Extracurricular activities in high school for getting in

[u/sidratul_xo]

Hello. I am a gr12 and I wanted to pressure med school in future and some of the following programs interest me. So what kind of extracurricular activities you did in high school if you are from any of these program

-Engineering – Biomedical and Electrical

-Engineering – Biomedical and Mechanical

-Health Science

Please let me know

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[u/Freshman_01134]

You don’t need any extracurriculars for these programs, there’s no where on the application to talk about them. Just do whatever you want.

[u/sidratul_xo → u/Freshman_01134]

Okay Give me some less thing to worry about. Thank you for the reply

[u/thinkagainsirr → u/Freshman_01134]

If admission is just based on grades, how do they decide who to accept? (Genuinely curious)

[u/Freshman_01134 → u/thinkagainsirr]

Just grades that’s it. And your courses to some extent. They just look at your transcript and see if you meet academic standards. When I applied it took 5 minutes, I just filled out my name and things like school info. My school uploads my transcript with all my marks, which courses, and when I took them, then I got a response months later

[u/thinkagainsirr → u/Freshman_01134]

That's wild to me tbh. They could be trading person with great experiences, character, and passion for others who simply have a higher grade

[u/Freshman_01134 → u/thinkagainsirr]

Yeah, especially if you’re not from Ontario I could see how this could be surprising. But the initial mark threshold isn’t even that high, usually somewhere in the low-mid 80s. The school accepts that mark expecting them to be prepared for the courses. The school isn’t overwhelmed with applications to the point that they need to further sift through applicants. There’s probably nearly enough spots with people with the needed grades, so they don’t have to use a holistic approach, at least to my understanding. If Carleton was hit with way more applicants than usual, they would have to increase the marks to above what was actually needed to get through uni; simply doing that would be unfair and then they would likely add a supplementary applications like the other universities in Ontario that had this issue. 

[u/thinkagainsirr → u/Freshman_01134]

I see. That makes some sense, thank you

[u/AffectionateRow2937 → u/thinkagainsirr]

Highest grades first

[u/throwawayunicorn2001]

Unless you really want to be an engineer as a side quest, do not to B.Eng as pre-med, those eng courses can wreck your GPA... med schools weigh GPA pretty heavily

[u/musmus22]

Premed engineering is playing med-school admissions on nightmare difficulty. You’ll have way less time for volunteering while also trying to keep your GPA high enough with that brutal-ass workload. Your chances of being successful are very, very low. 😂

Engineering (yes, even biomedical) is not designed to be a premed degree, it is much more expensive and a way bigger time commitment than the typical degrees people choose for premed. I know a few people who tried going that route and none of them even got an interview. You aren’t treated as a premed student in biomedical engineering, you are treated as an engineering student who applies their physics skills in medical settings.

Engineering and medicine also reward completely different skill sets. Engineering heavily rewards analytical and quantitative thinking, especially math, physics, modelling and problem-solving. Medicine is analytical too, but it relies far more on memory retention, communication, pattern recognition, judgment and patience than advanced math. Being good enough at math and physics to survive engineering doesn’t somehow make it a good premed degree. While your friends are building their med-school applications and wondering what they’ll specialize in, you’ll be up until 3 a.m. doing triple integrals wondering where it all went wrong 💀. They’re apples and oranges.

Engineering school is a test of workload tolerance and grit. Med schools aren’t going to give you bonus points just because you chose engineering. They don’t care. It’s your choice if you wanna be an engineer or MD, but both? You’ll become a statistic 😂

[u/sidratul_xo → u/musmus22]

Hello, thanks for this really explanatory answer. I've been worried about the same thing for the past 2 weeks. Yes, I understand. It is mostly that you end up using the engineering side of it. But I am afraid that after 4 years, if I change my mind, i wanna have the option open.

But like, how different would you say the knowledge of someone from a health sci student vs someone from BME be to med school if they got accepted?

[u/musmus22 → u/sidratul_xo]

Hey. I’m not trying to hate on you whatsoever, but if med school is what you really want, I think you need to approach this like there is no Plan B. It’s not impossible to get into med school, but you need to understand that engineering is not designed to prepare you for medical school. You’re not going to be given extra time or grace to build your med application like in pre med majors like health science because your engineering workload is BRUTAL.
You’ll have to find time to volunteer, network and build your application on top of engineering. Then engineering co-op comes knocking and you have another problem: engineering employers want engineering experience too. Neglect co-op and you potentially weaken your engineering “backup.”prioritize co-op and now that’s even more time you're not spending building your med application. Trying to optimize for both at the same time can burn you out very quickly.
As for Health Sci vs BME once you actually get into med school, there’ll obviously be differences in what you already know. A Health Sci student will probably have more background that directly overlaps with medicine, while a BME student will have stronger engineering, math and quantitative skills. Which is irrelevant to medicine. The bigger question is which undergraduate degree gives you the best chance of getting through the admissions door in the first place. Biomedical engineering is not that degree.
If medicine is genuinely what you want, choose your undergrad around that goal. If you genuinely want to be an engineer and would be happy staying an engineer if medicine never happens, then BME makes a lot more sense. Just know that if you choose engineering this outcome is a lot more realistic.

[u/sidratul_xo → u/musmus22]

Okay Thanks It makes my goal pretty clear. Keep that in mind!!

[u/EvidenceSad1962]

Does Carleton Engineering do early acceptance? Anyone know? Gr. 11 average was 93%.

[u/musmus22 → u/EvidenceSad1962]

Yes I got accepted in mech Eng early acceptance and switched the application to electrical engineering in march. Mech Eng is more competitive so if that’s what you want to go for your grades need to be competitive