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Hey,

I think I see where you are coming from (Shafted). I feel bad for you...it does kind of stink that you may be a great physician in Northern Ontario but if your not from here it makes it really hard to get into NOSM.

 

I've always wondered too why most of the Ontario schools do not distinguish between IP and OOP, whereas UC, UM, UA, etc. all do. It seems that Ontario students are all at a disadvantage compared to other provinces.

 

Well, just keep trying! I applied last year, got an interview, but wasn't accepted. We all have our days of bitterness...

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Hey,

I think I see where you are coming from (Shafted). I feel bad for you...it does kind of stink that you may be a great physician in Northern Ontario but if your not from here it makes it really hard to get into NOSM.

 

I've always wondered too why most of the Ontario schools do not distinguish between IP and OOP, whereas UC, UM, UA, etc. all do. It seems that Ontario students are all at a disadvantage compared to other provinces.

 

Well, just keep trying! I applied last year, got an interview, but wasn't accepted. We all have our days of bitterness...

 

Mei_Mei_girl,

 

Did you interview at NOSM last year?

 

H

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Wow, a 34R is still very good and should get you into med school. I received interviews with scores lower than that.

 

The idea of a contract scares me. Many people just don't like the isolation up here. I see it in the teachers who come up here all the time. Very few last the year and of course even fewer stay two.

 

 

As already discussed, contracts are really only a short term solution. Like you say, Hopeful Med, some parts of the North and Canada aren't for everyone. It might take someone who's grown up and knows that area as "home" to become a physician that will best serve that community in the long run.

 

Best wishes to all on their interviews, current and future applications, etc.

 

:D

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Just a thought.

 

Medical schools accept all types of students. All undergraduate programs have their own range of difficulty. For example, i know of someone who was granted admission with a 4.0 GPA in music. Does this person deserve admission before someone who actually took a premedical program in science, say clinical biochemistry and received a final GPA of 3.5??? Who is more qualified to be granted admission?

 

Personally, i'll pick the biochem student who has taken four years of pre medical training over the music student who is four years behind everyone else.

 

What do you think?

 

Dumbtit.

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Just a thought.

 

Medical schools accept all types of students. All undergraduate programs have their own range of difficulty. For example, i know of someone who was granted admission with a 4.0 GPA in music. Does this person deserve admission before someone who actually took a premedical program in science, say clinical biochemistry and received a final GPA of 3.5??? Who is more qualified to be granted admission?

 

Personally, i'll pick the biochem student who has taken four years of pre medical training over the music student who is four years behind everyone else.

 

What do you think?

 

Dumbtit.

 

That is a really, really, REALLY good point! Especially for a school like Mac with not prerequisites. Shafted mentioned that the Dean of that school wants people in with higher GPA's, which I think is a very illogical idea, for other reasons and for the one you mention.

 

I've taken a music course, and got 98% in it. It was SUPER easy (I'm not saying all music courses are easy), but I am a Biochem major, and I know if I took Music as my undergrad I would have a higher GPA but wouldn't have the solid medicine-related knowledge for med school.

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For anyone who is certain that achieving a high GPA in a music degree is easier than in a biochem degree, I have a bit of insight that might be interesting.

 

I’m a double major in music performance and biochemistry, so I’ve seen both sides of the spectrum. My first three years of university were primarily music, with some 1st and 2nd year science courses, while fourth and fifth years have been almost entirely biochem. Having studied in both of these fields, I can say that there are certain skills required to get good marks in music that you certainly do not need in biochemistry.

 

Besides taking courses, a music student also has “practical,” which is private instruction that needs to be prepared for each week outside of the regular courseload. This, in a performance degree anyway, includes recitals at the end of the final years which require HOURS of preparation – I’m talking 4-5 per day for months if you are a serious candidate. Put this on top of 17-20 credit hour semesters, which is required to complete some music degrees, and you’ve got yourself a workload. To keep up is difficult, let alone to achieve high marks.

 

On top of that, this notion that 98% is easy to achieve in music courses is incorrect. I’m sure one of the previous posters got 98 in the course he/she took, but what was that? A pop music course? Beginner theory? Music students are typically not even allowed to take these courses that are open to other degrees because they are so straightforward. The courses are there simply to offer students from other backgrounds exposure to music. A course in advanced music history, which includes papers, analysis, and plenty of projects that are under subjective marking, is incredibly difficult to get As in. Not saying that it’s easy to achieve this in metabolism or physiology, but at least the answers in these courses are typically black and white, right or wrong.

 

I’m not saying that biochem is easy by any means. It's a very difficult degree that is a lot of work. However, having done both of these degrees in my university career, I can easily say that music required more time, effort, discipline, determination, patience and focus to achieve an A average.

 

I don’t mean for this to offend anyone studying biochemistry, because it is obviously one of the more difficult degrees (and I’m a biochem student too! :) ). I simply mean to educate people who have misconceptions on what it takes to get a good GPA doing a music degree.

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I too have had a similar experience. I began my undergrad studies as a double major in music and psychology and then shifted to a specialized honours degree in psych. My wife went through bio and psych and is now completing med-school. I went onto a Masters and now a PhD in psych and now hopefully med. Having seen the med experience with this insight into background education and preparedness I can honestly say that each of these degrees prepare you for different aspects of the medical profession. A pre-med student may in fact be better equipped to handle the pre-clerkship element of med-school, but when clinical work begins a shift also appears between those with a less traditional pre-med scholastic background, and it is often these students who excel at the interpersonal skills that are so important in modern medicine.

Ultimately, the application and MMI system that so many Ontario schools have adopted is designed to recognize candidates who are capable of learning at an advanced level (independent on the content). Strong students who are capable of guiding their own educational process and who understand their own strengths and weaknesses, are more likely to thrive in medical school as compared to students who are capable of studying really hard for the sole purpose of acing exams. These self-directed learners exist in a multitude of disciplines including the health sciences, but are also quite present in other less traditional undergraduate disciplines.

As the group of students that will make up the future classes at NOSM will most surely come from a variety of educational backgrounds, I heed you to be careful in criticizing the educational voracity of students from non pre-med backgrounds. These might end up being your future colleagues; better to examine what strengths they may bring to the table, then focus upon how they might be weaker candidates than you.

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I do apologize for my uncanny response. It was speaking from my own experiences, and as I see what short-sighted. It just seems that Biochem takes up so much time! All the labs and everything. I feel that my art/music friends have more time to put into their degrees and thus it may be easier to do well.

 

You guys are right though, there are different strengths/weaknesses in every degree.

 

Best of luck!

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Your language is quite harsh for an innocent comment. It is funny that you are automatically assuming my reasons to be shallow. I understand NOSM to be a school that prefers applicants who are from Northern Ontario, and I was merely trying to ask someone how I could convey my interest in living somewhere in Sudbury (I picked long lake for fun). I was merely entertaining the idea and providing some hypothetical reasons for my interest. In no way shape or form was I hinting that this was my only reason for wanting to attend NOSM. I have much better reasons than those aforementioned.

 

Back to the original question/poster - I apologize that you took such offence to my earlier post, it was not at all my intention to imply that living on the lake or money was your only reason for wishing admission to NOSM or any other medical school. What I was trying to impart was that using such an example, with similar wording to what you used in your post could give the reviewers such an impression. The written medical school application is a very important step in gaining admission, and you should use every character wisely in your essays. As Happy Enough previously mentioned, each application, regardless of the background of the applicant, is reviewed. Many of these applications are reviewed and graded by medical students, but community members, staff and faculty are also involved. If you application says something to the extend of I want to be a doctor so I can live on Long Lake or could be interpreted as saying as much the reviewer is only left to guess what exactly you meant by this statement. My advise was given in hopes that you would not leave the evaluators to guess, but rather use the ideas and emotions behind such an idea to impress them with how well you could be integrated into Northern Ontario.

 

If you're worried about me taking your spot...don't.

 

I'm not worried at all, I'm already in med school. :D

 

Please forgive my frustration and I don't mean to offend anyone, but I think somethings fishy when Non-Northern Ontarian IP applicants have a higher success rate getting into OOP schools than they do at NOSM.

 

Oh and btw, my interest is in Emergency and/or Rural Medicine. My focus is not money (in reference to your big house on long lake notion), my focus is a challenge.

 

Please don't take offense to what I have said.

 

Cheers.

 

I wish you luck in your pursuit of your medical education, regardless of how, when and where it is eventually completed; it would seem that your interests and focus are in line with what NOSM is trying to accomplish. I hope you will continue to consider Northern Ontario as a wonderful place to practise medicine.

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