5Th Year Or Masters?

[thehead321]

1st yr: 3.86

2nd year: 3.94

3rd year: 3.68

4th year: not done yet

 

cGPA for the 3 years: 3.83 (mcmaster and queens)

Best 2 years: 3.9 (western)

UofT wGPA: 3.94 (after dropping 6 half courses)

Ottawa gpa: 3.8 (therefore not applying)

 

ECs/ABS: just ~50 hours of volunteering in my entire undergrad... (...so close to nothing)

LoRs: letters will be written by internationally recognized profs but they don't know me on a personal level (one prof is letting me write the letter myself lol)

 

My questions:

1) If I don't get in anywhere this year [applying to mac, queens, western, and UofT], would the masters degree (course-based, 2 years) or the 5th year be more beneficial? I was thinking doing the masters and fixing my ECs would be better than worrying about gpa at this point, since a few bad courses in 5th year could end up like my 3rd year so there's no real guarantee it will even help my gpa?

2) Does mac and western look at your ABS? I pretty much have no significant EC's so I'm just hoping mac and western don't even look at the ABS? I know western for sure doesn't care, how bout mcmaster?

3) I called schulich admissions the other day and apparently they don't require an honors degree anymore; does this mean no medical schools in ontario require an honors degree? I might just switch to doing a single major for a 4-year bachelors *non-honors* degree so I can get all 4.0s in 4th year... or am I missing something here...? 

[Bambi]

I'd go for Masters and work on my ECs.Honours is not required, go for GPA.

[PurpleS]

What's your MCAT score? It's hard to say for Mac, Western, or Queen's without it.

[robclem21]

Mac won't look at your ABS but Queens and UofT sure will. I think you would be hard pressed to land an interview there without any sort of significant long term volunteering, employment, or research.

 

A masters will likely help you more for both those schools given you can find time to really stack up some significant ECs during those years and keep your marks up (why course based over thesis based?) Given weak ECs I would think thesis based would help more...

 

To echo above, tough to give accurate response with no MCAT score as the two schools you have a chance at depend highly on that.

[thehead321]

I'd go for Masters and work on my ECs.Honours is not required, go for GPA.

Isn't honors bachelor required for some grad programs though (maybe ivy leagues in the states, or even mediocre programs in ontario?) I'm strongly considering the non-honors but don't want to close any doors

 

I will most likely do a research based masters if 4th year is 3.9+. No school cares if your masters degree is completely unrelated to medicine/science, right?

What's your MCAT score? It's hard to say for Mac, Western, or Queen's without it.

 

writing it in august