to coming back for family med only if you do make it back. So taking a risk of almost $500,000 for something in Australia to possibly come back and end up not doing exactly what I set out to do doesn't seem reasonable to me.

haha don't wear a big watch since those are tacky

Result: RejectioncGPA: 3.79, wGPA 4.00. Even though it probably wasn't even counted, I explained why my first year was in the 3.5 range due to having to pay for my own schooling and how difficult it was to adapt to so many new commitments. I learned the importance prioritization here.MCAT: 513 (127/128/129/129)Current Degree: Graduated nursing 2017Geography (IP/OOP): OOPExtracurricular Activities (awards, achievements, volunteering, employment, research, etc.): lots of work experience throughout entire undergrad to present day including relatable healthcare work in acute and community care settings, volunteered at hospital before undergrad, research recruitment volunteer, volunteered with children learning ESL for 5 years, played sports recreationally, learned how to be a barber. Not too many commitments compared to most but spent 100s-1000s of hours with each. CASPer: I feel good at it since this was my fourth time doing it. I read "Doing Right" and spent a fair amount of time doing the free practice resources you could find online. I've had a successful casper for a nursing program in the past. This is the second cycle I'm applying for but my first time for Alberta since I brought my MCAT up to meet the cut-offs. I haven't received a single interview ever. My first cycle cost about $2500 to apply, this one cost me about $7000, and it will only get more expensive as time passes. I'm not sure I can keep losing like this. For the first time in 7 years I'm having some serious doubts about pursuing this anymore. I'm not going to do another undergrad to try and improve my gpa. I'm not planning on doing the MCAT for the third time since at this point my score can easily drop (my practice tests ranged from 512-517). Alberta was my best shot at an interview since I am above average for OOP acceptance GPA and right about average for OOP acceptance MCAT. I'm not sure where I can realistically improve my application anymore. I just started a job where one of the doctors is also the director of the residency program I want to get into (PHPM with family med). Maybe they can give me some kind of a boost in this process? I guess I'll just have to wait and see.