Rural Applicants UofA

[Grey Owl]

The rural applicant quota for U of A is approximately 8 students each year. The requirement is having lived 5 years of your life in a rural area, and more than 80? km from a centre of 50,000 people.

 

Could anyone share information about this process?

 

Is there a rural pool and a non-rural pool?

 

Do averages on GPA and MCAT vary between the groups.

 

How many applicants/position for the rural vs. non-rural positions?

 

Are they able to fill the rural seats each year?

 

Do they accept OOP applicants for the rural seats?

 

Is there anyone on the forum that is presently occupying a rural position that can comment on the process, does it work, is it helping to create rural physicians, is it actually encouraging rural students to consider medicine?

 

Thanks in advance for your input.

[olderguy]

I was a little dissapointed to see the lack of response to this post. I would like to know more info regarding the "rural applicants" as well. The website is a little vague when addressing this topic. There is however a contact name and telephone number on the website for anyone interested in becoming a rural applicant. Let me know if you find any more information.

[LostLamb]

I enquired about this stream when I was at interviews.

I did not really learn much. Essentially, they have the spaces for those of us with rural backgrounds, but aside from this designation, there is nothing different about these places than any other spaces.

 

There seem to be a lot of opportunities for rural medical experience. I recall discussion about a rural medicine group sponsoring shadowing and other placements for interested students.

 

I don't see any way that they would not be able to fill 8 spots with rural applicants, I am sure there are many who would qualify for the designation. I guess the benefit is that if you are rural, then you have a chance at an extra 8 spots compared to the rest of the applicant pool.

 

There is no requirement for an applicant/matriculant to a 'rural' spot to practice rurally after completing MD training.

 

I'm sorry my details are so sketchy. They were also really sketchy at the interview Q&A. Hope this gives you some insight.

 

LL

[Wut?]

I enquired about this stream when I was at interviews.

 

So *that* was you

 

Could anyone share information about this process? Not me personally, but I can try to answer your questions

 

Is there a rural pool and a non-rural pool? The rural pool is considered an over-quota pool. This basically means it is considered as its own pool

 

Do averages on GPA and MCAT vary between the groups. Yes. But the only reason I can see this varying is because the sample population of the rural pool is smaller than the quota pool. As such, the rural GPA / MCAT could fall on either side of the quota pool statistics, although I would expect the difference to be a very small difference.

 

How many applicants/position for the rural vs. non-rural positions? For the Class of 2012, it was 10 over quota spots of the total 155 spots. Although no statistics have been released, I would expect this to have been raised to the tune of around 12-13 over quota rural spots for the 188 person Class of 2013

 

Are they able to fill the rural seats each year? Yes.

 

Do they accept OOP applicants for the rural seats? Not certain of this.

 

Is there anyone on the forum that is presently occupying a rural position that can comment on the process, does it work, is it helping to create rural physicians, is it actually encouraging rural students to consider medicine?

 

I am not from a rural area, but I believe it is a combination of both. I vaguely remember someone giving statistics that medical students hailing from rural areas are more likely to return to a rural / smaller population center for their practice than their urban-raised colleagues. However, by no means are rural applicants forced to pursue rural practice.

[Ninjaface]

I am a rural IP student who got into U of A this year. There does not seem to be anything different about applying as a rural applicant. I do wonder if I used up one of the rural over-quota seats or not though, as I'm fairly sure I would have gotten in without it. Either way, it is not influencing my decision to practice rurally or not, but I likely might anyways just because I still love the north.

 

Edit: I got asked for more info about the Territorial advantage via PM and figured I might as well post my response here too, for information's sake.

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I think it is different for different schools, but all the Western Canadian ones do say that being from the Territories counts as IP. The parts of the application which describe what an IP resident is usually mention the Territories as well. Other schools (such as U of A) give special consideration to rural applicants in addition to considering those from the Territories as IP, so the advantage is two-fold (as anyone from a territory is obviously rural as well). I think two years is the residency requirement, but don't quote me on that. U of A asked for very detailed information about residency from birth, so if it came down to deciding who got one of the over-quota rural seats, I would think someone who had grown up in the north would be selected over someone who just met the bare minimum requirements (otherwise why would they care how rural you were). U of S asked me to prove that I had been covered under Yukon Health care for at least 2 years. U of C I know sets aside 1 seat for a person from NWT each year, but I do not believe they give a rural advantage. Those are the only 3 schools I applied to.