Weight of References

[somebowdy]

Hi all,

I was just wondering how Toronto weighs the LOR's compared to the brief personal essays, ABS, and GPA. I am asking because I was hoping to apply to UofT as a 3rd year applicant this year, and while I do have significant, meaningful EC's and experiences, most of them have been school-related in positions where there were no supervisors. Therefore I am left with only 1 referee who I think would write a great LOR and have to find 2 others. As I posted in the general OMSAS forum, I'm thinking of asking my PI but she hasn't really supervised me enough to speak to my abilities and what I can bring as an applicant. My 3rd reference would likely be a meaningful one from a volunteer supervisor but I only have ~30 hours in that position.

All in all, for anyone who has had success with UofT, would it be worth it to start working on the essays and ABS given the situation that I am currently in? Can these two + great GPA make up for decent LOR's (assuming I meet the MCAT cutoffs)?

[robclem21]

It is always worth it to start working on essays and to apply because honestly, you just never know. Many of us have stated on here multiple times that the application process itself is worth the practice whether you get in or not, because it can take a year or two to really master writing out your sketch, and perfecting descriptions that adequately portray you as a candidate. Whether or not certain elements of your application will make up for others are tough to say, but if you don't apply your chances are exactly 0%.

That being said, to answer your original question, LORs at UofT have historically been weighted quite heavily and are taken into consideration separately from other parts of the application (i.e. the same person will not see both LOR and sketch)