Choosing the right Medical School for you – Transcript

[00:03] Intro: Hello, welcome to the Prep Me podcast. My name is Torah [name]. We are going to talk about specifically Canadian medical schools on this podcast. And joining me today is my trustee co-anchor, co-host Chansey Veinotte. Hi, how are you doing?

[00:18] Chansey: I’m doing well. Got you again, Veinotte. It’s going to be a running joke.

[00:26] Torah: How long have we known each other? And I still can’t pronounce your last name because you’re just Chansey.

[00:29] Chansey: Is it works on me though of not being the person who comes up and says actually it’s this, kind of like if I was in a med school interview now and the panelist said my last name Veinotte, Veinotte. I’d probably be like, you’re right. You’re the boss. Just give me a seat, please. Call me whatever you want.

[00:43] Torah: Well, you know what? I think you and I have this same idea that our names are so unique. Our first names, that the last names I really never need. I’m just Torah. Like I don’t need a last name. Do I? How many Torah’s do you know? You’re the only Chansey. Have you ever met another Chansey?

[00:57] Chansey: Not a single one in my life. Maybe a couple Chancey’s, but not a Chansey.

[01:00] Torah: Oh yeah. Like Chancer, to be super pretentious. Alright, so what are we talking about today on the podcast? We are talking about choosing the right medical school. And so the prep me podcast is in fact the only tailored podcast for pre-med students, for Canadian medical schools. And so one of the things we wanted to talk about today is what school should you choose? And it seems weird I think Chancey to talk about this because don’t so many pre-med students just go whatever school takes me.

[01:32] Chansey: A hundred percent because when you’re that lost and it’s your first application cycle, you’re just saying I’ll put all the eggs in all the baskets and hopefully one of them sets. But in reality you kind of want to be choosy too, because you’re ultimately going to spend four years of your life at that institution. Maybe longer if you stay for residency. You should have some say in where you go and what’s the best fit for you. But it’s easy to let that go to the wayside when all you’re thinking about is I just want to get in.

[01:58] Torah: How much do the medical schools differ? If we talk about, let’s talk about the big four. I think we should talk about the big four and then kind of separate them, but like the U of C, McGill, UBC and I’m going to put my Alma mater in there U of A, because I think it belongs in that. I’m representing.

[02:14] Chansey: Okay. Fair enough. But no U of A is normally kind of that lagging fourth. So we’ll label it the big three, McGill, U of T, UBC. Don’t we all want to go there?

[02:28] Chansey: Yeah. Isn’t that the question? We’ve got this picture painted prestige of these universities that they’re going to give us the best education and that if we go there, it’s going to make us a better doctor. We’re going to have a better experience or money’s more well spent. I think there are a lot of different stigma that goes to what med schools you hear about and who went where and why they went there. And in reality, when you dissect it, maybe the big three aren’t necessarily the best three for you as an applicant, but you still want to know and get a vibe of, like you say, the personalities of some of these medical schools. So yeah what’s your take on the big three before I keep rambling?

[03:02] Torah: Well, okay, so I’m on the outside looking in, because I am not a medical doctor for the audience. I’m a professor and an instructor. And so I look at, for instance, maybe I’ll slog on U of T a little bit. I mean, it is an amazing medical school and you get incredible training. But in my experience of many years being around campus and stuff like that, it’s a miserable place to be. Students are angry, they’re angry, they’re grumpy at U of T, but it provides world-class medical education. And so I feel like U of T generally is recruiting the very much that book smart classic traditional, much more traditional medical student than maybe some of the more avant-garde schools we call them McMaster, U of C that are looking much, much more for the personal side of life. Is that fair?

[03:56] Chansey: I think a hundred percent. And that’s not being someone who’s lived in the big three realm, I’m an east coaster. I’m a Dalhousie grad, no Dalhousie sweater, unlike the Alberta you’re wearing across the screen. But I come from that same background, the more, I think maybe a bit more holistic in who they take in, wanting well-rounded individuals that come from a variety of backgrounds who will learn sort of the study habits, who will learn the medicine as they go. And it might be a bumpy road for some, versus when you think of the U of T and UBCs, they’re certainly thinking, we’ve got lots of numbers in a seat for enrollment, but we want to have a student who’s going to come in ready to roll, ready for a regimented approach, is going to be here, there, everywhere. And hang on because it’s a really fast paced ride to that extent.

[04:41] Torah: Should every pre-med student have their goal of going to one of the big three/four?

[04:48] Chansey: I think every pre-med student should have a goal of applying to some of them because you should apply to as many as you can. But I don’t know. And my personal take is, I don’t know if you need to be fixated on it has to be U of T or bust. I won’t go if it’s not U of T or I’ll choose U of T over Dal or U of A, even though I’ve never been to all of them, I just know U of T’s the best because it’s what I’ve heard. You have to do your due diligence. You’ve got to talk to people. You have to experience, you need to go, you need to ask questions and maybe U of T is the right school for you based on how you like to study. When you see the curriculum, it’s a good fit for how you see the next four years of your life, but maybe it’s not. And that’s okay too.

[05:27] Torah: And I think that’s maybe what we want to get out of this conversation is that to empower the audience, to say look, it’s not just waiting for them to pick you. There’s also a little bit of you picking them. I mean, let’s face it. There’s going to be a lot of people that are listening, because they’re doing their due diligence. They’re doing the background work in thinking about medical school long before kind of a knee jerk reaction to the deadline approaches. And so sometimes the choice actually is in the students corner. So Chansey I want to ask you, you got into Dal, where else did you apply or was that your one and only, like you want to stay home?

[06:00] Chansey: Oh gosh. If it was the one and only that would be very, very bad gambling on my part in this medical application race. I think I applied to 9 or 10 schools in the end. So 9 or 10 schools doing the interview at I think three in the end, just based on again logistics, getting here and there and everywhere, U of T being one of them, then Dal and then Memorial for me. There was other offers, but I couldn’t go. So I think I’ve got four offers actually out of the nine, so roughly 50%. And that was expected just based on that. It was actually the four schools I thought I had the best chance of getting an interview at, of course those are the ones I got the interview at. Because I did my research going sort of into it.

[06:42] Torah: How did you do your research? How did you figure out what schools suited you or what schools you wanted to apply to?

[06:47] Chansey: You know what? I was probably the annoying student, always emailing the admissions groups at all these different schools, reading forums and even just attending, for Prep101 like seminars like that, where you get an insider’s view as to, here is some background information on schools, what they want, the MCAT, what they think of, for extracurriculars are important. Like getting that as my structure. And then I honestly made an Excel sheet where I broke down all the schools, what I was going to be scored on as an applicant. What did I have? What was I missing? And then I would often just email, like I said, the admissions clerks that are part of the undergraduate department at these schools to verify any questions that were still unanswered after all these precursor research tools that I employed and they were always really great.

[07:33] The thing is you don’t want to be a last minute writer, but if you’ve got months and months prior to an application cycle be getting, they’re always going to ask or answer any questions that you ask of them in an email or on the phone. So I would write up all the responses. I had a running word document of all the conversations I had. An Excel sheet of sort of the tick boxes as to again, here are my prioritized schools of where I have the best shot of getting in what made them higher. And again, often it was based on the application. It was based on my life to date, what my CV looked like compared to somebody else. On a CV I probably wasn’t the ideal candidate for U of T in the end as much as I was a rural med school and whether it be Memorial, Dal, NOSOM (Northern Ontario School of Medicine) or even going out in Alberta I was probably a better applicant for those, but I had some research as well, which brought me up a little bit more in the U of T. So the Excel sheet sort of saved my bacon, as they say.

[08:24] Torah: You want to share that Excel sheet, like the formula that you used.

[08:28] Chansey: Just send it out. Oh, it’s a few years dated now, but you know what it is though? I still recommend it to anyone. Like I kind of think about you, like you teach Torah, we teach and you must have students that ask you questions outside of the MCAT.

[08:40] Torah: All the time.

[08:41] Chansey: What do you think about when students ask, like where should I apply? Do you ever get that? What’s your take? How do you approach those questions as somebody who hasn’t gone through the application cycle, but is well versed in Prep101 and being a mentor to this sort of subject?

[08:54] Torah:  One of the things that I tell my students is that, number one the geographic preferences are going to matter. So your number one school should always be in the province which you are a resident, which is ultimately kind of where you paid taxes in the last year. That’s kind of the general rule for that. Every school does have slightly different residency requirements. But there’s usually, and speaking to your point of don’t just necessarily always bombard the admissions officer, but do your own research first, like you did. There are the FAQ pages, there are the forums and all those kinds of things that go along with that. But schools other than Ontario, all schools have somewhat geographic preferences to them. And out in Alberta, my students in Edmonton, I’d go, okay, well you’re looking at U of A or U of C and look broadly, apply and make yourself a candidate at many schools as possible and get the highest GPA and highest MCAT scores and best experiences.

[09:48] But when you’re sitting there and saying, especially when we talk about U of C and we might deal with that separately in a bit, because U of C and McMaster kind of have different philosophies when it comes to their admissions program. And I think that they’re really worth highlighting. We sort of talked of U of T already looking for the very classical premed student, the very book smart and the sort of ticks all the boxes and U of C doesn’t necessarily. So I usually get questions from students who aren’t those what we call the traditional applicants. And so, say, where do I fit? And I think that the biggest thing is there’s a school for everyone, do your own research, which Prep101 does a lot of that for you.

[10:28] There are files online that you can get that show you all kinds of breakdowns of material. But ultimately I say kind of, there’s a school for you. And that’s the biggest thing that they want to hear. As the audience wants to hear, there’s a school for you. And not all schools are going to be for you. If they don’t want you, they also maybe sometimes don’t want them.

[10:49] Chansey: No, hundred percent.

[10:50] Torah: So there’s a fit. And it takes a little bit of research, but keep those home schools in mind, again, Ontario we treat completely differently. Ontario opens the door to all applicants and has much, there’s no geographic preferences, but also much easier application process because that’s one of the things, the other thing about where to apply. You apply to, I think a lot of schools, I don’t know. What do you think the average is? I would say apply to four or five. You’re going nine or 10. It just seems to be like a lot of work.

[11:25] Chansey: You know what, in a way it is, especially when you start thinking about like I’m going to span the whole country. I’m going east to west because you’ve got the benefit as an applicant, applying to schools in Ontario, because you’ve got a system like OMSAS where you can make one account, you can literally select what schools you want your application to be sent to. You may add an A and B supplemental, depending on the school you’re replying to, if they have something more specific than the generic standard application. But in the end, you’re hitting one submit button and it’s going to all those schools. So you save a bit of time, but not the case on the east coast, not the case in sort of more central Canada. I mean, going out west. It’s all individual applications. So it is a ton of work.

[12:04] And then to your point about geography, of course, on my mind, that was huge. It’s like the schools have the best chance of getting into or the maritime schools, because I have a natural maritime connection because I was physically born here and I spent most of my life here. I worked here, I went to school here. But it’s also that I say sometimes like hidden agenda, but maybe not so hidden is that these schools, the reason they do that is they want retention. They want the physicians they train to stay. That’s the goal. It’s that community retention that is that sort of patron based work and service. They want to stay in the province. So if they’ve got a really good selling feature from an application or an interview that you’re someone that not only do they, like not only someone who meets all their cutoffs and academic achievements and objective objectives but you might stay because you’ve got family here or you want to open up a practice in your hometown that actually you don’t think about it, but there’s hidden sometimes points awarded to that on an application.

[12:59] Torah:  Well, it’s also about following the money. Medical school education is subsidized. Yes, it’s expensive. But it’s subsidized by the provincial government and we have a provincial healthcare system. So they’re just keeping their trainees intact. And keeping them at home. So geographic preference is number one, but also many, many schools do. You can be a totally, almost different candidate depending on their GPA corrections like university of Ottawa does none. They do no GPA corrections. It’s what you get on the bottom of your transcript that’s how your GPA looks, whereas a lots of schools don’t take summer classes. I want to say U of A doesn’t take summer classes, although I should double-check that. And there are lots of schools that drop your worst year. That’s probably the most common, as long as it’s not your most recent. And so you might find these and you said that’s those are all on the Excel spreadsheet. So where did you get all that information of all the GPA corrections? Did you generate it yourself?

[13:54] Chansey: In part yeah. And it was through like really two modes of searching. One was utilizing like admissions websites. There’s lots of great information, whether it’s the epic use or just the standard, let me go through all the tabs of admissions. It will walk you through the application per school. The other thing was those emails back and forth, just to clarify, okay U of T, you mentioned in my first year of undergrad, you’ll consider dropping two of my lowest courses for the full year. Of 10 courses, that’s great. I didn’t have a great first year of university.

[14:23] Torah: Who had a great first year?

[14:25] Chansey: Not this guy, definitely not this guy. So the whole thought that, oh my gosh, they would get rid of a course that I really struggle with, that wasn’t a pre-req, that was incredible and it really would bump up what my first year GPA would be. And like you said, it’s different from school to school, but to find it out, you’re getting it from the webpage. You’re getting it from direct contact with the school, which I honestly think is the most trustworthy, written in paper way to do it, so that you don’t burn yourself and you apply to a school that, oh, they see you don’t need a cutoff or you misinterpreted how to actually formulate your GPA and then close the file before it’s even been looked at in terms of extracurriculars and your MCAT and all the things you work so hard on, they close it. And to your point of some schools are for you and some schools aren’t, me as an applicant, Dal, NOSM, maybe even Calgary McMaster would open and be like, oh, here’s, I would think an interesting individual I’ll call myself interesting. That could be good or bad, but interesting.

[15:17] Torah: Well you got in, so you’re interesting. I’m interesting enough. And they might say, oh he’s worth reading about, and maybe an interview. And then a school, like U of T or Western being like, nope, not academically strong enough, did not do enough academic sort of extracurriculars in that four year time spend, close the folder.

[15:34] Torah: Yeah, Western’s renowned to be just ruthless with its GPA, right?

[15:37] Chansey: It is tough. Yeah. They’re very much focused on their academics a hundred percent.

[15:41] Torah: So that’s the thing. So Western, you might be a student who doesn’t have tons of volunteer experience or things that maybe make you a broader candidate, but Western might be looking for you. And they want more of the GPA. Whereas, and I want to talk a little bit about U of C here and McMaster to a certain extent, because they’re really kind of changing the game for a lot of our non-traditional applicants. And Chansey, I think you and I should do a podcast about non-traditional applicants because I think it’s important. But U of C and McMaster are focused much more on who is walking in the door, not what GPA is walking in the door. Ultimately you need a GPA. It’s still a high GPA. They get a lot. And I want to maybe get rid of this myth right now because a lot of people think, oh, U of C is a place where I’ll go because I have other life experiences but my GPA isn’t high.

[16:28] The GPA, competitive GPA is actually higher than U of A, they get tons more applicants. But U of C is looking for a different applicant. They are looking for much more of a non-traditional applicant. They’re not looking for the 22 year old who finished with a 4.0, you’ll get in anywhere, that’s basically what U of C is saying. But U of C is saying, look, we want people, the average age is closer to 27, on emissions average. They’re looking at someone who the GPA is high, but more importantly, the cars score is high, overweight in cars. And they’re looking for people that have other experience. I know a paramedic that got in, a nurse that got in. Someone who had been practicing as an engineer got in when she was 32, is now a family medicine doctor. So they’re looking for, I guess a little bit more, I sort of jokingly refer to these, they’re looking more for more humans than maybe the Western U of T, UBC might be looking for. And I would throw McGill under that bus as well.

[17:28] But again, those schools might be right for you for lots of other reasons in that you are a good candidate. So I think that the key thing here is recognizing that first of all, all this information is available. What school is right for you is available. There’s a school that is right for you. Okay, here’s the thing about applications, is that they are expensive. Like how much would you expect an application here to cost?

[17:55] Chansey: For a given school easily between $100 to $250, depending on where you are per school. And if you’re doing homes SaaS even though it’s one portal, you don’t get to pay just one fee. You’re going to be added up depending on the number of schools you ultimately apply to. So if it’s U of T, it’s McMaster and it’s Western, that’s three fees, they’re going to be totaled for the total check at the end Of the day.

[18:16] Torah: That’s kind of like 300 bucks and then 125 for each school, something in there?

[18:21] Chansey: Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, you could easily rack up for me a thousand dollars or more just applying to medical schools if you go on the higher end of things, it’s wild.

[18:30] Torah: How many would you recommend people apply to as many, just every, just across the board?

[18:35] Chansey: I think again, as this label of traditional applicant, somebody who’s coming out of undergrad is super keen, is super organized, has been academically strong. MCAT went very well. Has the extracurriculars, is ready to go. I think you could probably get a buy with comfortably anywhere between four and six. And that would be totally normal depending on how type A you are. You might say that’s not enough for me. I’m going to do 12 because I really need to get in this year. And that’s okay if you’re willing to put in the work that goes into that, because it’s not only financially a lot of work, it’s a lot of time spent just to prepare those applications, tailor your essay to specific questions that are being asked at the schools, all these specifics that we’ll address in future podcasts and in our seminars.

[19:14] But you just want to essentially get yourself organized. And if you’ve got the time, you’ll apply to as many as you want. But how much do you need? I don’t know if I can say this is the magic formula, but four to six, if you’re comfortable, you’ve met all the cutoffs and that you’re a pretty typical silhouette of the candidate they normally would accept. I think you’ve got a good shot.

[19:33] Torah: And I think that maybe, I mean maybe on a parting note I don’t think we should label schools as, oh, well, if I don’t get in here, then I guess I’ll go here because as much as there are top tier schools and then there are all the others, there’s this big three/four and then there’s the rest. All the schools in Canada are incredible. There’s a sort of one and a half tiers. There’s the tier one. And then there’s, just a half step down. And so there’s no consolation kind of school to go to in Canada. That’s not true of the states. States are certainly subpar medical schools, but not here. And I think that any medical school is going to be great. And if you’re going to thrive at one school, you’ll thrive anywhere.

[20:21] Chansey: Yeah. And our country, I mean, it does a really great job through our different councils in the medical body to appraise and accredit all the schools that exist in Canada. So they all need to be held to the same standard of curriculum. Revision with the times. They have to have a good balance of not only providing book-based education, tutorial education, but also practical clerkship. They’re constantly being appraised for this. And when they don’t meet a certain standard, they’re put on probation. So our country takes it very seriously to keep these schools in equal playing field with one another. Meaning like you said, U of T, which has this background, nomenclature and story sort of not folklore, but background story of being the best. And if I go here, I’m going to do the best. Honestly, you could go to Memorial, you could go to BC, you could go to NOSOM and you could be 10 times a better doctor in whatever skill you’re thinking of in terms of your education and how you apply yourself, because all the schools are on equal foundation.

[21:19] Torah: Well, I’ll tell you the story. My grandfather actually graduated from U of T medical school. Well, I don’t know when that was.

[21:25] Chancey: I didn’t know that.

[21:27] Torah: And he came out to Alberta and he was offered a position as the chair of cardiothoracic surgery here at U of A and people, all his colleagues at U of T like laughed at him. They’re like, what do you do in like going to the boonies? Why don’t you stay here? It’s the best medical school and it is. It’s one of the best in the world and we’ll continue to be. And he really was, he was a Renegade rebel by heart. Then he moved his family out to Alberta to do this tiny little school and built one of the world’s class centers for cardiac surgery here. So U of T is a fantastic school and I’ll never counsel anyone to not go, but any school you get into is going to be incredible. You have to earn all your entry to all the schools. And it’s just a matter of and I guess that’s the whole point of this today. Maybe we’re long winded on this podcast today, but the idea is that there’s a school that’s right for you and all schools are good schools and get that acceptance letter and don’t sit there and say, mm that’s my second choice, because that second choice is incredible.

[22:29] Chansey: No it’s one A, one B, one C, one D and have an open mind. If you get into a school, that’s the ultimate goal and you’ll make it, whatever it is, the experience will be whatever you put into it. And you’re going to have a fantastic time and get a great education and move through the stepping stones of your medical career regardless of what the school is on your degree. That’s on my wall ahead of me now. We’ll all have different ones and they’ll all be just as rewarding.

[22:55] Torah: I don’t know where my parchment is but I didn’t hang it. But I will say if you want to know more information our sponsor, our kind sponsor Prep101, sponsors the prep me podcast and we host getting into medical school seminars. So go to the Prep101/MCAT website. And there’s lots of information there you can get about individual schools and again, that’s Prep101 PREP101.com/mcat. And there you’ll find all kinds of things, including links to all of the episodes of the prep me podcast. So thank you from Chansey and I today. And we’ll see you guys next time.

[23:31] Chansey: Take care everybody.