Articles

Short guides that describe the published rules in plain language and link to the official page for each one. No invented statistics, no motivational filler.

• How OMSAS converts your grades: a worked example

  The OUAC conversion table, the credit weights, and why OMSAS GPA is not an average of your yearly averages, shown on a realistic two-year transcript.

• Western's best-two-years rule explained

  How Schulich picks the two undergraduate years it screens on, what a full course load means, and how the 3.70 minimum applies to each year separately.

• Ottawa's GPA rule for 2027 entry

  The University of Ottawa MD program uses your most recent three full-time undergraduate years, weighted equally. What full-time means, what happened to the old weighting, and what the summer counts for.

• OMSAS ABS: writing the 150-character line

  Ten before-and-after rewrites of Autobiographical Sketch entries, with character counts, and the small set of rules that separate a line committees can use from one they skim.

• AMCAS Work and Activities: 15 entries, 700 characters, and choosing Most Meaningful

  How the AMCAS activities section is structured, what fits in 700 characters, and a practical way to pick the three entries that get the extra 1,325.

• Tracking clinical hours so applications write themselves

  A logging habit that turns shifts into OMSAS, AMCAS and CASPA entries with verifiable hour totals, for Canadian and US applicants.

• How to ask a verifier or AMCAS contact: email templates

  Short, copy-and-adjust emails for asking someone to verify an OMSAS sketch entry or serve as an AMCAS activity contact, plus what to send them so their answer matches your entry.

• Shadowing in Canada vs the US: what it is and is not worth

  An honest look at physician shadowing for Canadian and US applications: how it is weighed, why it is hard to get in Canada, the privacy rules, and why you must never relabel it as clinical experience.