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Western Med Sci vs. Waterloo Life Sci


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Hey everyone,

I'm having a huge dilemma! I'm in grade 12 in Ontario atm, and need to decide where to go next year very soon! I was accepted to both Western Med Sci and Waterloo Life Sci (majoring in biochemistry, with coop). I was originally leaning towards med sci at UWO, however without coop, I feel like I'll be missing out on valuable work experience that I would have if med school doesn't work out for me. However, med sci has a great rep and UWO felt like home to me and is supposedly a feeder to med, but has been known to be unnecessarily difficult to maintain a competitive GPA in. On the other hand, Waterloo would give me 2 years of work experience by the time I graduate, is an easier program than med sci and is about an hour closer to home (UWO is approx. 2hrs). The social scene and atmosphere however did not appeal to me as I am heavily affected by my environment and I definitely don't want to be on a campus where everyone is too competitive to be genuine friends and enjoy at least some of their time at uni outside of studying. So....on top of that, Laurier health sci! I didn't apply to this program but I contacted admissions and they told me I would still be considered a competitive applicant, the program has coop, has a really nice atmosphere, offers most of the courses required for the MCAT and med school admissions and is easier to achieve higher marks in than med sci. It's a good mix between med sci and life sci. I'm considering applying, but I don't know. I'd really appreciate some kind of guidance and advice -- I'm completely lost and have no idea what decision to make anymore. Should I just stick to med sci? I know there's no right answer but I'm just looking for some insight because there's not many people I know that can help. Thanks so much in advance and sorry if this is kinda long.

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You know if you did have decent grades, but decided against medicine, you could also join the Ivey program at Western after 2 yrs of med sci. It'll be an internal app so you wouldn't even have to transfer schools. 

Personally, i'd choose Western. The extra hr away from home is nothing and you'd probably want to be further away from home if you can. I found people who left home for uni changed more than people who stayed at home and the further you go the less you'll visit home. 

I wouldn't be too worried about the competition at either school. University is huge, you'll find friends who are similar to you and this isn't high school where people judge you by your group or interests. You can easily skate through university with a few good friends or many good friends under the radar. 

 

 

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@Edict

True, I could switch into Ivey, but I didn't apply for their AEO thing so it would be tough to get in, plus I'm not too interested in business. I'd prefer to be a little closer to home. What do you think of coop? I think that's my biggest concern, not having something to fall back on and having a solid resume if I decide against or can't get into medicine. The program's difficulty also concerns me - I know how competitive it is in Canada to get into med school so I'm just concerned about being able to do really well in such a tough program. 

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8 minutes ago, coops1115 said:

@Edict

True, I could switch into Ivey, but I didn't apply for their AEO thing so it would be tough to get in, plus I'm not too interested in business. I'd prefer to be a little closer to home. What do you think of coop? I think that's my biggest concern, not having something to fall back on and having a solid resume if I decide against or can't get into medicine. The program's difficulty also concerns me - I know how competitive it is in Canada to get into med school so I'm just concerned about being able to do really well in such a tough program. 

The issue with co-op, is that it makes it harder to get into medical school in the first place because you don't have free time to bolster your resume. All you will have is co-op. Only a few people (1-5) in my class came from co-op programs and probably 15-20 people came from Western Med Sci. 

I think you should really think about how interested in medicine you are. If you think theres a good chance you will want to bail on medicine, co-op at Waterloo might be better, but if you think you're pretty committed and the only way you'd stop being interested is if your grades weren't there, then choose Western Med Sci. Its a tough choice, sacrifices on both ends really. 

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@APP2019

Hey, congratulations! I was wondering what kind of jobs you were able to get with co-op. I know they differ between faculties(AHS and Life sci) but from what I know you can apply to any of them? I haven't had much luck finding good info on what the jobs were like. How difficult was it to get relevant/interesting jobs? What were they like? Having relevant/any job experience is pretty much why I'm interested in coop because yeah, not everyone makes it to med. Thanks for your response!

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