Guest petergriffin Posted April 11, 2006 Report Share Posted April 11, 2006 Hi, I was really hoping someone could help me out a little.... My stats are: 10V 12B 12P OWS (34-0) GPA is around 3.9 sumthing. I am going to apply to schools in the US this june, but I need help in deciding which ones to apply to. My extracurriculars are nothing special; I have a LOT of clinical experience (lots of volunteering at a hospital, shadowing (a week in India shadowing as well), I did a co-op in high school at a hospital), but really not much else (which is why I suspect I got rejected from a few Ontario schools)!!Thankfully, I have received an NSERC for this summer, so that will make the lacking extracurriculars a little bit better. What I'm wondering, is should I even bother applying to a school like Northwestern, or Pritzker School of Medicine (@ U of Chicago), or say Columbia? Would I even be competitive at these crazy ass schools, or would this honestly just be a waste of my time and money? I realize that I could hopefully get admitted to SOME school in the states, but I was just wondering about the more competitive ones. Any input would be helpful, thanks a lot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bioboy2007 Posted April 14, 2006 Report Share Posted April 14, 2006 Your stats are great and that will be an important part of your medical school application. My advice would be to visit http://www.mdapplicants.com and check out some of the profiles for people with similar stats as you. Be warned that this is only a subsection of a given class, but many of the applicants are quite stellar. I wouldn't worry too much about EC's as long as you have a good rationale for being a doctor and have at least some clinical experience (which it seems that you do). Also, just from reading other people's profiles it seems that you can send in update letters to schools in the US. If you have a chance to really enhance your EC's during this year's application cycle, I guess you can send a letter to schools updating them on your new activities. btw, is there a particular reason why you are applying to US schools? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mg83 Posted April 15, 2006 Report Share Posted April 15, 2006 hey, I don't think Pritzer takes canadian applicants. you want to obviously apply to the private schools since the state ones 99.9% of the time favor in-state + US residents. Somewhere on one of the old threads in this forum is a post that lists all the schools that accept canadians so read thru all the pages and i'm sure you'll find the thread. As for competitivness...if you go to princetonreview.com you can enter in you stats and they'll show you the schools that you're competitive at and will give you that schools stats, # applicants, etc. Hope that helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petergriffin Posted April 16, 2006 Report Share Posted April 16, 2006 Hi guys, Thanks for the replies. My main concern is really my extracurriculars. I have gone to those websites you guys speak of, and the stats really vary. People with stats like mine get accepted and rejected to very competitive schools. So I'm assuming that it comes down the extracurriculars whether they get offered an interview or not (as well as I guess how good their secondarys are). I cant seem to find in depth information on their extracurriculars. I feel that with marks and MCATs that are simply average at these schools, I would have had to cure a disease to get in (but I could be wrong, that is what I am wondering). I guess what I was really hopin was maybe someone who goes go to say columbia etc. would be able to give me their honest opinion. I'm gonna buy MSAR by the AAMC when it comes out, but I have a feeling it's really not gonna answer my question either as it mainly focuses on stats. bioboy. im applying to the states because I got rejected from almost all the ontario schools that I applied to (am an ontario resident) and I feel like it will be even worse next year because of the double cohort. Out of province schools seem hopeless due to limited OOP seats. I am in third year, and I really want to get in after 4th year, because I am sure it is what I want to do, and I am really not interested in a masters. Schools in the states may be my only option. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mg83 Posted April 16, 2006 Report Share Posted April 16, 2006 Don't stress too much about EC's. They want to see that you're diverse and well rounded. You should get in with Med related experiences for sure and also other well known organizations. Try Big Brothers Big Sisters, soup kitchens, inner city programs...things like that. Sports are also cool to have as well as music. What you really up the ante for you is to do an international project in the summer. There are several through U of T that i know of or with an HIV organization in your community. Deepth can't really be fabricated....you have to be sincere about everything you do or you'll get blasted in interviews. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jaegwon Posted April 16, 2006 Report Share Posted April 16, 2006 Semi-relevant side point: mg83 - Priztker does actually take Canadians Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Madz25 Posted April 16, 2006 Report Share Posted April 16, 2006 Another thing to keep in mind is that US schools also take into consideration whether or not you have a family member who attended that school or is a faculty/staff member there. That can make a difference too in terms of the distribution in the grades. Spend time trying to improve your extracurriculars if you feel you are lacking in that area. I suggest you apply to a few (3 max depending on finances) of your 'dream' schools like harvard/yale/columbia etc and apply to a few schools where you are a shoe-in (where your GPA and MCAT are WAY above average - I suggest Rosalind Franklin). Another thing to keep in mind is that the AMCAS application is not like OMSAS. There are only 15 spaces for your extracurrics in the AMCAS application unlike the horrible 48 in the OMSAS application. Honestly, I didn't even fill in all 15 spaces because I wanted to limit my entries to the really meaningful ones and I've been accepted to 2 US schools. Apply EARLY - application comes out in May (1st or 15th? cant remember) and the Earliest you can submit is June 1st - again I stress EARLY!!!! ie. get it in on June 1st and finish the secondaries and get your references in ASAP (early-mid July at the latest). Hope this helps. Madz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ssc427 Posted April 16, 2006 Report Share Posted April 16, 2006 I guess what I was really hopin was maybe someone who goes go to say columbia etc. would be able to give me their honest opinion. I'm gonna buy MSAR by the AAMC when it comes out, but I have a feeling it's really not gonna answer my question either as it mainly focuses on stats. I have been accepted to Columbia (though I hope I don't need to go because I'd rather be in Canada). When I went to the interview my publications were brought up repeatedly. Columbia is a very reasearch driven school. While many do get in without publications if you have proven yourself in the lab they will like you. Columbia is an AWESOME school. The facilities are horrible but the training by virtue of their location is outstanding. The downside is that it costs 43K US / year. There is absolutely no way of me saying how you will do. I can guarantee that if you do not apply you will not get in. I would say that if you can't get into to UofT I can't imagine that you can use a place like Columbia as a backup (Columbia gets more applications and these are expected to go up significantly next year)- but who knows... I know of a guy who got rejected from every school in Canada but wound up getting a full scholarship to WashU (one of the top 5 schools in the US). I got rejected as an OOP pre-interview from Calgary and MAC but got interviews to WasU, Harvard and Stanford. So basically - apply and see what happens Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mg83 Posted April 16, 2006 Report Share Posted April 16, 2006 Oh, I didn't know that Pritzer did...thankx for the info. There's some thread hanging around out there that lists all the schools. Hope that helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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