Hi! My name's Dr. Lauren Prufer. This week's video is all about our OMSAS applications so
this is a great video for our Canadian students. It's going to be a step-by-step insider's guide
on how to fill out your OMSAS application. So I'm going to go through an overview of everything you
need. Personal information Address information
The autobiographical sketch Your verifiers
Referee MCAT due dates
and transcripts. So we're going to go through it all today in this
one quick video. And we'll go through specific examples of how to fill out your sketch so that
you guys can get a good understanding of what schools are looking for in terms of the sketch.
So, to start off, the first thing you need to know about is filling out the personal information
section. So this is all the typical stuff you would expect from this section like name, age,
gender, language of application, citizenship, Aboriginal status, and first language. So with
your language of application it's important to note that you need to be able to both speak and
write the language fluently in order to apply in that language. The only school that will teach in
French in Ontario is Ottawa so if you want to go there and take the French language program,
that's an important thing for you to note. Next up we have the address section. So, most students
typically include two addresses. The first will be their mailing address and that is typically
the address that they live at while they're at school. Secondly, they'll typically include a home
address or an address where mail can be sent to after May 1. I f that's the case for you,
if your address changes after May 1, make sure you check the little box. The other component of this,
which is really important, is the rural component. So if you grew up in a rural area, some of the
schools in Ontario will specifically select for you. So examples of schools with rural preference
include Northern Ontario, Ottawa, and London. So all those schools are looking for students from a
specific geographical area because they want to increase the number of doctors who work in that
area. So, if you grew up in one of those areas, you do want to be including your postal code in
this rural section. If you didn't grow up in one of these areas, you might want to include
it just in case. It's good practice for filling out the application completely. Next,
we have the autobiographical sketch. So this is probably the part of the application that
receives the most attention because it's one that students struggle with the most. You'll
have 150 characters for each descriptor and this is where you include all your activities
since age 16. There's 7 different categories of activities you can include. Formal education
Employment Volunteer
Extracurricular Research
Awards and other.
And OMSAS recommends including both structured and non-structured activities. So an example of
a structured activity would maybe be volunteering for the Canadian Cancer society and running their
social media department. An unstructured role might be helping out an elderly neighbor or
family member with chores, groceries, and house cleaning once a week. Any and all activities can
be included for consideration but we do really emphasize to our students quality over quantity.
So, how do we decide which activities to include? With your OMSAS sketch you really want to choose
activities that demonstrate the essential skills and abilities required to practice
medicine. So these skills and abilities are on the OMSAS website, I'm just going to go over
them briefly here to give you a general idea of what they are looking for. So first up,
we have observation. Observation is hugely important in medical learning whether it's
procedural learning, observing how your presector deals with a difficult patient,
or learning what's bothering your patient through simply watching them. In medicine, we learn a lot
through observation. Next, we have communication. I think this one's pretty self-explanatory but
being a strong written and verbal communicator is paramount to the practice of medicine. After that
there's, motor skills. So medical students need to have the motor ability to form physical exams,
perform basic procedures, and generally manipulate their patients in the world around them. Next up
we have the intellectual/conceptual integrated and quantitative abilities. So this is essentially
your ability to demonstrate the cognitive and memory skills necessary for practicing medicine
and for solving clinical problems. And finally, we have behavioral and social attributes. So this
includes professionalism, emotional intelligence, as well as a strong personal emotional health. So
you want to be able to use your autobiographical sketch to demonstrate that you possess these
abilities. So now I'm going to go through an example of what a good sketch entry looks like.
So this is an example of an employment entry and it has 150 character descriptor. So note
the start date, the end date, the job title which eludes to what their role was, as well
as the verifier number. After that, we have the descriptor and there's two main things I want to
note about the descriptor. First is the use of an adjective as the first word. So this is a great
way to save on your character count and it also helps to describe your role in the position. The
next thing I want you to notice is that they're not explicitly telling me developed leadership,
teamwork, communication, collaboration skills. They're describing their roles and allowing me
to implicitly deduce that they have leadership, collaboration, and communication skills through
the roles that they did in their job. By reading this paragraph I get the sense that coordinating
a global event requires a lot of leadership and communication skills. So really focus on
show don't tell. Show them that you have the knowledge and skills required. You don't need
to list out the CANMeds roles in order to do this. So that's it for our sketch. Next up, we
have the school submissions so these are personal essays required by schools like UofT and Northern
Ontario. So for your school submissions, you want to focus basically on 3 main things. So 1,
again we have show and don't tell. Show the admissions committees that you have the skills
they are looking for using personal narratives. Second of all, structure, structure, structure! An
organized essay is so important because it really helps with the clarity of your communication.
And like I mentioned before, communication is an essential skill for practicing medicine and that's
both written and verbal communication. So think of your essays as an opportunity to demonstrate
the strength of your written communication skills. Third and final, is proofread,
proofread, proofread, I'm saying these both three times because they're so important. So proofread
the essay yourself and give it to someone else to proofread. You want to make sure it makes sense,
you want to make sure you're communication is clear, your structure is clear, and that the story
you're telling is engaging as well as answers the question and gets the point across. Next up,
we have referees. So you're going to need 3 referees to fill out a confidential assessment of
your personality. The most common questions I get about referees is should I include referee x or
referee y. When you're considering which referee to ask for your letters, consider a couple of
different things. First of all how well does this person know you and who is more likely to write a
good reference letter. The other thing you want to think about is balancing your letters. So you
don't want all academic letters or all medical letters. You want to show medical schools that
you are successful in a variety of spheres within your life. Next, we have MCAT. This one is pretty
self-explanatory. Write a good MCAT, it's going to help improve your chances of getting into med
school. The other important thing is making sure you submit it on time. Typically MCATs are due
at the very beginning of November. It takes two days to process your MCAT so to make sure it's
submitted on time, you need to be submitting at least two days before that. Finally, we have the
post-secondary education and transcript section. So in terms of your post-secondary education,
there's two main things you want to write about. First off is accuracy, so you should be including
every course from every post-secondary education institution that you attended throughout your
degree. This includes summer courses, courses you withdrew from or canceled, it all should
be on there otherwise your application could be considered fraudulent and could be rejected. You
also want to be proofreading each entry because they are very detail-oriented and be repetitive
and it's easy to make small errors that will hurt your application. In terms of your transcript,
you'll have to order them from your school to be sent to OMSAS. They're due at the same time
as the rest of your application which means you need to order them ahead of time to ensure that
they are getting there on time. Check with your school in terms of what the processing time is
but I do recommend that you order them as early as possible. So, that's it for our video today!
That's everything you need to know to fill out your OMSAS application. I hope you enjoyed the
video, make sure you check out the linked blog posts for even more information. If
you're looking for extra help with any part of your OMSAS application, schedule your free
initial consultation with BeMo today! The link is posted below. Hope to see you next week!