Med school prereqs and admission...help!

[jd99]

I would just like to know whether med schools in Ontario (eg, Toronto, Queen's, Ottawa) and other parts of Canada allow a humanities course that is taken during the summer to fulfill their requirements.

 

Also, many people have told me that the med schools set quotas for how many people they will accept from each university. Is this true? I'm heading off to Mcmaster in the fall but many people have discouraged me from going as there are a lot of students there aspiring to be med students. I'm hoping not to get discouraged and try my best anyway. Your comments will be really appreciated.

[p0tus]

Hey,

 

Most universities accept courses completed during the summer to fulfill their course requirements. However, they don't accept summer courses to fulfill "full-time" student requirements.

 

Medical schools don't set quotas based on universities, they do so on provincial or regional levels. Since your interested in Ontario schools, here is a general breakdown on these preferences:

 

MacMaster: preference for Ontario applicants

Ottawa: preference for applicants in the Ottawa region

Western: preference for South West Ontario applicants

Toronto: no preference shown to any group

Queens: no preference shown to any group

 

Thus, going to Mac won't hurt your chances at all.

[jd99]

thanks, that's a relief. sortof, lol. Could you please clarify what you mean by 'full-time"? I'm taking a full course load all throughout university but I'll be taking half of a humanities and half of an organic chem course in the summer, and the other half during the year. Will they still accept this?

[scrubbed]

Hi,

 

A full-time courseload is considered to 10 half course equivalents taken in the fall and winter semesters. If this is the full courseload that you speak of, then you should be fine. Some schools, such as Ottawa, Queen's, and UWO will only accpet years where a full course load is taken. U of T allows you to drop courses from your GPA calculation if you have taken a full courseload (check the website).

 

If the humanities and organic chemistry courses are part of your full courseload (though from your post, I don't think that they are) then this may be a concern: I think that courses started in the summer session, even if they extend into the fall and winter sessions are considered summer session courses.

 

Good luck.

[jd99]

Thanks for the clarification (I think I understand what you mean...my summer session courses don't extend into the fall/winter session, where I will be taking a full course load, so I should be ok).

 

Just one last, quick question. I was checking out some of the western provinces and their respective schools, and Manitoba requires students to have a minimum of '12 hours' of social science/humanities courses. What exactly does this mean? I know at Mcmaster a full course is designated by a '6', and a half course by a '3' (I think UofT has full courses as a 1, and half as 0.5). So does this mean I should take 12/6 = 2 full-year social science courses in order to fulfill their requirements? I'm not even sure if I'll end up applying or achieve their cutoffs but we'll see.

[scrubbed]

Hi,

 

Three credit hours constitutes a course at U of M as well; therefore, you need four half course equivalents.

 

Ideally, you should take six credits of first year English, as this will fulfill many schools' requirements, either for humanities courses or for English courses. Whether you take the additional six credits is up to you.

 

Good luck with your first year. There will be a lot of aspiring med students at many universities; I don't think that Mac is any different. Just try to keep your goals in mind, and work hard to get there.