Neurology competitiveness

[Thatonestudent]

Hey I’m an incoming first year to University of Montreal! I’m curious about the competitiveness of neurology, since it’s one of the fields I’m interested in. I was planning to apply to English Canada + Quebec. Do you need tons of research and ECs? Or does an average student with electives in the field and decent evaluations have a good chance?

thanks!

[throwawayaccount123]

Hi! You can look at the carms data to see how competitive it is in terms of numbers. This year i believe there were about 150~ applicants, 60 of which ranked neurology as their 1st choice for a total of 48 spots across the country (approximate numbers). If you apply broadly you'll match somewhere across the country. Being able to apply to french schools is a huge bonus. 

Generally applicants show an interest in neurology with electives, and have at least some research in neurology or related fields (IM, psych, peds neuro etc.). Meaningful contributions within extracurriculars is always helpful for any residency application and most programs including neuro care about quality > quantity. Excellent reference letters are extremely important, but you wont have to worry about that until clerkship. Neurology is small, so if youre interested get to know the department, staff and residents at your own school throughout your 4-5 years. Its not one of those crazy programs like ophtho or plastics in terms of competitiveness but generally the big popular schools can be somewhat competitive.