So, you want to be a doctor?

For most schools, your extracurricular record is an important factor in the admissions decision. For some schools, it’s as crucial as a high GPA. “Being on a [sports] team is every bit as important as volunteering,” according to Wendy Edge, admissions coordinator at McMaster’s Faculty of Medicine. Extracurriculars can include anything from being the captain of a hockey team, taking care of someone in your family with special needs, or joining a choir. “We have former skip-rope champions,” said Sutton.

Schools want to see a history and genuine interest in the listed activities. “If we look at multiple years of extracurriculars, you see a pattern of behaviour,” says Dr. Ian Walker, director of admissions, undergraduate medical education, at the University of Calgary. Suddenly developing an intense interest in volunteering during your last semester of undergrad may not cut it.

Once you’ve made it to the interview, having earned a high GPA, scored well on the MCAT and done some serious jump rope, how to you avoid screwing it all up? First of all, look the interviewers in the eye. Dr. Barry Ziola, of the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine, identifies poor eye contact and a lack of communication skills as deal breakers. And leave the pocket protector at home. “Don’t be just a computer geek,” advises Ziola, “because computer geeks do not make good physicians.” How should you dress? According to Dr. Marc Blayney, senior associate dean of admissions at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, how you choose to put yourself together will say something about you—but the worst thing you can wear to the interview is what he calls “a very casual attitude.”

So how do admission committees decide whom to admit? Just like a first date, they’ll be looking to see if the chemistry is there or not. “We’re looking for people who have that spark,” said Queen’s medical admissions chair Dr. Michael Kawaja. “Sometimes you know in the first five minutes. They tend to have it all together, with their confidence, maturity.”

The good news is, getting into medical school isn’t as statistically unlikely as you might think. In 2006-07, 26.2 percent of all Canadian applicants were accepted. What about those who weren’t accepted? “You’ve got to have a Plan B and a Plan C,” says Ziola. One popular Plan B? If at first you don’t succeed, apply, apply again: 31 per cent of Dalhousie University’s class of 2011 were failed applicants from previous years.