Advice for Applying to Canadian Med Schools

Alright, here's my first post on pre-med/med advice! Please leave comments if you think the section is useful and I shall perhaps post more about this type of thing (ie. mcats, interviews, or more application stuff). If you have any questions leave your e-mail in the comments or even ask them in the comments and I shall do my best. The following post is about the written applications (the ones that you are submitting in the next few months online), not the interviews just yet.
Disclaimer: Don't take my advice as the be-it-end-all! It's how I did it, it worked for me, but it may not work for everyone! I am just trying to relate my experiences and am hoping they will help some of you out there! I'm not on the admissions committee, infact I haven't even started med yet, so my advice definitely isn't the one and only correct way to do things.

So about my application cycle: Applied to 8 Canadian Schools, interviewed at 3, accepted at 2 and waitlisted but eventually rejected at 1. Am a 3rd year applicant.

What I did right:

1) For the essays/ec sections. I sat down and listed out all the traits I think a good physician should have. I also identified the ones that I thought were harder to come by (ie. things that not every applicant would have). I then circled the ones that I thought I demonstrated through my extracurriculars and tried to write up my ECs such that they showed those traits (often I did more than one trait for each extra-curricular). If you guys want any more information on this or maybe examples or advice, please leave stuff in the comments as well as an e-mail so that I can pm you.

2) Apply to as many schools as you can. Med school is tough to get into in Canada, there are only about 1000 spots for a LOT of applicants. Maximize your chances and apply to as many as you can financially afford to. Don't be picky as to where you apply, because in the end, med school is med school in Canada. Every school is awesome and going to any Canadian med school, your going to get an MD and will have a great career. Only be picky when you have the chance: at the end if your accepted to more than one. But hey think about it, the only school you get into may be the one you had just applied to for the heck of it. Plus, some of the schools I applied to "just for the heck of it" turned out to really impress me when I went down to interview there (even more so than the ones I thought I would enjoy for sure).

3) Expanding on the last point, there are some really easy applications out there. If you can afford it, try your best to just throw in an application just incase you so happen to get an interview/admission there. For instance all Sask asked of me was a passport photo and my MCAT marks (and the typical questions like my name, address, phone number etc).

4) Spend lots of time on you essays/ec section. Half of what you write is what you actually did, the other half is how you write it. You can make something really mundane and typical sound amazing and as good as if you had gone and saved little children from fire-breathing dragons in Africa! Don't lie of course, but there's no point in downplaying your achievements either. Make them sound as good as they possibly can and don't be ashamed of doing it, everyone else is doing the same thing! If you feel awkward doing this, try what I did. I stepped back and pretended I wasn't [BlackComet] and that I was [BlackComet]'s friend writing about him and making him sound as good as I possibly could.

5) Get others to read over your essays/ec's. Don't take their advice as golden though. Preferably not other pre-meds, unless you can really trust them, incase they read over something you wrote and really like it and try using it in their application (even subconsciously). You don't want to get into plagiarism problems in your application!

6) Admissions people are really friendly if you call them and ask questions (politely of course)!

7) Don't be ashamed of asking your reference letter writers for letters even if it's more than one (to a reasonable extent). If you did a good job where you are asking for one, they won't mind! Plus most of the applications are similar and they can (for the most part aside from minor changes) copy and paste the letter for one school to another. Also, it also gives them a chance to do a rough draft for the first school due and then perhaps tweak it more and more to make it even better for later schools. I used the same references for all my schools personally (but remember OMSAS which were like 4 of mine were only one reference letter). So I only asked them to write about 3-4 (a reasonable amount imo). You may also want to bring up which is your top choice so that they can spend their time focusing on that one (don't be impolite by ordering them to focus on it, if you get the chance you may just want to mention that your top choice is the McMaster/OMSAS for instance).

What I didn't know, but wish I knew:

1) Med school IT systems suck! Don't wait till the last 5 minutes to submit your application, because chances are you are going to run into problems with the system crashing or it being so slow that you miss the deadline! It happened with a TON of applicants at a few universities last year (see pre-med101 rants). I had submitted an application at 10 pm (when it was due at midnight) and even then, I had to wait 5 mins for the page to load everytime I clicked something (literally). I'm not saying finish your application weeks in advance, just don't wait till the last 10-15 minutes to submit.

2) Start early!!! As in now!!! Don't wait till school starts and you have to balance midterms, extra-curriculars with applications. It'll make for one very sleepy, caffeine-high, peeved off pre-med!! Plus it will give you adequate time to find references and verifiers.

2) Med school application deadlines sometimes change. It won't be as bad as them changing the due date from say October 10 to August 22 (tomorrow) and notifying you on August 21st of the change, but keep aware of it and make sure you go back from time to time on the sites and keep track of the date.

3) Heard from friends: If you applied before, go into the admissions office, they often give you reviews of your past applications.

Questions/etc. Leave them in comment section with contact info (no phone numbers please, electronic contact only)

PS: Links to sites I found helpful note comments next to them though!

http://www.accepted.com/medical/sampleessays.aspx (more american essays but gives you a idea of how to write well!)

http://www.premed101.com/forums/index.php (o premed101 what would we do without you)

Shall post more if I remember more and if I find comments asking for more! Feel free to also request different advice columns in comments and I shall write on them in the future!

*shooting off in the night sky

-Black Comet