What to do if no invites/rejected

[Donald_Duck]

I get this question a lot, what to do if you need to do an extra year to reapply to med. Im hoping as many people can weigh in to make this useful.

1) talk to someone knowledgeable in Med applications, see what went wrong

My first advice is to see what went wrong. If you got many interviews, chances are you have the grades and Casper, you need to work on life experience/interviewing. If you didn’t get interviews, then do more undergrad years to boost your grades.

2) my gpa is good enough what more can I add

research is always a good thing to add in my opinion, only if you like it of course. These publications follow you for life, including your residency applications. If you enjoy it, perhaps do a masters in epidem or public health (many docs do this during residency or fellowship to get an academic position in a hospital). This time is therefore not « wasted ». 
 

If you can, try to do clinical research. Email doctors at TOH/CHEO (if you are in Ottawa) or a major academic health center as many will take non-med students to help with projects and this will give you medical exposure as well as relevant experience.

3) find an interest

Doing additional years can be demoralizing. Find an interest / passion to help motivate you and destress you. Personally, I revamp my aquarium (lel). Plus, people love hearing about these during interviews.

hopefully more people can weigh in on this, good luck with applications!!

Mr Duck