Which is your top Ontario med school choice?

[Ian Wong]

If you were accepted to all five Ontario med schools, which school would you attend? (Based on all factors: city, tuition, curriculum, etc)

[UWOMED2005]

It's probably not appropriate for us moderators to vote, eh? Just kidding of course! :)

[aneliz]

If you did vote, would any of you (moderators) vote for anything other than your own school??? :p

[aa]

uwo

[Jase133]

I'd go to Mac simply because of the economics of it. It's a three-year program and I can save a lot more than if I were to enroll in a four-year program (tuition + living expenses). I don't particularly care much for the program, but I think that an MD anywhere in Canada is generally okay.

Of course, in reality I did not get an interview there, so... :)

[UWOMED2005]

Interesting point. I never used to consider $$ when applying to Canadian Universities (at least for UG) as I figured they were all approximately similar in $tuition$, at least close enough that other unknown factors (ie rent in that particular city, student fees, etc.) With the deregulation of tuition in Ontario, though, there really is a huge difference in how much med students are paying. . . and that one less year of tuition payments could make a substantial difference!

[cheech10]

I think I liked each school for different reasons.

Mac had a great program, and PBL helps you learn why and how you are learning rather than memorizing. Exceleent for teaching lifelong learning skills.

UofT has the research opportunities, and the location for me. Big factors.

Queen's looked great for teaching clinical skills, and the small class size was a great plus.

UWO had great students, a great lounge, and seemed like a cool place to go.

Can't comment on Ottawa as they rejected my sorry @$$. Oh well.

[macmed04]

Well, speaking from experience, I picked Mac over UofT, Queen's, UWO, and Calgary. UofO left me hanging on the waitlist, but I'd decided against them too.
I'm still not sure why I got so many offers, but it was almost too much choice when it came down to it - I had a really hard time making my mind up.

UofT: basically too expensive, huge class, too much didactic learning, city maybe a little too big
UWO: way too structured (8am-4pm pretty much every day), although I thought the program sounded really good - it would have been my 3rd choice after Calgary, I think
Queen's: too small, went there for undergrad, way too long till clerkship
Calgary: nice and cheap, but too far from home, too many exams, and not enough PBL for me. Also not much elective time before clerkship
Ottawa: a bit too didactic, a bit too far away from home...
Mac: closer to home, only 3 years, cheaper, lots of PBL and not too much structure, tons of time for electives, city's really not that bad, and I really wanted to gain confidence in learning on my own before heading off to residency!

That was my take on it, and I don't regret my choice at all!

[JUSTAGUY]

I personally want to go to Western over any other school, but is anyone else surprised that more people seem to be choosing Western than Toronto? I would have expected Toronto to have the clear lead. Just babbling.

[Jennifer Y]

Initially I also thought that UT would be favoured over UWO. But after reading the postings on the UT board, perhaps people were put off or intimidated by the preceived reputation of the students there. UWO seems to lack the ranting, raving and raging of UT :)

[BC guy]

Would you mind sharing what is your take on why you awere so successful in so many med school applications?
Was it degrees, extracurrri, age or ?? What approach did you take re your essays? Thx.

[JD]

I didn't get a chance to spend much time with the U of T med students, but the ones I met seemed pretty nice. I got to know the students at UWO a bit more since they had a whole weekend of events organized for us, and they appear to be cool / laid-back for the most part. It'd definitely be awesome if I actually had the chance to choose between these two schools.

[James Wong]

Where did that huge surge of people come from in terms of voting for preferred med school? Yesterday only 72 had voted after over a period of a month, but within 24 hrs 18 people voted....do you think that somebody came in as a GUEST and skewed the results?

[PeterHill0501]

I don't think they could unless they logged in 18 times...is this right moderators?

Actually, the result isn't that surprising...we're almost seeing a random/square distribution...I'd love to see a crosstabulation as a function of what geographic area the applicants are from...

Peter

[UWOMED2005]

I don't know. . . Ian would know way more about that. But I think it's definitely possible. . . of course the same explanation could be provided for why UWO had such a surge a couple of weeks ago. We've already seen a couple people try to make bogus posts to dissuade people from certain schools (to shorten the waitlist, perhaps?) so anything's possible.

A poll like this is entertaining but really nothing more. I seriously hope noone is going to base any decisions on who comes out first!

[JJpremedrookie]

Hi,
this is the first time I have written to this forum. I have been reading random topics and topics which I feel I should know about. I am very green the med. School application and going-about-it procedure.
Right now I am doing my undergrad in Comp Sc and I have previously done about 2 years of engg., but from an overseas university and couple of credits got bummed out while transferring. Anywaz is there a check list of the bunch of things I should do or should be aware of before I start the winding road up to MD-dom ? any advice, pointers.. websites anything would be helpful.
Till later
JJ

[Ian Wong]

Hi JJ,

Wlecome to the forums. I'm keeping this thread at the top of the forum only so that people will answer the poll, rather than start up new topics from within it. I'd suggest copying and pasting your questions into a new message, and then posting the new message in the General Premed forum.

I think that if you read through lots of the old messages, and perhaps visit my premed website at: premed101.com (http://premed101.com) and the websites that it links to, you'll begin to pick up the timeline of stuff you need to do.

Ian
UBC, Med 3

[JSS02]

Go Western!!! :)

[Da Birdie]

GO QUEEN'S! :D

(western's not bad too :p )

[arcticaguy]

Go Dal ! I know, it's not in Ontario-but I just couldn't resist :D

[tuti]

This will be ine more vote for Ottawa!

[V]

Go ottawa!!!!!!!

[James Wong]

WHOOOAAA!!! OTTAWA!!!!

[bad hombre]

it was just brought to my attention that Ottawa has the highest national scores on some standardized test. wow

[cheech10]

Wow, a lot more interest in UofT this year (on this board anyways).

[Ian Wong]

I've started another poll for 2003, so I'm going to close this thread down. The new poll should be at the top of the OMSAS forum.

Ian
UBC, Med 4