Did you submit all required documentation?

• Official transcripts are required for each college, CEGEP, university, junior college, graduate school, or other post-secondary institution you attend/have attended/have withdrawn from. This includes transcripts for work taken on Letter of Permission, for transfer credit, or on an exchange program
• Three Confidential Assessment Forms(CAF) were submitted by three referees
• If you applied through the:
  • Indigenous Admissions Stream you were required to submit: (1) Your Personal Letter, (2) A letter of Recommendation from your community, and (3) Proof of your Indigenous Ancestry.
  • Francophone Admissions Stream you were required to submit: (1) An essay in French, and (2) A letter of Recommendation, which must both be written in French, and (3) Provide proof of French fluency.

Did you meet ALL deadlines as clearly outlined in the OMSAS information booklet?

Applications and all required documents were due to OMSAS by the application deadline.

Through your OMSAS account applicants can track receipt of their documents throughout the application process; therefore, you have the ability to know if your documents were received and on time.

Below are the three top documents that are most often missing from an application.

1. Transcripts from college, CEGEP, junior college, graduate school, or other postsecondary institution at which you have attend/have attended/have withdrawn from. This includes transcripts for work taken on Letter of Permission, for transfer credit, or on an exchange program.
2. WES Evaluation of Foreign Transcripts
   Applicants who are submitting transcripts for post-secondary education completed at universities outside of Canada or the US are required to have their foreign documents assessed by the World Education Services (WES).
3. Confidential Assessment Forms (CAFs)
   Be sure to follow up with your referees to make sure that they have submitted all of the required documentation by the deadline.

If you did not submit all required documentation by the deadline date that was outlined in the OMSAS booklet, your application was incomplete and is therefore disqualified.

• Did you present a 4-year undergraduate degree*?
• Are you a Canadian citizen or have permanent resident (landed immigrant) status at the time of application?
• Did you meet the minimum GPA 3.0 on a 4.0 scale calculated using all of the grades of undergraduate courses completed as of the OMSAS application?

*NOSM University will accept a 3-year degree for mature applicants (25 years of age or older by application deadline) for the application cycle of 2023 (entry in September 2024). After the 2023 application deadline, a 3-year degree will no longer meet the requirement for admission to the UME program.

If you failed to meet any one of the above requirements, your application would have been disqualified.

As with other Canadian medical schools, admission to NOSM University’s UME Program is highly competitive. It is important to keep in mind that many qualified applicants are not invited to interview simply due to the competitive nature of the application process.

The screening of applications for invitation to interview is based on three approximately equally weighted areas:

1. Undergraduate cumulative GPA (grade point average)
2. Autobiographical sketch/application questionnaire score
3. Context score

Typically, those who are competitive in all three areas of the application are invited to an interview. If you were not invited to interview, most likely you were not competitive in one area or more, even if you met the admission requirements.

1. What was your GPA?

Did you meet the minimum 3.0 GPA requirement? If not, then your application would have been disqualified. Although meeting the minimum GPA requirement makes you eligible for consideration, it is important to be competitive within the applicant pool; a higher GPA would provide you with a more reasonable chance of admission.

GPA Calculation facts to consider:

Grades are converted by OMSAS using a 4.0 scale according to the OMSAS Grade Conversion Table.

The GPA that appears on the OMSAS application is not necessarily the GPA that NOSM University will use. NOSM University calculates the GPA using all of the grades of undergraduate courses completed as of the OMSAS application deadline.

Marks for the final year courses that were in progress at the time of application were not included in the GPA. Should you reapply in the future, your completed course work will be included in your GPA.

We do not round up our calculation, so if your GPA was 2.98, your application would have been disqualified.

Graduate Degrees: After the initial GPA calculation to ensure compliance with the GPA cut-off (minimum 3.0 GPA), an additional 0.2 will be added to the undergraduate GPA. For example, if your undergraduate GPA is 3.3 and you have a graduate degree, your final GPA for consideration would be 3.5.  Your graduate degree must be conferred and OMSAS must have received your final transcript indicating graduation by December 1 of the application year to be considered for the 0.2 addition.

2. Did you represent yourself well on the Autobiographic Sketch/Admissions Questionnaire?

The score you receive for this portion of the application is based on both your Autobiographic Sketch and the answers to the Admissions Questionnaire.

NOSM University is looking for highly motivated students from a variety of backgrounds, who are self-directed, who will thrive in a small group-based, distributed learning environment, who have a genuine interest in helping us fulfill our mandate, and who uphold our values.

Do you know what NOSM University’s values are? Did you show your interest in those values through your autobiographical sketch and questionnaire?

Did you demonstrate your aptitude for practising medicine in Northern urban, rural and remote communities?

Autobiographical Sketch

Did you list all the activities that will provide the Admissions Committee with insight into who you are? Your autobiographic sketch should be a comprehensive list of the pertinent details of your activities since the age of 16.

Did you include experiences, both structured and non-structured, that demonstrate an ability to determine needs in one’s community and a willingness to play a part in meeting those needs?

Do your activities demonstrate that you are well-rounded and lead a balanced lifestyle outside of academics?

Admissions Questionnaire

The admissions questionnaire is an important part of the application. It provides the Admissions Committee with insight into who you are and what your motivation is in applying to medical school and to NOSM University in particular.

Did you reflect on the questions and formulate thoughtful answers?

Did you check, double-check, and triple-check your submission? You may want to ask other people to read your submissions and provide you with their feedback.

Did you answer the specific question that was asked?

3. Context Score

NOSM University’s aim is to admit a class whose profile reflects the demographics of the population of Northern Ontario. This aim includes the commitment to recruiting Indigenous and Francophone students as well as those with a strong desire to live and work in Northern Ontario, or in rural and remote areas in the rest of Canada. One of the ways we achieve this is by assigning a context score to each applicant.

NOSM University does not have any residency requirements for applicants; we have an algorithm that we employ to calculate context scores. We do not make this algorithm public.

In order for exceptional circumstances or disability-based consideration requests to be reviewed, an applicant must meet the minimum academic eligibility requirement of a 4-year undergraduate university degree, or equivalent, from a recognized institution in any discipline. If an application does not meet this minimum requirement the application will not be assessed. There is no flexibility in regard to this requirement. Exceptional circumstances or disability-based consideration requests submitted after the application deadline will not be considered.

All exceptional circumstances or disability-based consideration requests that are submitted by the application deadline and meet the minimum academic eligibility requirement of a 4-year undergraduate university degree, or equivalent, from a recognized institution, will be reviewed by the Office of Admissions. Whether and to what extent adjustments will be made is at the discretion of the Office of Admissions. All decisions are final.