A Question for Liana, if you're still around

[Guest Tal]

Hi, you mentioned that you were from Guelph, and I was wondering if you know a lot of pre-meds at Guelph. I don't know too many who are actually realistically going to apply to med schools (a lot of low marks) and from what I've seen there never seems to be too many people from U of G getting in to med schools. (I always just figured that was because most people who go here are looking more towards vets)

Also are you going to Guelph right now? in Bio-Med?

Thanks a lot!

[Guest JSS02]

I don't know if he posts here, but there's someone on the Delphi message board from U. of Guelph who got accepted by Columbia meds... his nickname is UGBoi, maybe you could go there and send him a message.

[Guest Tal]

Thanks for the info JSS02.

I just read the replys to the other post which answered my last questions to Liana.

And maybe Aneliz could answer my question too.

Great to see so many Guelphies!

[Guest Liana]

Hi Tal,

 

Yes, I'm still at Guelph; in 3rd year Bio Sci. I figure, if I plan to go to medical school, I may as well use these years to enrich myself on stuff I won't be learning there. I know Biomed is "the" thing to do, but I like to do my own thing.

 

The number of pre-meds you see depends on who you sample. I imagine 85% of the first year biomed class either wants to get into vets or medicine. Yes, Guelph likely has the highest density of pre-vets, but I think we still have a large number of aspiring doctors. It depends on where you look.

 

But you're certainly right, a lot of people tend to lose sight of their dreams when they start getting their university marks. But there are definitely Guelph grads who get into medicine. In the lab I worked in last year, there were two 4th year project students and one grad student; 2 got into Mac, and the 3rd got at least an interview there. I don't know if Guelph's number of successful medical school applicants per capita would differ from most of the other universities in Ontario; in fact, I would like to think (ignorantly perhaps?) that a lot of the people who choose to come to Guelph are the sort of down-to-earth types who tend to excel in interviews in schools looking for more than just academic ability.

[Guest GusK]

When I studied medicine at Univ. of Saskatchewan (never finished it) there were 5 out-of-provinve students. I was one of these 5. There was also one ou-of province student who studied at U of Guelph and I'm guessing her marks were good since the average grade for out-of province accepted students was 89.5% at the time. Academically, I beliveve they looked at the last two full-time undergraduate years (or at least they used to).

 

There was also one other girl in my class who's first choice was vets but she could not get an offer from vets. She took meds as a second choice.

 

Gus

[Guest Tal]

wow, she couldn't get into vets and went to meds as a 2nd choice! A lot of my friends here are getting into vets with high 70s, low 80s averages! weird.

That's interesting. My partner is in zoology and he wants to get into research and a lot of profs have been telling him to go to med school instead of vets, because with an MD you'll get better jobs and a higher pay. I thought that was also interesting.

 

thanks for your reply Liana, I completly understand about doing your own thing. I'm in bio-med, but mostly because its what I'm most interested in. The courses I can take (like anatomy next year, I'm so excited) in this program are exactly what I want. Its just that it seems like a lot of people in this program really aren't getting very good marks? I even met I guy who was in Guelph bio-med and told me I'd never get in to med school out of this program because its too hard (he switched out and now is doing his undergrad at Dal). Don't worry though, I don't beleive him one bit, and I don't care if it is hard. I guess I'm just getting a little worried (I'm going to start applying next year) because I want to get into the more academic (I guess) med schools (Toronto, Western or Queens).

Anyway, thanks for reading my rambles.

Have a great day everyone!

[Guest aneliz]

Tal,

 

I am a 4th year biomed student at Guelph. I have applied to both Western and Toronto and so far have an interview at Western. (Haven't heard from Toronto yet.) I would agree with you that the biomed program is tough - likely a bit more difficult to do well in than a bio sci major. This is only because of the number of required courses and the sometimes terrible combinations that you get. ('Hell semesters' that make it exceedingly difficult to keep ahead of that ever-present rolling snow-ball.)

 

Biomed is a great program. Like you mentioned, it offers some fantastic opportunities that you can't get elsewhere. (Where else can you do a full-cadaver dissection human anatomy course in undergrad?) There are a bunch of us 4th years (10-15 at least) that have applied to meds but, so far, I have only heard of a few with interviews (and two of them are francophones interviewing at Ottawa.) This is likely due to somewhat lower marks. I think that most of the fourth years are sitting somewhere between a 70-80 % cumulative average. It's not that their marks are *bad*, it's just that they don't stand out from the pack that is applying to medicine. Also, if you have a bunch of courses with high 70's, it kills your OMSAS GPA (knocks it down to around 3.5). While I love the biomed program, (and wouldn't have done anything different if I had to start over) it isn't the easiest program to get med school pre-reqs in because of scheduling issues and the limited number of electives that you have. For example, it is impossible to take Organic Chemistry II without sacrificing Immunology I or Mam. Phys I (due to a direct scheduling conflict). It is also hard to fit in extra arts credits that you need. So, it depends on what is more important to you, finishing your biomed degree on time or having your med pre-reqs. To get all of your biomed requirements and med pre-reqs will take you at least a 9th semester if not a 10th. If I don't get into meds this year, I will be back for a 'victory lap' year to finish my last required courses for biomed. (There are quite a few 5th year biomeds around...)

 

Like Liana said, most people in biomed are initially focused on Vet and/or med. As I am sure you know from living with a cluster, about 90% of the first year bio sci students want to be in biomed next year and at OVC as soon as possible. Because biomed is a competitive, restricted entry major, everyone in biomed has a decent first year average. However, in second, third and fourth, year somebody has to get the 50's. Moral of the story: competition can be fierce and slacking off will never get you a great mark in biomed courses. Everyone is capable of producing quality work and the profs know it.

 

My final point (and I know this post is really long), there is great diversity within the biomed class. People's interests have often changed since their first year. I know very few biomeds who are applying to vet for next year, just like there are not so many applying to med. The rest are looking at a variety of possibilities. Some examples of places the 4th years have applied for next year: nursing, physiotherapy, speech pathology, respiratory therapy, grad school (because they want to research), pharmacy, paramedic and forensic science.

 

And, if any of you Guelph people read this before it is too late, there is a biomed career night tonight at 6 pm in UC 103. There are a bunch of alumni coming, including a med student from Western if you're interested.

[Guest Liana]

aneliz,

 

I have a couple of friends who are looking into speech pathology, and they all seem to have come to the same dilemma that a lot of these programs require you take courses that aren't even offered at Guelph (eg, Phonetics). Do you know how your friends have gotten past these requirements? (ie, have they done semesters at different schools, or are there schools without this requirement?)

 

I believe that the registrar's office is trying to make some attempt not to schedule all of these courses together, or by some fluke, they lucked out next semester. Orgo II is scheduled at a different time than Mam Phys; one could probably take Orgo II, Human Phys, and Immunology and still have it fit into a timetable this fall, if for some reason that was a pattern of courses one chose to take.

 

From what I've heard in comparison to other schools, I've always thought that Guelph has been a place where you can generally get higher marks, even in biomed courses. All of my courses have been taken from those required of biomed, micro, or biochem students, and I still maintain that micro and chem major programs are WAY harder to get high marks in (mostly due to the lab courses). However, I'm certainly not saying that Guelph's courses are "easy". What I have decided is that Guelph provides a lot more venues for mark improvement than a lot of other schools, like receptive professors who want to have high success rates in courses (for the most part anyway), *some* fairly helpful TAs (not nearly as common as with the faculty, but still probably better on average than some other schools), and resources like SLGs, the CSD, and clusters. The main reason why I chose to come to Guelph was due to the supportive atmosphere; the fact that your classmates want to share the stress of schoolwork with you, rather than making things harder for you to do well, can only contribute to the high mark potential at Guelph.

 

You can probably account for the rate of apathy toward the medical profession by marks, but I wouldn't say that's the entire reason. I know people with high 80s who have realized that medical school just isn't for them (contrary to previous aspirations), whereas I have friends who haven't maintained the 70% required to stay in biomed, but are still determined to make it into medicine, and refuse to consider otherwise. Maybe there is an aspect of realism to this decision, if you can't handle the stress of the undergraduate academic life, or can't stand the work, how will you ever handle 4 more years of medical school and a lifetime of learning and work-related stress? On the other hand, people who give up too easily after a bad year or a mediocre semester perhaps didn't truly want to be physicians. Yes, you need the marks to get into medicine, but there's always time to upgrade on that later, and there are always schools that consider the whole person more important than the GPA. I think one good aspect of the biomed program is perhaps it reveals to the student, before a lot of time and effort is wasted, that medicine is perhaps not the ideal future career path, or that their interests lie elsewhere.

[Guest Tal]

Thanks guys for your replys!

I can definitly see where some conflicts can occur in the bio-med program. (Especially with Orgo, its so odd here that its not in the bio-med program? Which is why I reccomended to all my cluster to take Orgo in the summer, I can never find anyone who took it during the school year who liked it and I took it in the summer and looooooved it!) (and am now minoring in biochem!)

I'm sure there really isn't too much difference between Guelph and other undergrad universities, its all in who you talk to. I agree with you too Liana, the courses with labs take up way more time. I'm going into 3rd year and next semester I have about 14 hours of class! 1 lab thats it! Don't get me wrong though, I know its not going to be easy!

Thanks for the stats aneliz and congrats on your interview! I heard about the career night, it sounded good and I told my cluster, but I can't make it.

Well I guess all anyone can do is keep up their marks, do what they enjoy and hope that the med schools will like it too

My marks are great now that I'm in classes I really like. It was my 1st year marks that I'm worried about, I just hated those general courses so much they'e bringing my average down, anyone else experience this?

Anyway back to studying.Thanks again guys!

[Guest aneliz]

Speech pathology... I don't know much about it other than there is at least one person that I've heard of applying. I have no idea what the pre-reqs are but they did tell me that they had to take intro linguistics (a 1st year course) and developmental psych this semester. Other than that I have no idea about other pre-reqs or courses not offered by Guelph. Sorry.

 

 

Also, I didn't mean that it was necessarily harder to get good marks in biomed courses than other courses. My point was that the upper year classes are decently small, everyone knows each other and, due to the competitive admission to the major in the first place, your classmates aren't academic idiots - and the profs teaching these courses are well aware of this. Therefore, you can't 'coast' anonymously through upper year biomed courses and get a mid-70 like you can in the more generic science courses like biochem or orgo. If you want a high 80, it's there for the taking but you've got to work and you've got to prove to the prof that you deserve it. You've really got to work and you can't rely on the comparitive inadequacy of the 'typical' student to make you shine. (I know that this sounds harsh but it's true. Anyone working towards a goal like med school or grad school tends to try a bit harder than those who simply want a BSc before getting a job.)

 

I would totally agree that biomed helps you decide if med is for you by giving you a taste of what it is like to learn anatomy, physiology, epidemiology and histology all in the same semester. While some people have abandoned their meds dream due to marks (or been shut out of interviews because of a low GPA) an equal number of people have just changed their minds or found other interests. I am an example of this. When I came to Guelph I was convinced that I wanted to be a vet. Now, it is almost so far down my list it is in danger of falling off. I don't think I'd go even if I was offered a spot at OVC tomorrow.

 

One final tidbit I learned tonight at the career night. Luke, a biomed alumnus and 1st year at Western, says that while biomed won't help you get in, it definitely helps you once you're there because you have pretty much seen it all before.

 

Tal, don't worry about those first year marks, most schools don't weight them as heavily or ignore them totally!

 

Good luck to all! Maybe we Guelphites could get together for a coffee sometime.