Medical School Admissions: How Important are Non-Academic Components Really?

By Joshua Liu

The more I think about it, the more it seems like non-GPA/MCAT components are significantly less important to the medical school admissions process than most people realize.

Now, let me make sure there’s no confusion by saying that I do think things like extra-curricular activities, community involvement, travel experiences, hobbies, etc. all have a huge amount of value. But I think their value lies much more in how they help you personally develop and grow, and not so much in really affecting your chances at getting into medical school to the degree that your GPA and MCAT scores do.

And yet it seems to me that a lot of students see to have the perception that you need to have a resume that is a mile long in order to have a shot at getting into medical school. Because of this, some students take on way too much and completely exhaust themselves day in and day out. Not only do I think this is bad for the student’s mental and physical health (and that doing something solely for the sake of applying to medical school is something you will probably regret), but in terms of the medical school admissions process, it’s really unnecessary. And worse, some students take on so many non-academic activities that it seriously hurts their academic performance, without realizing that GPA is always the first step in the medical school door.

Granted, I can’t speak for all medical schools, since there are 17 in Canada and I only know about the Ontario ones. So while I don’t want to make any generalized claims, what I will do is analyze four of the medical schools in Ontario whose admissions process I do know a decent bit about, and the role non-academic components actually play. And from there, you can come to your own conclusions (though it’s pretty obvious what I think).

McMaster University

This past year, McMaster used two main formulas in their admissions process.

Pre-interview (for determining interview invites): 66% GPA and 33% Autobiographical Sketch
Post-interview (for making the actual offers of admission): 33% GPA and 66% Interview

So, let’s look at where non-academic aspects and experiences of your life actually play a role.

Well, for the pre-interview assessment, the only way non-academic components could play a role is in the Autobiographical Sketch.

Well, to my knowledge, McMaster doesn’t admit to using the 48 item Autobiographical Sketch. Rather, this 33% is supposedly only based on 5 short essay questions each being up to 700 characters long (which ends up being ~100 words usually). This year, those questions where:

1. Ethics is considered one of the most important traits in a future physician. Describe an ethical dilemma that you have faced, how you dealt with it and what you learned from it.

2. Gauging that you have learned enough is arguably one of the more difficult aspects of a self-directed learning program. What strategies have you (or will you) use to ensure your learning is progressing at an appropriate pace?

3. Give an example of how you have been challenged around the issue of cultural competency and how you handled it.

4. What efforts have you made to determine if a career as a physician is the right career for you?

5. What do you think has been the most important contribution that you have made so far in your life?

Obviously, some of these questions require non-academic experiences, and the quality of those experiences can help you formulate a better answer. But, as I have expressed in many articles before, the quality of your answer often depends more on how you express yourself than the actual examples you rely on. Great experiences don’t directly equate to great essay answers. It takes a lot of hard work and skill to express those experiences in a way that impresses the evaluator within a 700 character limit. It’s also important to realize that the McMaster admissions committee only sees what you tell them – so if you won a Nobel Prize, well, they won’t know unless there’s actually a question where it makes sense for you to mention it and you choose to use it. Finally, your answers to these five questions only make up 33% of your pre-interview score – again, GPA is more important.

Once you get to the actual interview stage, the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) is the deciding factor. It’s worth 66%, and is essentially the deciding factor, since most applicants that get to the interview stage likely all have strong GPAs now. So the question now is, do your non-academic experiences play a role in the MMI? In my experience, I would say that your non-academic experiences are unlikely to play a direct role in helping you with the stations. MMI stations generally involve critical thinking more than anything, as you are dealing with situations and responding to them. You are significantly more likely to be asked to discuss health care policy than your most important volunteer experience.

While it is true that diverse non-academic experiences can help you develop skills and knowledge that will aid you in the interview (e.g. teamwork, communication, etc.), my point is that you’re not being graded directly on those experiences.

Queen’s University

The Queen’s admissions committee selects applicants to be interviewed only through a GPA and MCAT cutoff. It doesn’t matter if you are a Rhodes scholar, on the cover of Nature magazine, or whatever. If you don’t have the marks and MCAT score, you don’t have a shot at Queen’s.

That being said, at the interview stage, the two interviewers do have your 48 item autobiographical sketch. While it is a tool for the interviewers to get to know you better, again, you’re not graded directly on it. And while you will undoubtedly need to rely on your non-academic experiences to answer the interview questions, again, the skill of interviewing well and marketing yourself in person is a much more significant factor than your actual experiences.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that you would be successful in the medical school admissions process without having done nothing but study. But just because you haven’t won a million awards, volunteered with medical organizations overseas, or been the president of five university clubs, does not mean you have a significantly worse shot than people who do.

University of Western Ontario

Pretty much the same as Queen’s University. They have GPA and MCAT cutoffs to decide who makes it to the interview round. However, the Western interviewers aren’t given anything about you, so even more so, being able to market yourself is significantly more crucial than having simply done things.

University of Toronto

Unless things have changed, academics are weighted 60% both before and after the interview.

And from what I’ve heard, your personal essay and reference letters are the most important aspect of your non-academic score before the interview. When you read some of the online premed forums, there are often complaints about the admissions process. Applicants who seemingly have “amazing non-academic profiles” get rejected pre-interview on an annual basis, making a lot of students think the entire process is just some random lottery.

The problem with simply posting “stats” as applicants like to call them, is that the stats tell us nothing. They tell us nothing about how the essay and reference letters were written, which is what applicants are primarily graded on. As I have stressed many times over, writing essays is in itself a skill set. Your essay is not going to be magnificent simply because your resume is a mile long. The two have zero correlation.

I’m not going to deny that given two exactly same essays, one with “on the cover of Nature magazine” and the other with “had a publication”, the former will likely score better (though not necessarily significantly). My point is that you don’t need to never sleep and have saved the world to prove you will be a good doctor. And that if you’re going to spend extra time on something, unless you are already doing really well, spend that time boosting your grades.

But I should still do something, right? So what non-academic / extra-curricular things should I do?

First of all yes, you should do something. Even if you aren’t applying to medical school, I think you’re missing out on a lot if you don’t pursue things outside of the academic world. Whether that’s sports, music, research, arts, traveling, charity, hobbies, etc. All of these things provide education in many things that you can’t find in the classroom. They are valuable to your personal development, enjoyment, and sanity.

But since we’re talking about medical school, you want to know what I’d suggest, right? Okay, well first off, let me say that one of the questions that I hate the most is “what type of activities should I do to get into medical school?”. Tell a student interested in applying to medical school that you got in, and sometimes, one of the first questions you’re asked is: “So, what extra-curriculars did you do?” Honestly, this question drives me insane sometimes.

I generally don’t answer the question directly. I’ll just mention some random stuff I do in my free time. But most of the time I’ll just say that it doesn’t matter. There is no magical formula. I don’t know why people keep thinking this, but it’s not like doing X, Y, and Z means you’ll automatically get into medical school. It does not work like that.

For instance, a lot of people might tell you that medical schools expect you to have volunteered in a hospital. Well, that’s wrong. How do I know? Well, I have never volunteered in a hospital in my entire life, and I still got in!

What it comes down to is that you should get involved in things you find some enjoyment in. I know it sounds cliche, but you don’t want to do things simply for your resume because then your entire life becomes a chore. I’m not afraid to admit there are a few things I did because I thought I “should” for medical school, and I regret all of them. It’s not worth it, and it probably won’t affect your chances (unless you’re way too lazy to do anything in the first place). Whether you like joining your school’s band, playing varsity or intramural sports, joining your school’s cultural association, or whatever. Do it first and foremost for you, and figure out the rest later.

All that being said, I do think it’s a good idea to get some experience in the health care field. Not just because it will probably be good for your application, but if you’re serious about spending the next six to ten years training in medicine, not withstanding the thousands of dollars in expenses, don’t you think you should have some basic idea of what you’re getting yourself into? Granted, volunteering at a hospital or shadowing a physician isn’t the same as actually being a doctor, but those types of activities will at least give you some basic insight into the field. So not only will it give you an idea of what being a physician might be like, but it demonstrates to admissions committees and interviewers that you’ve obviously put some thought into the career.

What is your point, really?

I get the feeling this entire article is pretty disorganized and just a bunch of rambling in a lot of places. So let me try and sum up what I’m trying to say.

Are non-academic experiences like extra-curriculars important? Yes, they are important to your personal growth, and yes they are important to the medical school admissions process. However, what exactly you’ve done is not as important as the lessons and skills you’ve taken away from them, and how well you can explain that via essays and the interview.

You don’t need to be involved in a gazillion things and have a resume a mile long (yes, I realized this is the third time I’ve used this phrase!). Just do things you enjoy, spend some time exploring the health care field, and then (this is key) spend a significant amount of time strategizing which experiences you should choose to mention in your essay and how to sell it best (and the same goes for the interview) – of course, how to do that well, is a discussion for another day.