No research or awards

[bigsadpremed]

So i'm doing the omsas application i have no research or awards, will this be a big red flag?  

Like the only award i would say i have is the entrance scholarship i got when i came to university but im guessing everyone has that.  Despite looking for changes for research i never got any. 

Is it still possible to get in?

 

Thanks!

[whatisgoingon]

Absolutely re: awards 

And it's ok not to be big on research so long as you are pretty good on other areas of your application. I do encourage you to do some in the future in a field you're interested in however

[bigsadpremed]

1 minute ago, whatisgoingon said:

Absolutely re: awards 

And it's ok not to be big on research so long as you are pretty good on other areas of your application. I do encourage you to do some in the future in a field you're interested in however

thanks for the reply, so its okay if these two sections are lacking? I have lots of work, volunteering and other activites. 

[HugeEuge]

The more areas you are lacking in (in your case awards and research) the more the rest of your application has to exceed the average. Those other areas could be your GPA, MCAT, or extracurriculars. Not having research or awards in itself does not pose as a red flag, just be aware that the other areas of your application will have to pull you up to compare to and surpass your peers.

[TheStern]

To add to what other people have said, it is very school-dependent. For example, U of T seems to value research quite a lot, while McMaster wouldn't consider it at all (they only look at GPA, CARS, and CASPer)

[ellorie]

I didn't have any research at all and I ended up with 3 Ontario acceptances including U of T.  Although that was 10 years ago now (yikes!) so my experience might no longer be relevant.