How hard would you guys say it is to maintain an 11+ average in the life science. I am a med school hopeful so I know I'm going to need to work super hard, but still.

Depends on what you take first year, but it is very possible and many, many first year life scis get 11+.

Originally Posted by Silver

Depends on what you take first year, but it is very possible and many, many first year life scis get 11+.

Also depends on how fast you can adapt. I use a different learning styles for different types of courses and it usually takes me some time to figure out how I learn best in certain types of classes.

It also depends on your strengths and weaknesses both in subject matter and personal character.

A lot of the science courses cover grade 12 high school concepts again, but just with *slightly* more depth. If you did well in grade 12, first year shouldn't present too much of an issue. It'll all come down to developing certain habits, for example: In high school I could just study the day before the test and do reasonably well, that was no longer the case in first year. You'll have to start studying way in advance and often make a study schedule to accommodate your multiple courses. You'll also have to figure out what does and doesn't work for you. For another example: I personally found myself unable to pay attention in 8:30am classes, so I try to avoid those now. I have some friends that are "morning people" and work in opposite ways.

The short summary version: the content should not be too surprising or too difficult (for the most part, it varies person to person), but the change of scenery can really throw you off. A lot of med schools weigh first year less because of this.

Depends on who you are.
Speaking from personal experience, you don't even need to work hard at it.

It is not very difficult to get a 11 average in life sciences. The key to getting a high average for first year is to adapt to university and to develop your time management skills. You're going to be bombarded by several club activities during club fest, as well as meeting new people and making new friends. To be honest, I even slacked off the first 3 months of University =P but try to avoid that. Most of the course content for first year life sciences; with the exception of psych (unless you took it in highschool) is mostly review and you'll only need to review a bit to refresh your mind a bit. The typical life sci schedule is 2 bios, 2 psychs, 2 chem, a math, and either the easy/hard physics and 2 electives (most first years take kin) so you can ask people who are in the same program as you if you find yourself struggling. Hope that helped =P

It is easily managable if you have a good study habit and know how to study smart. For courses like chem, you need to know that you don't have to study everything in the textbook (like I did) but for courses like bio 1m03, you need to know everything from the slides and textbook and you need to learn from other people or personal experience. For psych, make sure you do the quizzes with friends and try to see as many questions as possible. For physics, attend the class, do CAPA and most importantly, try to understand everything.

yaaay more med school hopefuls

Originally Posted by TheBrickWall

yaaay more med school hopefuls

I'll never forget the first day of classes, prof asked who's aiming for med school and almost no hands stayed un-raised

I know the ratio of people who apply to people who actually make it is almost like 20:1, but then again, you can't really achieve something if you don't aim for it But thanks for all the replies guys, that really calms me down a little bit Soo excited for September !

^20:1? I swear I thought it was closer to something like 7:1 in Canada.

Originally Posted by Silver

^20:1? I swear I thought it was closer to something like 7:1 in Canada.

Depends on how you do the math.

For a particular school, such as Mac, it's about 4200 applicants for 200 spots: 21:1.

For a school like Queen's, it's like 4000ish applicants? for 100 spots: closer to 40:1.

However since the pool of applicants overlaps, the total chance of an applicant getting into a med school is much higher than 40:1 or 20:1.

I'm not sure what exactly it would be - 7:1 sounds possible but I would think fewer get in than that.

18% in ontario; 5% mcmaster (2011 stats)

http://www.ouac.on.ca/statistics/med_app_stats/

The statistics of who gets in are probably a LOT higher once you consider the people who go to international schools...

You can be a B student and get into medical school overseas. It's really not that competitive.