Academic Calendar 2025-2026

Admission Requirements

Each application pathway has its own supplemental document requirements.

Review these additional items and submit the appropriate documentation for consideration by the deadline.

The Admissions Committee is unable to review and evaluate application documents that are not written in English. This will deem your application incomplete. 

Academic Requirements

Transcripts

Official transcripts are required for each university, college, CEGEP, junior college, graduate school or other postsecondary institution you currently attend, previously attended or withdrew from. This also includes International Baccalaureate (IB) or Advanced Placement (AP) transcripts.

You must submit a separate transcript even if your home school transcript shows an exchange or transfer course, regardless of whether the course of study is relevant to your application.

Your application will be disqualified if you fail to meet all transcript requirements and deadlines.

Grade Point Average (GPA)

The minimum GPA to apply is 3.0 on the 4.0 scale, according to the Undergraduate Grade Conversion Table.

The Admissions Committee will use only a cumulative GPA when assessing your application.

Course Credits

To be eligible, you must have a minimum of 15 full courses or 30 half courses (or in combination) at the undergraduate level in a university program by June 30 of the year of entry.

Applicants must have completed a minimum of 10 full or 20 half courses (or in combination) of the 15 full courses or 30 half courses at the undergraduate level in a university program. These credits must be achieved by the end of the academic year (September to April) in the year the application is submitted. This would typically equate to a total OMSAS course load weighting of 30 (refer to the OMSAS course weight table).

Only undergraduate university credit courses that meet Queen’s University Basis of Admission for Advanced Study are considered in the GPA.

Full Course Load and Prerequisite Courses

Queen’s School of Medicine does not have any requirements related to carrying a full course load or prerequisite courses. 

We encourage you to consider all undergraduate programs available and to embark on the course of study you have the greatest interest in, and that would prepare you for an alternative career, should you not gain a place in medicine. 

Transfer Credits

IB, AP, CEGEP programs, college courses and exchange credits that appear on your university transcript are not included in your GPA calculation but are considered in the credit requirement totals, provided all other requirements are met.

For transfer credits to be considered in the credit requirement totals, applicants must provide an official transcript with numerical grades from the institution where the courses were taken, including secondary school. They must also indicate how international grades are assessed (World Education Services assessment) and if there were credit/no credit or pass/fail course limitations.

Credit/No Credit Courses

To be eligible for a GPA calculation, an applicant can have no more than 2 credit/no credit academic components (e.g., course, practicum, lab, experiential learning) from September to April and from May to August, per year, listed on their transcript for anything (i.e., a course that has an OMSAS half-year/semester weight of 1). This includes the following:

  • Exchange programs and courses
  • Practicums
  • Labs
  • Experiential learning

If the structure of your program does not allow for this, then you must submit official documentation from the institution as to why you do not have a choice to select a numerical or alpha grade. This will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

This treatment of credit/no credit courses will take effect for any courses taken in fall 2022 and onward.

International Grades

Applicants attending university outside Canada, or at an accredited university in the US, must have their academic credentials and foreign transcripts assessed for Canadian equivalency by World Education Services (WES).

A course-by-course WES evaluation with an overall GPA is required. If a WES assessment includes a copy of your official transcript, you are not required to request a transcript from your registrar.

If you have an international university education and meet the minimum course number requirement with Canadian or US undergraduate university degree level work, the international grades will not be used to calculate the GPA. In this case, a WES evaluation is not required; however, the transcript must be sent directly from the international university to OMSAS by the deadline.

MCAT

You must write the MCAT prior to the OMSAS application deadline. It is your responsibility to release all MCAT scores to OMSAS and ensure that OMSAS has received them by the stipulated deadline. OMSAS will report your scores to Queen’s University.

You must meet all the minimum MCAT thresholds (the total and each section) set by the Admissions Committee to be considered. These thresholds are determined annually for each application cycle and category, and for the total score.

Notes:

  • The Queen’s School of Medicine imposes no restrictions on the number of times that you may take the test.
  • If you have written the test multiple times, you must ensure that all test results are released to OMSAS by the specified date.
  • All MCAT scores will then be reported by OMSAS to Queen’s University.
  • Test results are valid from any test written within 5 years of the application deadline.
  • Applications will be assessed based on the scores from your test results that meet our minimum thresholds. This means that all thresholds must be achieved in 1 test. We will not combine scores from different tests. 
  • Applicants who have submitted their MCAT score(s) with a previous application will need to re-submit their scores for the current application cycle to be eligible. It is your responsibility to ensure that these scores are received by OMSAS for the current application by the deadline. 

Non-academic Requirements

Citizenship and Resident Status

Applicants must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents (landed immigrants) of Canada at the application deadline to be eligible to apply to our program.

Permanent residents (landed immigrants) must submit a copy of the front and back of their current permanent resident card to OMSAS by the application deadline.

Proficiency in the English Language

To be granted admission, you must be proficient in spoken and written English. All application materials must be submitted in English, otherwise your application will not proceed further in the admission process.

The Queen’s Medical School Curriculum is conducted in English. Proficiency in English is a prerequisite for admission. Applicants whose first languages do not include English will be required to obtain satisfactory standing in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) proficiency test as part of the application process.

The Queen’s School of Medicine requires the following minimum TOEFL scores:

  • TOEFL Internet-based Test (TOEFL iBT): 100
  • TOEFL Paper-based Tests: 100

Applicants may submit unofficial TOEFL results through Secure Applicant Messaging (SAM); however, official TOEFL results must be shared with us directly through TOEFL.

To distribute your results to Queen’s University:

  1. Use Institution Code 0949 for Queen’s University and select “Undergraduate Organization” as the department from the list.
  2. Once you distribute your Official Score Report through TOEFL, email your full name, date of birth and registration number to queensmd@queensu.ca so that we can retrieve your results.

If English is not your first language but you have recently studied for at least 1 complete year at a university where English is the official language of instruction, you may be exempt from the English-language proficiency test. An applicant requesting a waiver of the test for this reason should do so in writing and submit it with their OMSAS application using SAM in their application. The Medical School Admissions Committee will make determinations in these cases.

Casper

Applicants to all of the streams/programs (Kingston MD Campus, MDFM Durham Campus, MD/PhD, MMTP, BSAP) offered at Queen’s University are required to complete Casper to be eligible for admission, with the exception of applicants to the Indigenous Student Admissions Pathway.

Casper is an online test that assesses the personal and professional characteristics we believe are important for successful students and graduates of our program. It is a complement to the other tools that we use for applicant screening. In implementing Casper, we are trying to further enhance fairness and objectivity in our selection process. 

To register your Casper account:

  1. Go to Acuity Insights to register your Casper account and sign up for the CSP-10211 – Canada Casper 2 version of Casper using a piece of government-issued photo ID and your OMSAS Reference Number for the current admission cycle.
  2. Select a Casper date. You will be provided with a limited number of testing dates and times. These are the only testing dates available for your Casper. There will be no additional tests scheduled. This includes if you have issues on the last testing date. Be sure to use an email address that you check regularly and that you have used for your OMSAS application; there may be updates to the test schedule.
    • Exceptions will not be provided for applicants who are unable to take Casper during one of the available test dates.
    • To account for identity verification and payment processing timelines, ensure that you register for your test at least 3 days before your preferred test date and time. We do not recommend last-minute bookings.
  3. Ensure you select Queen’s University for distribution before the posted Distribution Deadline. Likely, there will be no additional tests scheduled, but the most up-to-date information can be found by browsing the Test Dates and Times.
  4. Direct any inquiries about Casper to: support@altus.as. Alternatively, you may use the chat bubble on the Acuity Insights website.

Additional notes:

  • Casper scores are only available for 1 application cycle and the test is only offered on a select number of days. Applicants who have already taken the test in previous years are expected to re-take it.
  • We will not provide exceptions for applicants who are unable to take Casper during one of the available test dates. 
  • If you are applying to another university or program that requires you to write the Casper assessment in French, you will need to write it again in English for this application.
  • If you are writing a different version of the Casper assessment (other than CSP-10211 – Canada Casper 2 for your OMSAS application), you will also need to complete the CSP-10211 – Canada Casper 2 version for this application. 
  • There is a separate fee for Casper that you must pay directly to Acuity Insights. This fee is not included in the OMSAS or Queen’s application fees.
  • If you take Casper during this cycle but before you have your OMSAS Reference Number for the current application cycle, you will need to enter a placeholder OMSAS Reference Number of 000000 until you have received your OMSAS Reference Number for this year’s application. Then you must go back into Casper, update your OMSAS Reference Number and request that your score be distributed to Queen’s. 
  • It is your responsibility to provide the correct information to Casper that correlates with your current OMSAS application. If you do not follow these instructions, then your Casper score may not get linked to your application and will be considered incomplete. 

Accommodations for Casper

If you require testing accommodations for Acuity Insights, you will need to submit the Accommodations Request Form, which can be found on their website.

Autobiographical Sketch (ABS)

Queen’s School of Medicine uses the detailed ABS as part of the application evaluation. This submission provides our assessors with a snapshot of your personal experiences and achievements.

We consider the following 5 categories in the ABS:

  • Employment
  • Volunteer Activities
  • Extracurricular Activities
  • Awards and Accomplishments
  • Research

Ensure that the items you select are those most relevant to a medical school application. Items listed in the “Other” category will not be considered.

You will also be prompted to identify the top 3 activities you believe are most important for your application in the Employment, Volunteer Activities and Extracurricular Activities categories (maximum of 9 in total). Do not list high school activities that were not continued into your postsecondary education in your top 3 activities, as we do not consider them.

You must list:

  • the year in your education the activity occurred (i.e., first-year undergraduate, summer between second- and third-year undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate),
  • a brief description of the activity, which can be in point form,
  • the location of the activity and
  • the length of time for each activity. When you indicate the number of hours, specify if it is 1 time per week, per month or per year.

Notes:

  • The Admissions Committee will not review activities from high school. If you started an activity in high school and continued in postsecondary education, only the time starting at postsecondary is reviewed.
  • There is room in the form to provide information for up to 32 items. You are not required to fill all available spots.
  • Submissions are assessed based on the quality of the listed items and the characteristics they represent (not the number of items listed). 
Verifiers

Each activity must have a verifier. You must provide current contact information for the verifier, including their title, physical address, email address, telephone number and relation to you. Avoid using individuals such as family members. We do not consider them to be objective.

The verifier should be an independent third party who can validate your activity in a non-biased fashion. You will need to make that determination.

We cannot provide you with specific feedback regarding whom you should use as a verifier or for which type of verifier. Inquiries of this nature will be referred to this page.

It is your responsibility to notify verifiers that the Admissions Office may contact them at any time to request verification, including possibly asking them for evaluations or letters of support. Non-verifiable activities could adversely impact your file assessment.

Confidential Assessment Forms and References

You must ask 3 different individuals (we refer to them as referees) to provide a reference on your behalf. Forms from non-objective references will not be considered and may jeopardize your application.

Applicants must provide the following and use their best judgment when selecting referees. We do not provide guidance in selecting referees.

  • 1 academic or employment-related referee
  • 1 non-academic referee
  • 1 referee of your choosing

You should choose referees who can evaluate you in a non-biased fashion, avoiding family members, family friends, neighbours, acquaintances, friends or spiritual advisors. We do not consider them to be objective. Ideally, applicants should choose referees from different areas who can collectively address qualities and attributes in both academic and various non-academic domains.

Select referees who have extensive personal knowledge of you and can answer the Confidential Assessment Form questions. 

The Admissions Committee recommends choosing referees who have known you for a minimum of 6 months. You should ask your referee to provide examples of the characteristics they are being asked to comment on.

We cannot provide you with specific feedback regarding whom you should use as a referee or for which type of referee. Inquiries of this nature will be referred to this page. 

If an applicant has fewer than 3 forms submitted by the deadline, their application will not be considered.