Hi Everyone!

My name's Mitchell and I'm in my final year of medschool at McMaster. I've been a member of this forum since it's inception and have been providing advice about applying to medschool for a number of years. I am more than happy to answer any questions you have so don't be afraid to post or PM I have posted the links to my 2 previous threads about medschool to answer your general questions:

MEDICAL SCHOOL ADVICE #1
MEDICAL SCHOOL ADVICE #2

On a totally different note, I have just recently gotten engaged (yay!) and I need everyone and anyone's help! I'm entered in a contest to win free wedding photography and it ends this Wednesday. We are so close! If everyone could go and like the post and page I provided below, I have no doubt that we can all beat them! I'd appreciate any and all likes, takes 2 seconds and you can unlike everything come Friday!

Here's the post to like
Here's the page to like

Thanks so much! I really appreciate it, and don't hesitate to ask questions!

Mitch

Hi guys!

Feel free to PM me, but other people may have the same questions so it may benefit others to post here.

The first question I got was in regard to applying to international medical schools and the difficulty of coming back to Canada. Here is my response:

This is a good question. I actually applied to Ireland schools and got accepted there. I know that it is much harder to get into UK schools than Ireland schools, so I didn't bother with them. As for returning to Canada, it is fairly difficult. Let me share with you some stats. In 2011, out of 2576 Canadian applicants, 2507 got accepted into Canadian residencies in first round. On the flipside, out of 1920 international medical graduates that year, only 380 got accepted. So you can see there's way more applicants from international schools than there are spots in Canadian residencies. That's not to say it's not possible, but it's difficult and you'd have to be very competitive to get in, or try for several years.

However, it is much easier for IMGs to get into American residencies. Canada just doesn't have as many spots. So if you don't care about working in the US, it's not that big of an issue. Also, you could always work in the US and try to get back to Canada afterwards.

F/U answers: I applied to Royal College in Ireland. I'm not sure if you can apply after 2nd year but I don't think so; check their websites. I heard they're top notch in terms of quality. The Caribbean schools are also of high quality, but there are some in the Caribbean that are not. Only SGU, Ross, and Saba I believe are good ones.

Hope that helps!

Don't forget to like this post HERE and this page HERE for my wedding contest!

Mitch

How did you prepare for the VR portion of the MCAT and what is your opinion on the MCAT changes next year?

Congrats on the engagement!

Hi It93!

MCAT verbal is a tough beast. It's hard to say if there's one specific strategy that is best. I would say that keep reading intellectual magazines and articles to practice reading and comprehending faster. That's pretty much all you can do. A lot of times it's random luck of the draw if you get easy or hard passages. I remember one of mine being about old medieval clothing and I couldn't understand half of the words

As for the new changes, I really can't give an honest opinion until I hear back from students how they found it. I agree that it's important to know about socio-cultural and behavioural determinants of health, as they come up in medical school and real life so often. However, I don't know how this will correlate to a multiple choice test. What are your concerns about these changes?

Hope that helps! Don't forget to like this post HERE and this page HERE for my wedding contest! I will be saying this after every post so I apologize to everyone if it's repetitive, but it's so important to us.

Hey Mitchell, I was wondering if you knew anything about postbacc masters programs targetted towards people who want to boost their grades for med school. They seem to have a high success rate, but do you know anything about how they work for Canadians, by any chance?

Hi Guptas46!

This is a question I hear all the time. Usually it's when students don't have a high enough GPA, and they're deciding between applying internationally, taking a year off for work/experience or doing a masters.

Here's the short answer about the masters program: I wouldn't suggest doing it just to boost your grades. The long answer is more complicated. Masters programs are a 2 year commitment. They are not easy to do, and you really need to have passion for what you're doing. Agreed, they do provide an increased benefit for applying to medical school afterwards, but only after you've completed the whole thing, not just 1 year. If you really want to do a masters and couldn't get into medical school after 4th year, then maybe it's a good fit for you as you can complete your Masters and then have a little advantage after for applying to medical school. On the flipside, if you don't really want to do a Masters, and it would just be for increasing your chances, there are better options out there. You could take a year off for experience if that's what your lacking. Maybe throw in some courses at the same time to improve your grades. It all depends on what areas you think you need to improve for your application, and what you are passionate in.

I hope that helps. Ask any other questions if you'd like. Again, please help us in our wedding contest in the meantime! Like this post and this page please!

Mitch

Hey Mitch, I was wondering how competitive med school admission is to physio, optometry, dentistry and pharmacy? I know pharmacy is the easiest to get into (relatively) but how woulf you rate the other programs??
Thanks!!!

ps-congrats on the engagement!!!

I don't have concerns about the changes I was just wondering if you thought it was the right thing to do to take out the writing section. To be honest I'm kind of relieved the writing section is being taken out. I just finished second year but decided it wouldn't be a good time for me to write the MCAT this summer and I'm glad I'm not because it would suck having to study for the writing section for this year when it's being taken out next year! I'm planning on taking the MCAT next summer.

I was looking to taking an English class this year, I think I read on one of your previous threads that you took English during the summer at York? What English did you take? And do you know anything about the English classes at Mac? I was looking more at the first year classes, 1A03, 1AA3, 1CS3.

Hi DrPatel!

It's really difficult to compare entry into different professional programs, especially since I only applied to medschool and physio. They're all different including their admission tests and prerequisites. I would say medschool has the most difficult test (MCAT) and is relatively more difficult to get accepted into just because there's so many more applicants than there are spots. For physio, I didn't need to write an exam, and the gpa required was lower so it wasn't as hard to get an interview. However, come interview time, you still need to be on your toes just like every other program. I've seen students with the highest marks and EC's not get accepted to "easier" programs because of interviews. So in summary, it's really subjective. I would say medschools the most difficult out of those, but it would be really hard to rank them.

It93,

Oh right! I forgot about that! The writing section was my WORST part on my MCAT. It was the bain that was keeping me from getting more interviews because I made a stupid mistake. So I'm sure lots of other students like yourself are happy it's gone. Yet, I'm sure lots of students are not happy because it gave an opportunity to express yourself in writing rather than multiple choice answers. As for English, I took the first year, full year Fall-Spring course at York. I don't remember the code or name, but I could look it up for you. I believe there was only 1. I took it at the Glendale campus. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about English courses at Mac as I never took any. When I did take it at York, it was time consuming but very straight forward and I would recommend it to anyone wanting just a simple English credit.

Vote for my wedding contest please! Like this post and this page

Originally Posted by mitch

Hi Guptas46!

This is a question I hear all the time. Usually it's when students don't have a high enough GPA, and they're deciding between applying internationally, taking a year off for work/experience or doing a masters.

Here's the short answer about the masters program: I wouldn't suggest doing it just to boost your grades. The long answer is more complicated. Masters programs are a 2 year commitment. They are not easy to do, and you really need to have passion for what you're doing. Agreed, they do provide an increased benefit for applying to medical school afterwards, but only after you've completed the whole thing, not just 1 year. If you really want to do a masters and couldn't get into medical school after 4th year, then maybe it's a good fit for you as you can complete your Masters and then have a little advantage after for applying to medical school. On the flipside, if you don't really want to do a Masters, and it would just be for increasing your chances, there are better options out there. You could take a year off for experience if that's what your lacking. Maybe throw in some courses at the same time to improve your grades. It all depends on what areas you think you need to improve for your application, and what you are passionate in.

I hope that helps. Ask any other questions if you'd like. Again, please help us in our wedding contest in the meantime! Like this post and this page please!

Mitch

huge help, thanks, but I am asking with respect to GPA boosting; and I was referring more to the 11 month programs outlined by the AAMC (at various american universities). Do you think something like that would be a better or worse option than taking an extra (full course load) year of undergrad? (sheerly for the GPA issue).

Well I'll be honest, I don't know much about these 11 month programs. Are they offered in Canada or only in the States? You should make sure if Canadian Medschools accept them as accredited Masters Degrees so they will benefit your application. Also, many medschools calculate Grad GPA separate from undergrad gpa. Some schools take both gpas into consideration, some only take your undergrad gpa, some only take your grad gpa. So it really depends what you want to improve and which school you apply to. If you think you would benefit more from improving your current gpa, taking more lenient undergrad courses may work better for you. I'd be concerned that these programs either wouldn't count towards boosting your current gpa, or that they wouldn't be counted as a Masters. Best thing would be to look into this on the medschool websites and calling them.

how important do you think it is to volunteer during the school year? Because i would rather volunteer during the 4 months that we get off, rather than volunteer during the school year and have grades drop.

also, congrats on the engagement!

Originally Posted by KS17

how important do you think it is to volunteer during the school year? Because i would rather volunteer during the 4 months that we get off, rather than volunteer during the school year and have grades drop.

also, congrats on the engagement!

Ahh I'm not Mitch so you may want to wait for him to respond.

For what it's worth, I didn't volunteer during my first year. However, I volunteered in the first year summer, in second year, and I did a lot in third year (multiple clubs, volunteering positions, part time work, research stuff, etc).

I would say you want to do a fair bit in the summer but you also want to do at least something during the school year. You won't always be able to squeeze in good quality (and quantity) of EC's within just a four month summer. And you want to show that you can maintain good grades while volunteering/working simultaneously.

I agree with Alchemist. It's all up to you and what you think you need to add to improve your application. I never did volunteering during the school year for the same concerns you had and I don't regret that decision. I focused on school and did as much as I could over the summer. It's all subjective.

my first and second year gpa isn't so stellar, but my third year is.
because if i apply this year, they look at my second and third year marks.. do you think that i should do a fifth year so that they look at my third and fourth year marks? do med schools look down on 5th students?


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