People who interviewed at UofT last year....

[Guest Emila]

Were the interview in May last year added at the end or were they planned all along?

 

I'm wondering if there will be more interviews this year or is next weekend the end.

[Guest Krish]

I know the interviews done in May were added spontaneously. That is to say, they weren't initially planned for. I know three people who interviewed at May and got in first round.

 

Until you get the rejection letter......you can only hope.

 

Good luck!

K

[Guest aneliz]

The interviews that happened in May were not planned for all along...but I think that they had made a decision by this point last year that they were going to have an interview weekend in May...so it wasn't that spontaneous either...not like they decided the week before....

 

That said, there is always hope...it isn't over until you have a rejection in hand. I interviewed on the last day last year and got an acceptance in the first round.

 

Good luck!

[Guest tantastic]

Hey Aneliz:

 

Sounds like you got first round acceptances everywhere you applied to last year! Just wondering what you stats were like. What was your undergrad in? Masters? You mentioned that you weren't even thinking about Med school initially, what kind of plans did you have in mind before you switched course as you obviously didn't have a tough time explaining the change in course during your interviews.

 

Why not UofT or the other schools you were accepted to?

 

Anyways thanks

[Guest aneliz]

Hey,

 

Well as you have gathered, I kind of got my act together late in the game (like end of third year of undergrad!)...but it wasn't that I totally hadn't considered med...it had been in the back of my mind as a possibility since late high school.

 

When I was in high school, I always knew that I was interested in the biological sciences - most specifically in medical type sciences (anatomy, physiology, genetics). I worked for a small animal veterinarian in high school and loved it...so I thought that being a vet would be a great career.

 

For undergrad I went to the University of Guelph (home of the only vet college in Ontario) and enrolled in their biomedical science program. You used to be eligible to apply to the vet program after your first year of undergrad...but they changed that to after your second year the year that I started at Guelph as an undergrad. So I spent some time volunteering at the vet school....and the more I saw, the less happy I was with vet med. I really didn't have a big interest in the large animal stuff (which is a HUGE component of vet med) and I wasn't happy with the way that decisions were made about animal care. For example: an animal may be perfectly treatable/curable but if the owner didn't want to/couldn't pay then nothing was done...if it was cheaper to slaughter a herd of cows then vaccinate them against a disease, this is what was done. The vet college is also deeply involved in herd health, farm animal economics and animal care is often (like almost always) dictated by $$ rather then by science....I was also not interested in the 'meat production' aspect of vet med...treating the animals with the sole goal of producing the best quality flesh possible.

 

So, by the beginning of second year I started thinking that maybe vet wasn't for me after all....but by then I was also really enjoying the biomed program that I was in....so I decided that I would stay at Guelph, finish my degree and decide what to do after that. By the end of third year I had pretty much written off the vet program as an option...and was now considering some back ups....it was at this point that med became a serious option...but so did a masters degree because I had also gotten involved in research and loved it. The summer after third year, I wrote the MCAT. This was a rough summer in my life due to multiple other things (big family problem, 60+ hour work week, insane and evil boss). So I kind of studied for the MCAT in my spare time...and thought I was going to get smoked. I wrote the MCAT and amazingly, didn't get smoked. (13-15, 13, 13 ,S)

 

In the fall of my fourth year, I applied to med school...but I got my act together late and only had the time (and $$ because that was an issue in my life too) to apply to two schools. So I picked UWO and UofT because I thought that they were the two that I would be most happy attending if I should get in. My GPA wasn't a problem, (best year 3.93, cumulative, 3.90) so I thought that I would be at least okay there but I was really unsure that the rest of my application was adequate...I didn't have nearly as much in the 'med directed' resume items that all of the other premeds had. I had plenty of extra-currics, volunteer...but not as much as I thought that I needed for med!

 

So, I crossed my fingers and hoped. I got an interview at UWO in early April. I basically went in and told the interviewers my story...basically as you read it here...and I thought that my interview went TERRIBLE. It was only 35 minutes long...the interviewers never smiled, they challenged everything that I said....I was convinced that I was doomed. I loved the school, but they probably didn't love me...

 

I finally got a UofT interview in May (the last weekend) and had a less then positive experience there (see the thread 'to aneliz' in the UWO forum for a run down on that!). But the interview itself went better (so I thought) and I was convinced that I was going to get into UofT and not UWO...and then what was I going to do!? Meanwhile, plan B was in full swing...I was planning to come back to Guelph for a semester and then start my master's in January.

 

May 31st came...and I got a big envelope from UWO (what a surprise that was!)....followed by a big envelope from UofT two days later...I chose UWO...and here I am! Living proof that you don't have to know that you want to be a doctor when you are 6 years old to get in...and that being honest and being yourself is fine....you don't have to play the pre-med game to be successful...do what you want and be happy doing it...you need to work hard, but if you do, you can succeed in getting in, no matter what your background!

 

 

Good luck!