Easiest MD school to get into in Canada

[Halcyon]

Presuming you are an IP applicant, what do you believe is the easiest medical school to get into in Canada?

[Retsage]

Saskatchewan? Alberta? Dalhousie? Memorial? One of those, I think.

[Halcyon]

Cool.

 

Are you saying that b/c of GPA cut-offs?

[Retsage]

More or less, yeah.

[Halcyon]

This question has come to mind several times for me.

 

Will the day ever come when they will rid of this "bona fide resident" of X for med school applications?

[OneDay]

yeah, that would be great for us from Ontario, who have absolutely no preference anywhere.

[Jamer]

More or less, yeah.

 

This thread is going to get really ugly with stupid answers like that.

[Jamer]

This question has come to mind several times for me.

 

Will the day ever come when they will rid of this "bona fide resident" of X for med school applications?

 

Why would they? Med schools want to produce doctors for their own province, not to educate them using provincial money and then ship them off. If a student has lived in the province for a while, odds are they'll want to stay there.

 

You're probably a bitter Ontario resident. Honestly, I can't blame you.

[Retsage]

This thread is going to get really ugly with stupid answers like that.

 

Say what?

 

He asked what makes the other schools easier to get into, I pointed out their lower median GPAs. What exactly is incorrect about this?

[register]

Dumb Thread. All medical schools (in the world, respected medical schools) are hard to get into.

 

Just because some schools have preferences for their own provincial students, that doesn't make the caliber of those students any less.

[avenir001]

jeez what's with the insults lately? it seems people are getting ruder...

 

there's no simple answer to this question..it really depends on what your strengths are and what each school values in its applicants. for example, several ppl have told me ubc is crazy competitive to get into (they met cutoffs and got into oop schools, but no luck at ubc)..and yet others who didn't meet mcat and/or gpa cutoffs at other schools easily got into ubc cuz they had great ec's (ubc doesn't have gpa/mcat cutoffs and really likes well-rounded applicants)..so that's what i mean, it depends on your profile.

[A-Stark]

Saskatchewan? Alberta? Dalhousie? Memorial? One of those, I think.

 

Quebec applicants to McGill have a 50%+ acceptance rate, higher than any other school in the country, so shall we make the inference that they have low standards too?

 

While the interview cut-off for Maritime residents at Dal isn't very high, entering classes have academic stats comparable to places like Queen's - this year the average GPA is 3.8 with a 30+ MCAT.

 

It's certainly true that Ontario schools are comparably (and ridiculously) difficult to get into, particularly Mac and UofO, but the larger number of applicants seems to simply make it into more of a lottery.

[Halcyon]

Why would they? Med schools want to produce doctors for their own province, not to educate them using provincial money and then ship them off. If a student has lived in the province for a while, odds are they'll want to stay there.

 

You're probably a bitter Ontario resident. Honestly, I can't blame you.

 

Yes, I'm from Ontario, but not bitter at all. I'd be lacking character if I was bitter and I haven't even been rejected yet

 

I asked the original question out of curiousity and to see what others' thoughts were.

 

When you look at the politics behind it, it's very interesting. Federal transfer money ultimately funds provincial programs such as health care and education. Our income taxes (both federal and provincial) goes to funding these programs (simplified explaination). With the federal election campaign going on, it's interesting to hear some of the parties going on about injecting more money to train health care workers (nurses and doctors).

 

It's a complex issue, so I thought I'd open it up for discussion.

[medwannabe08]

by the numbers, UofT is mad easy to get in with their anything is ok admissions policy

[Alastriss]

Dumb Thread. All medical schools (in the world, respected medical schools) are hard to get into.

 

Just because some schools have preferences for their own provincial students, that doesn't make the caliber of those students any less.

 

Dumb answer. Not all medical schools are hard to get into. Generally speaking, a rural resident from Northern ontario WILL have an easier time getting into NOSM than UofT. This is because the government MADE IT EASIER for rural northern ontario residents so that we can have more rural-based physicians. No one mentioned anything about the caliber of students, so I don't even know why you made that connection, but I sense that you felt that easier entry = less caliber students. Dumb Thread, should have actually been "Useless Thread" because all this information is not very useful to the OP, he/she was probably curious.

[Alastriss]

Why would they? Med schools want to produce doctors for their own province, not to educate them using provincial money and then ship them off. If a student has lived in the province for a while, odds are they'll want to stay there.

 

You're probably a bitter Ontario resident. Honestly, I can't blame you.

 

I am a bitter ontario resident because I know of a lot of people that take advantage of the IP status and then plan to "ship themselves" off elsewhere. If you want to train physicians so that they should stay in the province, then they should cut to the chase and have them sign a contract to stay in the province for x years. If IP status people don't want that, then they should join the OOP pool and compete for the tougher spots and a free future.

I am sure there are a ton of people in the "OOP" pool that would love to stay in a different province for a seat in medical school.

[Halcyon]

I am a bitter ontario resident because I know of a lot of people that take advantage of the IP status and then plan to "ship themselves" off elsewhere. If you want to train physicians so that they should stay in the province, then they should cut to the chase and have them sign a contract to stay in the province for x years. If IP status people don't want that, then they should join the OOP pool and compete for the tougher spots and a free future.

I am sure there are a ton of people in the "OOP" pool that would love to stay in a different province for a seat in medical school.

 

Good discussion.

 

I figured some people would do that (i.e. move to another province to benefit from IP vs OOP applicant status).

 

Good point about the contracts. Open all med schools up, with the condition you have a service contract to that province once graduated.

 

As the process stands now, it's not really working.

 

[xylem29]

I would agree with the rest and simply say that if you are IP for school X then that would be the easiest school for you to get accepted at. I will be even more specific and say that the school with the least number of applicants would be the easiest one in Canada.

 

I don't know the numbers for other schools with OOP/IP policies but Manitoba receives approximately 800 applications each cycle: 500- 600 of which are OOP. So there are around 200-300 IP applicants for 100 seats. 500-600 OOP for 10 seats.

 

That's not to say the the caliber of students are lower though, it's relative I think. If there were more applicants and more competition, then these same students would be pushed to work even harder and thus, probably obtain even higher GPAs and higher MCAT scores - I think it just has to do with the competition pushing the numbers up - there's no real intrisnic difference to the students' potentials. I did meet one Alberta fellow who decide to go to Queens b/c he didn't like the idea that UAlberta had an IP policy - at Queens he said "It's a national school so I'm competing with the brightest across the country". That's just ego.

 

That said, I still feel bitter about being from ON.

[n00b]

The fact is that there are easier medical schools to get into either IP or OOP based on GPAs and MCATs. Why can't some of you just admit that? Those are objective facts.

 

The ones who say all schools are the same/equally hard are just afraid to admit the truth because it might hurt their egos. Gtfo.

[A-Stark]

Good discussion.

 

I figured some people would do that (i.e. move to another province to benefit from IP vs OOP applicant status).

 

Good point about the contracts. Open all med schools up, with the condition you have a service contract to that province once graduated.

 

As the process stands now, it's not really working.

 

 

That really doesn't make sense - if you match to a residency spot in another province, why should you be obligated to return after establishing a life somewhere else?

 

In any case, my feeling is that the increased competition in Ontario only makes admissions more of a lottery there than elsewhere. Consider somewhere like Mac where a sizable portion of the process is weighted to the subjective assessments of five short questions, with the rest given over to GPA.

 

As near as I can tell, Ontario schools simply receive proportionally more applicants than elsewhere. Mac and Ottawa receive more applicants than every school outside Ontario/Quebec combined!

[A-Stark]

The fact is that there are easier medical schools to get into either IP or OOP based on GPAs and MCATs. Why can't some of you just admit that? Those are objective facts.

 

The ones who say all schools are the same/equally hard are just afraid to admit the truth because it might hurt their egos. Gtfo.

 

How are these "objective facts"? It's true that Mac is hard to get into thanks to the volume of applicants and the higher emphasis on GPA, but they also preference Ontario students for interviews by a 10:1 ratio.

 

The difference between, say, Queen's and Dal is not the academic profile of entering classes (indeed, in practice you probably need a higher GPA to get into Dal), but in the post-interview process - Dal's process is considerably less dependent on the vagaries of committee interviews and assessments of supplementary info, where Queen's decisions are entirely based on the semi-lottery of how they judge your non-academic credentials and interview.

 

It's certainly true that UofT typically requires a higher GPA to get in, but then they're also looking for people who would take to a very didactic curriculum and a research-oriented environment.

[Retsage]

Quebec applicants to McGill have a 50%+ acceptance rate, higher than any other school in the country, so shall we make the inference that they have low standards too?

 

 

You, sir, are making an inference that I did not. Do not project your insecurities onto me. The question was, as an in-province student, which school is the easiest to get into. This does not make it *easy* to get into, but *easier*. I am not questioning the caliber of these students, merely pointing out that some schools are easier than others.

[A-Stark]

Well, then it's definitely McGill - a 57.1% acceptance rate for IP applicants in 2006-2007. Second is Manitoba, but the rate goes down to 34.8%, and after that is Dal, Sask, Alberta, Calgary, Laval, Sherbrooke, UBC, and then Montreal is the first below 20% with only a 13.5% rate (I'm ignoring the five-year post-CEGEP programs). Next is UofT at 11.4%, then Western, Queen's, Ottawa, Mac, and NOSM, with an acceptance rate of only 4.3%. A fair degree of variation there.

 

It's easy to see that the lowest chances are at schools outside Quebec which don't require the MCAT. But the only schools which don't make any IP/OOP distinction are UofT and Queen's - it's clear enough that Ontario could sustain at least one more school about the size of Queen's - it's unclear whether an IP preference would really help with the current volume of applicants.

[Retsage]

Since when do Western and Ottawa have IP preferences, besides for a few small regions that get bonuses? I have the same chance to get into Western or Ottawa as someone from Manitoba.

[supafield]

My goodness....

 

This is such a subjective debate, you could argue so many different ways.

Ie: Mac is hard to get into because it receives over 4000 applicants or inversely as long as you have good grades you stand a shot at Mac and is why they get so many applicants giving it easier requirements.

 

Western and Queens receive a much lower number of applicants (1800ish) but generally people know they have stringent cut-offs and don't bother applying if they are too far off from the previous year's minimums.

 

At Western SWOMEN students get easier MCAT cut-offs to hit than Non-Swomen, NOSM favors Northern students.

 

So for everyone there may be schools that are easier for an individual to get into, maybe even schools that are easier to get into in general but given how brutally competitive getting into medical school is and the accomplishment getting accepted is who care whether one school is slightly easier or not?

 

The easiest school to get into is the one that looks for you strengths.

Best of luck to everyone.