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Perspective on Applying to Medical School as a Third Year Applicant

Credit Flickr: TzofiaIntroduction: this post was co-written with one of my long time readers, Spencer, who recently applied to medical school as a third year applicant. He is applying again this year as a fourth year applicant. I have added in some of my own commentary to his hope, and I hope you find this perspective useful.
 

Spencer: I am currently finishing my BSc. at an Ontario university. The schools I applied to last year were McMaster, University of Toronto, Queens, and uOttawa (english). I was fortunate enough to receive interview invites for U of T and uOttawa. When I applied last year, my OMSAS GPA was 3.96 and my MCAT score was 33 (PS:11 VR:10 BS: 12).

Are third year applicants disadvantaged when applying to med school?

The short answer is maybe. I say this because there are implicit disadvantages that come with being younger and less experienced. However, most schools do not have official restrictions on undergraduate applicants. In Canada, there are medical schools that will accept applicants after having completed two or three years of post secondary education. There are only a few schools - Western University, MUN (Memorial), Dalhousie, Manitoba, Montreal, McGill, NOSM - that absolutely require a four-year bachelor degree.

Medaholic: The majority of accepted medical school applicants will have completed a bachelor degree. Certainly, getting in to medical school before finishing a degree is no easy task and you will be in the minority.

How applying earlier affects your GPA

The way your GPA is calculated as a third year applicants can leave you at a disadvantage. For example, at the University of Toronto, third year applicants do not qualify for a bonus weighting formula that eliminates your lowest marks.

Similarly, Queens‘ GPA grading system considers the two most recent years in their calculation, which can help applicants who did not do as well during their freshman and sophomore year. These special GPA calculations can make the difference in admissions, especially if an applicant only has a few bad grades that are dragging down their GPA. I have a friend who applied this year without success because of a C in first year calculus that moved his GPA below whats needed for an interview. However, now as a fourth year undergraduate, he will be a competitive applicant for the schools with the adjusted grade weightings.

Medaholic: Most schools will preferentially - through bonus grading mechanisms - give better GPAs to applicants with degrees.

Lack of extracurricular activities

I think another big disadvantages of being a third year applicant are fewer life experiences in general. This manifests itself in a number of ways throughout the admissions process.

First, it is challenging to have meaningful activities with longevity and impact in the first few years of post secondary when compared to graduate students and older applicants. As a result, your autobiographical sketch may not be as impressive as other applicants competing for the same spots. In addition, writing the personal essay prompts may be easier when you have more activities to draw examples from.

There are some schools that do take measures to level the playing field. For example, the University of Ottawa only uses the top three entries in each of the ABS categories that were completed during your undergraduate tenure and McMaster does not include the ABS in their official pre or post interview score.

Interview Process

Similarly, in medical school interviews, you may be asked about any area of your application such as leadership, teamwork, volunteering, etc. During some of my interviews, I was asked to give examples of times that I displayed certain traits. In my case, there were occasions where I had to examples from high school. This is often fine for most situations - a lot of applicants accomplished interesting things before university. However, I cannot help but think that an interviewer may often interpret a high school experience inferior to one in a more professional setting, eg. leadership for high school hockey vs. leadership in a laboratory or hospital setting.

It is worth mentioning that some third year applicants do manage to build a comparable résumé to those older applicants. Personally, I know of people who were able to fill every entry in the autobiographical sketch by the time they applied in third year but that is the exception, and it can be challenging to do so.

Medaholic: Having been on the admissions committee before, I find the interviews are quite fair for third year applicants. Interviews help assess maturity and composure, and although they are often correlated with age, I have found that often not the case. I have interviewed grad students who were definitely not ready for medical school, and I’ve interviewed a few young applicants who would make a great fit.

How should I prepare to apply during third year?

A friend of mine, who was accepted to four Ontario medical schools after third year, made a post on premed101 that explores this in great depth:

It is important to take advantage of any opportunities in extracurriculars activities, volunteering, and research early on. However, third year applicants have a very small pool of grades that make up their GPA. Medaholic has talked about this in previous posts- grades are what gets your foot in the door. Take the time to ensure that your grades will not suffer because it can ruin your chances in a lot of circumstances . You need to find your balance between school and extracurriculars.

Medaholic: One consistent trend among successful second and third year applicants, is they have perfect or near-perfect GPAs. They maximize their grades and MCAT to make up for deficiencies in their extracurriculars. This will usually help them get to their interview stage, where their performance on it will be the key determining factor.

Should I apply in my third year?

If you have a chance of being competitive at any school and can afford it financially, I strongly advise applying. Each school has different requirements, exceptions, and cut-offs so it is tough to give the exact stats that one should possess to consider applying. It is difficult to get an acceptance, regardless of age/experience/GPA/MCAT, because there are so many components to the admissions process. You have to be able to put yourself out there and give the admissions process a try.

Medaholic: If you think there’s a remote possibility that you could get accepted, I say go for it. If you have top grades and a strong MCAT, you should definitely go through the experience. Best case scenario is you get accepted, worse case scenario is that you’ll have gone through the process once and be more prepared for it the second time. If your chances are slim, ie you have a 3.0 GPA and a 27 MCAT, I would suggest saving your money and only applying if you have a real shot.

Lessons Learned

Applying this year, I feel much more comfortable and confident with the process. I knew to start my personal essays earlier, I tackled my CASPer preparation in a different way, and I made minor adjustments by troubleshooting the previous cycle. Working with a system like OMSAS is much easier the second time around. I now feel like I am a professional at shortening a description of an extensive activity to a mere 150 characters.Having done medical school interviews now, I feel like I have a better idea of what to expect this time around. Overall, it was a valuable experience.

This all only applies if you are 100% sure that medicine is the field for you. If you have any reservation about pursuing medical school, I suggest taking at least the extra year to reflect and explore all of your options. It is a stressful and expensive process and I advise putting a lot of thought into whether or not medicine is what you actually want before you go through the admissions cycle. An extra year of undergraduate studies can give you time to shadow a physician or explore other options.

Do Third Years Ever Get Accepted?

There are not many published statistics from Canadian medical schools about the number of third years accepted each year but many do receive offers. I did not end up being accepted but numerous people with similar backgrounds and grades were successful applicants. It might be an uphill battle as a third year but it is by no means impossible.

Things could have easily gone a different way for me. Since I was waitlisted at U of T and “good” waitlisted at U of O, it felt like I had just missed the cut. This was a tough to swallow since I felt that I had invested all my faculties to gain an acceptance, yet I was not successful. However, the benefit of being a third year applicant is that if things do not work out, nothing changes. You go back to school and you can apply again immediately. The next cycle, you will have a better application and greater experience under your belt. I have thoroughly enjoyed my fourth year so far and I feel that my current studies, research, volunteering, and extracurriculars will serve me well in my future career.

Medaholic: I probably have a better knowledge about accepted third year applicants having gone through medical school and residency and being involved in admissions. Second and third years get accepted all the time. I would say at the schools where they can be accepted, they make up about 10-15% of the class. The ones who do get admission tend to be strong applicants who would have gained acceptance in their fourth year regardless. They are often quite driven and have had a plan from day one of university. For example, looking at the University of Alberta entering statistics,  2/3 year applicants had on average a 3.96 GPA, ~35 MCAT vs 4 year applicants who had 3.9 GPA, 33 MCAT.

Medaholic’s Final Take

I can relate to Spencer’s post. I applied and was accepted into medical school as an early applicant. A lot of times, my undergrad schedule was not in alignment with other pre-meds. I took a lot of prerequisite courses such as stats and organic chemistry a year earlier and I wrote my MCAT the summer after my first year.

I found when I applied, I also lacked in volunteer and extracurricular experiences. I think I was able to beat the odds and be interviewed because of a strong GPA and MCAT and a solid interview. There was probably also a lot luck. I also wasn’t accepted to medical school the first time I applied. I had experiences applying to combined B.Sc/MD programs during highschool. Although I was rejected from those programs, I think the application process was valuable to positioning myself for future success.

Overall, if you know for sure that you want to do medicine, and can financially and realistically apply earlier, it’s worth a shot. It’s a bonus if you do get in, and you may save yourself some time and money since medical education is so long already. I’m in my seventh year of “medical training” and there’s at least two more years to go before I can practice independently. I can confidently say I didn’t regret applying earlier. I certainly don’t think I missed out on anything in undergrad.

Please post questions for Spencer of myself in the comments below. We will try to answer them to the best of our knowledge.

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12 Comments

  1. Kay November 2, 2023

    It is worth mentioning that MUN has a rarely used, but still very much valid, possible exception to their degree requirement. If an applicant has “work or other life experience acceptable to the admissions committee” they can be granted early acceptance. It is very uncommon for this exception to be granted, but I applied under it this year (3rd year mature applicant, 3.98 GPA, 11/13/10 MCAT) and have been fortunate enough to be granted an interview.

    I think it is very important to consider applying during third year for non-traditional applicants as many of us have to very seriously consider the length of time we spend in school. I expect that over the coming years, we’ll see even more second career applicants or just later applicants (like myself) which means the proportion of early entrances may increase. Mature applicants, largely, don’t face the extracurricular or age related limitations that traditional third year applicants do.

    • medaholic
      medaholic November 3, 2023

      Very good point Kay. The other good point is that mature applicants often already have a degree in hand, and a the main things is usually just completing the prerequisites. I have friends who have had second careers, but were able to truncate their premed period to a time of one to two years to complete those courses.

  2. Sakshi November 12, 2023

    Hi I am a grade 11 student interested in studying Medicine. I was wondering if there is an option of applying to Medical School after 3’rd year, however waiting till the degree is finished to start Med School?

    • medaholic
      medaholic November 13, 2023

      Some schools may let you defer a year, but that is more the exception. Most schools would rather give the spot to someone who would matriculate in that admission cycle. Not sure why you would want to finish the degree before starting medical school. If the degree is that important, it would be better to apply in your fourth year.

      • Spencer V November 15, 2023

        At both the interview days that I attended, the schools clearly stated that they would not defer for 3rd year undergraduates to finish their degree. It isn’t very clear to me whether the stick to this if an accepted third year does end up requesting a deferral but they definitely try to discourage it.

        However, it is also important to note that most undergraduate science degrees have an option of switching into a 3 year general science degree. This allowed a lot of third years who were accepted to still receive a bachelors degree

  3. Anonymous
    Anonymous May 15, 2023

    I got wait listed for a Canadian medical school this year, and I am a third-year applicant. I’m disappointed, but is there still a chance?

    • medaholic
      medaholic May 22, 2023

      Don’t be disappointed. Life has set backs, but don’t give up. The majority of medical school applicants get in during or after fourth year.

  4. Sam July 29, 2023

    Hi!
    I was wondering how do residency program directors look at students without a bachelors? Technically if you go to medical school after 3rd year you aren’t awarded a bachelors degree? I’ve been accepted early to a few schools abroad and I’m not finished with my bachelors yet, (just finished 2nd year) I want to study medicine but I’m nervous about the prospect of how not finishing my degree will affect me in the future. Would love to hear your prospective!

    • medaholic
      medaholic September 1, 2023

      Nobody really cares about your bachelor degree after you get your MD.

  5. Amna Majeed December 16, 2023

    When you say really good grades, around what GPA are you saying? You did mention the stats about U of Alberta admissions, but for example, as a second year going into third year, I have around a 3.92 GPA. Is that not competitive enough?

    • medaholic
      medaholic December 20, 2023

      From a GPA perspective, that is very good. But if you look at applicants who get accepted out of the 2/3 year pool, they usually have 3.95+, >95 percentile on the MCAT, as well as a list of extracurriculars and good interviews. So it is competitive and if they don’t get in early, they certainly will get into a Canadian medical school the next year.

  6. Leah
    Leah July 3, 2023

    What if a student’s first year GPA is 3.8 and have 3.92 In second year but unfortunately have a fail in first year in one course due to unforeseen reason. Should that student even attempt to apply in third year. Plan on taking MCAT soon. Have extracurricular activities. When you applying in third year Do medical schools consider second and third year GPA or look at first year?

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