Medical Schools in Canada: A Complete List!

List of Medical Schools in Canada

Click on each school to learn its medical school GPA requirements, accepted MCAT scores, and overall acceptance rates!

How to Choose a Medical School in Canada According to a Canadian MD

Medical school acceptance rates in Canada are generally less then 15%, meaning Canadian med schools are highly selective and competitive. However, you can use the admission statistics above to carefully evaluate where you might be an ideal candidate and therefore have a greater chance of success getting into medical school. But in our experience, medical school acceptance rates are not how most Canadian MDs chose their program. For example, our MD expert Dr. Jaime Cazes, a graduate of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at U of T says,

“The first thing I looked for in a medical school was location...to be quite honest, school acceptance rates did not impact my choice of where to apply. In Canada, there are so few medical schools that it really is just a numbers game to some extent. [You should] apply broadly [as applying selectively] only hinders you”. - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

Medical school acceptance rates in Canada are typically under 15%

But aside from location, which Dr. Cazes says is important not only for quality of life, but to have supports – academic, professional, and personal – nearby during your time in medical school, he also looked at the academics and specific teaching style or methodology of a particular program:

“Ultimately, you are going to be investing significant amounts of money, time, and energy into this program. You want to make sure that it is best suited to how you learn”.- Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

Lastly, Dr. Cazes recounts that he “wanted to see if the school would support and foster my extracurricular activities and hobbies,” so he also explored the various student clubs, research opportunities and post-graduate match rates the school offered. After he did his research, Dr. Cazes found that knowing more about student life at the school gave him the opportunity to “talk about these passions during my medical school interviews.”

If you plan to apply to medical school in Canada, you’ll need to be selective in choosing your schools. When deciding which medical schools in Canada you’d like to apply to, consider the following criteria:

Once you’ve done your research and compiled a shortlist of potential medical schools, you’ll need to make sure you craft the strongest possible application. The key to this is knowing the medical school requirements for each school you plan to apply to and checking that you meet each one. If you need more help figuring our which of the schools are a good fit for you, check out our Canada MD Chance Predictor below:

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Check out our Canada Medical School Chance Predictor to see where you have the best chances of acceptance!

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Want to get into medical school in Canada? Watch this video!

How to Get into Medical Schools in Canada

1. Prerequisite Courses

Not every medical school has specific prerequisite courses, but many do. For example, the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine requires 6 units in both humanities and biology courses, as well as organic chemistry, chemistry, biochemistry and statistics. The Queen's University School of Medicine has very strict prerequisite requirements of 30 full-course credits in science and non-science courses. On the other hand, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine does not have strict requirements regarding coursework; they simply recommend an array of science and humanities courses that they feel will best prepare students for their MD program.

But figuring out your medical school prerequisites is one of the first things you should do, according to our MD expert Dr. Jaime Cazes, a graduate of the University of Toronto Temerty Faculty of Medicine:

“Check EACH school’s requirements and see if you have courses or pre-reqs that fill those. You should regularly touch base with admissions at each school to verify that a course you are completing actually fills a pre-req before you do it.” - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

Another one of our MD experts Dr. Neel Mistry, a graduate of the University of Ottawa medical school, says

“The #1 piece of advice would be taking courses you genuinely enjoy as opposed to doing them because they are “easy” or to have a “relaxed” schedule. Ultimately, there are certain pre-requisites that you will have to take and you may not enjoy everything you do. That is okay. However, even if you find yourself in a mandatory course that you are not enjoying, it is important to think about the long run and to not let your performance dwindle. Know that this period of your life will pass and once you finish the course with a stellar grade, you will never have to take it again. The same goes for anything else in the medical school application process." - Dr. Neel Mistry, MD, University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine

 The most commonly required prerequisites are: 

In addition to mandatory medical school prerequisites, some schools also list “suggested” prerequisites, but our advice is to treat these as mandatory unless you absolutely cannot take the course. Not only will this show medical schools that you’re detail-oriented and have taken the initiative to prepare yourself for the rigorous study of medicine by taking on these additional courses. Taking these courses can benefit your GPA, too, if you need to give it a boost to get into medical school with a low GPA. Canadian medical schools have high medical school GPA requirements for applicants, so earning as high a GPA as possible and doing well in your courses is best.

2. GPA

As with all medical schools and graduate studies in general, Canadian medical schools pay careful attention to students’ undergraduate performance, quantified in the GPA to the point where GPA usually matters more than your MCAT scores, depending on the school. Dr. Jaime Cazes stresses this point when he says:,

“I do believe there is more emphasis on GPA in Canada.” - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

There’s a fairly wide range of approaches to weighing and considering the GPA from school to school, but there are some general trends. The first is that, even if a school doesn't have an explicit GPA cut-off, its admissions committees will still have some degree of GPA expectation, even if it's slightly flexible or unofficial. Our MD expert Dr. Cazes explains further:

"It seems that competitive GPAs are only getting higher and higher each year. The thought here is that a GPA is a good assessment of your accomplishment over time as opposed to a one time standardized test. That being said, it really does vary school to school and each school has their own rules when it comes to MCAT and GPA calculation. Check with each school." - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

Students with higher grades and GPAs do tend to fare better in the selection process at Canadian schools, though having a high GPA is in no way a guarantee of standing out amongst the crowd.

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Check out our OMSAS GPA Calculator to assess your GPA!

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3. MCAT

If your GPA is on the lower end of acceptability, your MCAT will play a larger role in admissions committees’ decisions, and vice versa. While there are indeed some medical schools that don’t require the MCAT, such as the University of Ottawa, in almost all cases you’ll need to take this extremely daunting exam before applying to an MD program in Canada. Finding the best MCAT prep course in Canada is a great start to get ready for the test if you do decide to take it.

If a school does require the MCAT, you should check to see if they weigh specific sections more heavily, such as Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster, which considers only MCAT CARS scores. Similarly, the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary has established a minimum MCAT CARS score for non-Albertan applicants of 128. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should only focus on the more heavily weighted sections, but it’s good to know ahead of time if you really need to do extra preparations for a specific part of the exam.

When it comes to assessing the importance of the MCAT in medical schools in Canada, our expert Dr. Jaime Cazes had this observation to share:

"From what I have heard, MCAT matters only to an extent at most schools. It serves as a flag and a baseline cutoff for most people. I really only think the students who score in the top 90+ percentile across all categories have this as an advantage. If you meet the cutoffs for most schools in Canada, it falls more to the wayside." - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

This is not to say that you should not do your best on the exam! But be mindful that even a perfect MCAT score will not guarantee your acceptance. Your non-academic application components will play a huge role in your acceptance chances!

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Check out our MCAT Calculator to see where you have the best chances of acceptance!

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4. Activities and Experiences

One truly universal element in medical school applications is some version of an important activities and experiences section. For US students, this is the AMCAS Work and Activities section, and for students in Ontario it’s the OMSAS sketch, but each individual medical school in Canada will have some version of this as well. For example, the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine requires applicants to fill out a section on "Personal Activities", where they can demonstrate their non-academic achievements, while McGill medical school provides students with a medical school resume template they have to fill out.

But Dr. Cazes says beware “CV stuffers”. As someone who was on the admissions board of the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Cazes explains that these stuffers are easily spotted by MD experts like him and other admissions committee members:

"It can be easy for people to look through your application and spot the “CV stuffers”. These things are activities that you don’t have a long commitment with, aren’t passionate about, or that seem like things you just do to pad your CV with. I would highly recommend participating in activities OUTSIDE of academics or medicine as these truly do make you seem well rounded and are amazing opportunities for you to look to for stories, or lessons learned that you can talk about on your application or interviews. We love to see people who are passionate about medicine as well as things outside of medicine!" - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

5. Admission Essays 

In the US, applicants to medical schools are required to craft a medical school personal statement, which provides committees with a brief narrative that answers the question “Why do you want to be a doctor?” Canadian medical schools, in most cases, use a variety of short essay prompts for a similar purpose, although these will often be much more specific. These are much more akin to US medical school secondary essays than a full-length personal statement, and will demand you to not only be economical in your wording but address specific questions that will require some creativity on your part.

Our MD expert Dr. Cazes also stresses creativity:

“It is very easy to make the “cookie cutter” essay. “Hello my name is Steven, and I am a 4^th year..." There are probably hundreds of letters that start like this. To a reviewer who is reading tens of these at a time it can become quite boring. What I did was start with a story. Like any good novel, the stories first lines are meant to hook the reader. This can be about anything if you can bring it back and relate it to your application. It could be about the time your friend was smashed up against the boards in hockey and you, with your limited first aid experience helped to treat him. It is important that the story be REAL. Again, it is easy for reviewers to spot a fake story or an overly unrealistic one. As well, interviewers could potentially ask you about your personal statement, and so you want to be truthful. While in my opinion it is OK to slightly embellish some details of story to make it more interesting, straight lying or overly unrealistic situations should be avoided." - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine  

6. CASPer

Of the 17 medical schools in Canada, 12 of them require the CASPer test. Since many premeds have never heard of the test, it can seem like a daunting prospect at first. If you are required to complete the test, you should do all you can to learn how to prepare for CASPer, including working through sample CASPer questions and fine-tuning your answer strategies. While it is tricky, you can prepare for the CASPer test ahead of time by learning the different types of CASPer questions and practicing the best strategies for answering them. And although your CASPer score is not the most important part of your application, medical schools in Canada use it as a screening tool for applicants and will sometimes base interview invite decisions on your results. Our MD expert Dr. Jaime Cazes shares his advice:

"[CASPer is] notoriously hard to prepare for because it isn’t like you can just study these things easily. I would say that I would just practice as much as possible without burning yourself out. There are many practice questions and simulations online that you can choose from, including our BeMo blog. Get used to thinking about all the possible ethic dilemmas in each situation and like I said above – consider each question/situation from all sides and show the interviewer/reader that you are taking these into account." - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

Preparing for CASPer? Check out our video below:

7. Reference Letters

Medical school recommendation letters, or Letters of Reference, are an important application component that allow faculty members or other people you’ve worked or studied under to speak directly to admissions committees on your behalf. As with every other element, requirements for reference letters will vary from school to school. Medical schools may have specific requirements for referees, such as requiring a letter of reference from a physician, a university faculty member or research supervisor. It’s best to start gathering potential references early on, as well as a few backups just in case. Typically, you’ll need to provide 3 letters of reference for your application, with at least one being from a physician. Here's what our MD expert Dr. Neel Mistry had to say about writing recommendation letters for premeds who volunteer at his hospital:

"I would prefer to be approached in a polite and friendly manner. The student should highlight why I would make a good referee and provide tangible examples where they went above and beyond in patient’s care that would warrant a letter of recommendation (LOR). An approach that would sour me is if a student asks for a LOR despite putting an average or below-average performance during work, if they feel entitled to a LOR, and if the student asks for a LOR after having worked only a few shifts with me." - Dr. Neel Mistry, MD, University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine

8. Medical School Interviews

Last but not least comes the medical school interview, which is often the phase of selection students fear most. Whether it’s the multiple mini-interview (MMI) or a traditional format or a hybrid of both, the last stage of your application process will include at least some common medical school interview questions that will test your ability to think and communicate clearly on the spot. Keep in mind that some medical schools in Canada, such as the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, have created their own interview formats, such as the MPI (modified personal interview).

Dr. Jaime Cazes shares his interview wisdom:

"Probably the worst thing you can do is begin speaking without thinking. Is perfectly OK to ask for a moment to collect your thoughts and think about your answer thoroughly before beginning your response. Chances are if you've been asked a question that you were not prepared for, it was a question that was meant to trip you up. Take a breath, think about what the point of this question is and what the interviewer may be getting at, and just like every other question have a well thought out introduction, flow, and ending without it sounding like a stream of consciousness. Again, it is OK to ask for some time to think about your answer – just as long as you aren’t taking an absurd amount of time!" - Dr. Jaime Cazes, MD, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine

Want a quick recap of the most common requirements for medical schools in Canada?

2 Quick Tips For Increasing Your Acceptance Chances

With so much information to consider, you must be wondering how to make your medical school application stand out and what you can do in your interview to leave the admissions committee with no question as to your candidacy. So here are our expert tips on how to increase your chances of acceptance to medical schools in Canada.

#1 Consider location and school preferences

Many medical schools in Canada give preference to certain groups of people based on provincial borders, locations, residency status, language, and so on. You must carefully plan where you have the most chance based not only on your academic and non-academic achievements, but also on your location, residency status, language, and so on. To stand out in your application and to have a greater chance of getting that interview invite, you must show the schools you are applying to that you are from a candidate group they prefer. For example, if you are applying to NOSM and you cannot show any connection to rural or remote areas, if you have never even visited the Canadian north, and you are not francophone, then you will have very little chance of acceptance, even if you have amazing grades and impressive experiences.

If we look at the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine, you will see how important it is for the admissions committee to see that you have genuine commitment and connection to the Canadian Maritimes. Your application essays must demonstrate that you understand the location and the culture you will be studying and working in, so keep this in mind if you choose to apply to Dalhousie. Can you demonstrate a real connection to Nova Scotia? Or maybe another Canadian Maritime province, such as New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island? If no, you might not have the best chance of getting acceptance.

If you are applying to any of the schools in Quebec or the French language admissions stream at select medical schools in Ontario, you will need to demonstrate proficiency in the French language. As part of the admissions requirements, you may be asked to submit a French language test or proof of bilingualism.

#2 Explore alternative admission streams at Canadian med schools

Indigenous applicants to Canadian medical schools have the option of applying through separate applicant pools in the Indigenous applicant admission stream. Of course, this stream has separate admission requirements including, but not limited to, submitting a medical school personal statement, letters of reference, proof of Indigenous status in Canada and more. Many medical schools reserve seats specifically for Indigenous students and other underrepresented populations, so this can significantly sway the chances of acceptance in your favor if you meet the requirements.

Black and Indigenous applicants to Canadian medical schools can also apply through special programs, such as the Queen’s Accelerated Route to Medical School (QuARMS) program. This is specifically designed to allow Black and Indigenous applicants a pathway to medical school. Other MD programs in Canada have diversity initiatives to encourage underrepresented applicants to apply. The Max Rady College of Medicine, for instance, has one of the best diversity initiatives in medical schools in Canada.

If you are a member of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and are interested in becoming a military doctor, medical schools in Canada have MD programs specifically designed for military doctor education and even reserve seats for CAF members.

Want help getting into med school in Canada? Listen to what one of our success stories has to say about us:

How to Apply to Medical Schools in Canada

Canadian medical schools do not utilize a standard application service like AMCAS for medical schools in the US, AACOMAS for DO school applications, or TMDSAS for medical schools in Texas. Instead, medical schools in every province, except Ontario, utilize school-specific application services, making it crucial to double- and triple-check the medical school application timelines and requirements for the schools to which you’re applying.

Medical schools in Ontario utilize the centralized Ontario Medical School Application System (OMSAS) system, which makes applying to the six medical programs in the province somewhat easier. OMSAS is the medical school-specific arm of the Ontario University Application Centre (OUAC), so if you’ve already applied to undergraduate schools in Ontario prior to medical school, you’ll have some familiarity with the overall structure and interface OMSAS uses. Understandably though, OMSAS features a slew of unique application dimensions, featured in the infographic below.

Looking for more info on OMSAS? Check out our infographic below:

While each school outside of Ontario utilizes their own unique timeline, typically the only differences are the application opening and deadline dates. We’ve included a general timeline below, but as always please check the timelines provided by the specific schools to which you’re applying. Additionally, this is a timeline for MD programs—MD-PhD programs and other dual programs will have slightly different timelines.

FAQs

1. HOW MANY MED SCHOOLS ARE THERE IN CANADA?

There are 17 medical schools in Canada.

2. WHICH CANADIAN MEDICAL SCHOOL IS THE HARDEST TO GET INTO?

With an overall acceptance rate of only 2.7%, Queen's University is Canada’s most competitive medical school.

3. WHICH CANADIAN MEDICAL SCHOOL IS THE EASIEST TO GET INTO?

The University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine has a 12.5% acceptance rate, but keep in mind that this acceptance rate most reflects acceptance rates for in-province applicants, not out-of-province candidates.

4. CAN I GET INTO A CANADIAN MEDICAL SCHOOL WITH A LOW GPA?

It will be extremely challenging to get into a Canadian medical school with a low GPA. Many of the schools have a fairly friendly 3.0 GPA minimum, although you’ll still be competing with hundreds of other students with high GPAs, so the minimum will not be enough for an acceptance.

5. WHAT CANADIAN MEDICAL SCHOOLS ACCEPT INTERNATIONAL/FOREIGN STUDENTS?

There are 7 schools in Canada that admit international students: Memorial, Laval, Sherbrooke, Université de Montréal, McGill, University of Toronto, and McMaster.

To your success,

Your friends at BeMo

BeMo Academic Consulting 

Disclaimer: Although we have made every effort to provide the most accurate information, admissions information changes frequently. Therefore, we encourage you to verify these details with the official university admissions office. You are responsible for your own results. BeMo does not endorse nor affiliate with any official universities, colleges, or test administrators and vice versa. If you see an error here, please notify us with the updated information, and we’ll send you a FREE copy of a BeMo ebook of your choosing! You can receive our Ultimate Guide to Med School Admissions, our Ultimate Guide to MMI Prep, our Ultimate Guide to Medical School Personal Statements & Secondary Essays or our Ultimate Guide to CASPer Prep! Please email us at [email protected] with any corrections, and we’ll arrange to send you your free ebook upon confirming the information.

Source: Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada https://www.royalcollege.ca/rcsite/canmeds/canmeds-framework-e

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