CARMS APPLICATION GUIDE - DOCTOR OF MEDICINE PROGRAM FACULTY OF MEDICINE MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY - FACULTY OF MEDICINE, MUN
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CaRMS Application Guide
Doctor of Medicine Program
Faculty of Medicine
Memorial UniversityContents
COVID-19 Modifications................................................................................................................................ 2
1. MCAT ................................................................................................................................................. 2
2. Grades – Winter 2020 ....................................................................................................................... 2
Profile ............................................................................................................................................................ 3
CASPer ........................................................................................................................................................... 3
Residence Information .................................................................................................................................. 4
Indigenous Application Program................................................................................................................... 4
Education ...................................................................................................................................................... 5
Yearly Progress.......................................................................................................................................... 6
Pending Courses........................................................................................................................................ 7
MCAT......................................................................................................................................................... 8
Other ............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Scholarships & Awards.............................................................................................................................. 8
Employment .............................................................................................................................................. 9
Extracurricular Activities ........................................................................................................................... 9
General Guidelines ................................................................................................................................ 9
References .............................................................................................................................................. 10
Additional Information............................................................................................................................ 10
Attaching Documents ................................................................................................................................. 11
Payment ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
Submitting Your Application ....................................................................................................................... 11
1COVID-19 Modifications
Due to COVID-19 we have made some changes to the admissions process for the 2020-2021 cycle. These
changes apply only to the 2020-2021 application cycle. The application deadline remains 11:59PM
September 2, 2020.
1. MCAT
Please see the table below to view changes:
Original Deadline Revised Deadline
Application Deadline September 2, 2020 ---- no change ----
MCAT deadline August 15, 2020 September 12, 2020
MCAT expiry September 2, 2015 September 2, 2014
The MCAT deadlines above refer to the deadline to write the exam only; exams written between August
15, 2020 and September 12, 2020 will have their scores available on September 15, September 22, and
September 29, respectively. You are strongly advised to release your score to Memorial University when
you register for the exam; this step is often skipped by applicants and then forgotten. If your score is
released by AAMC and you have not designated MUN to receive it OR you have not released it to CaRMS
upon its availability, we will not receive it and your application will be closed. You will not be contacted
by the Admissions Office to release your score. The deadline to release your score is October 3, 2020.
Absolutely no extensions or exceptions will be made beyond this date.
2. Grades – Winter 2020
Due to the difficulty in assigning values to grades obtained with a final mark of ‘Pass’ and/or not knowing
what reported numerical grades are based on, grades reported from the Winter 2020 semester will be
considered separately, in conjunction with the past performance of the applicant. We appreciate that not
all applicants had the option to receive grades from their university and would also like to acknowledge
those students who continued to achieve academically either, through or in spite of, the challenges
created by COVID-19.
One semester of grades is not significant enough on its own to remove or include any applicant from
either interview consideration or acceptance to the matriculating class. Given the upheaval due to COVID-
19, extra consideration will be given to the holistic review of applications. We appreciate that the Winter
2020 semester has been a difficult and stressful time for students and are committed to giving applications
extra deliberation where necessary.
Directions on how to enter the grades from this semester can be found in the “Yearly Progress” section
on page 5 of this guide.
2Profile
Enter your current contact information, including present and permanent addresses. If any of this
information changes after you have submitted your application, you must contact CaRMS at
admissions@carms.ca and the Admissions Office at munmed@mun.ca and advise both in writing.
If you are a repeat applicant, any personal information you entered in a previous application will be saved
under your account. It is your responsibility to update this accordingly. Transcripts, MCAT scores, and
references are NOT carried forward from year to year; each year is a new cycle and all of these documents
must be submitted again. MCAT scores must be released to CaRMS with each application cycle. The only
exception to this procedure is for credential evaluations. If you have attended a university outside of
Canada or the United States and have submitted a credential evaluation with a previous application and
your academic record at that institution has not changed, you do not need to submit a new credential
evaluation. In such instances, you need to contact CaRMS in writing and request that your credential
evaluation be carried forward to your current application. Please notify the Admissions Office on any such
requests via munmed@mun.ca . See the “Education” section in this handbook for further information on
credential evaluations.
Email is our preferred mode of communication with all applicants; you are strongly advised to use an email
account that you use and/or check regularly as well as adding munmed@mun.ca to your safe senders list.
If further information is needed by the Admissions Office regarding your application, you will be contacted
by email and, if you are offered an interview (and then accepted), you will receive notification via email,
therefore, it is key that you use an email account that you monitor regularly.
CASPer
The CASPer exam is now a requirement to apply to the Medicine program at Memorial University,
effective June 1, 2020. CASPer is a situational judgement test that measures the non-academic attributes
required to be a successful physician. Detailed information about CASPer including the test theory and
format, a practice test, and how to register for the exam, can be found at https://takecasper.com/. The
test dates for Memorial are August 13, 2020 and August 30, 2020 only; scores obtained outside of these
dates will not be accepted for this cycle. Your score is valid for one year only and CASPer must be written
each year you apply to medical school.
Your CASPer ID will be your 8-digit AAMC ID that is generated when you register for the MCAT. It is advised
to copy and paste this ID directly to avoid incorrect digit entries. Numerical errors made by the applicant,
which result in incorrect or missing CASPer scores, will not be corrected by the Admissions Office and
applications without CASPer scores will be considered incomplete and closed.
Like the MCAT, you must authorize the release of your score from Altus Assessments to Memorial in order
for us to receive it. CASPer scores must be released to Memorial and not CaRMS. If you do not release
your score your application will be closed for being incomplete.
3Residence Information
Select the residence pool to which you feel you belong ; if there are any questions concerning your
residency, the Admissions Office will contact you for further documents to support your claim.
Applications that are placed in the wrong residency pool by the applicant are not rejected; rather, you will
be notified by the Admissions Office that your residence pool is being changed.
Please be advised that the definition of a Newfoundland & Labrador (NL) resident has changed, effective
June 1, 2020 and it is NOT the same as the University’s definition for general admission to Memorial. If
you cannot clearly demonstrate that you can satisfy the criteria herein, you will be removed from the
Newfoundland and Labrador pool. In such instances, the Admissions Office will notify you in writing.
If you are applying as a resident of New Brunswick (NB) or Prince Edward Island (PE), please note that the
individual governments in those provinces make the final decision on residency for these seats. If further
information is requested from applicants in either of these pools, the Admissions Office will contact you
by phone or email. All information collected from applicants is then passed on to the respective
governments.
If you are not applying as a resident of NL, NB, or PE you need to select Other Canada/International (OCI).
Note to International Students:
If you are applying as an international student, and DO NOT have Permanent Resident status in Canada,
you will be ineligible for the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS), in your 4th year of the
undergraduate medical program. All universities in Canada use CaRMS to match medical students to post-
graduate residency programs and you must be a Canadian citizen or Permanent Resident to qualify for
the CaRMS matching process. Students studying in Canada via Visas are not eligible to apply for a
residency in Canada through CaRMS. You are strongly advised to be self-informed regarding the residency
rules for CaRMS before submitting your application to the undergraduate medical program.
Indigenous Application Program
If you are applying as an Indigenous applicant, you will need to complete an additional section of the
application and provide additional information as requested. Please note that if you are an Indigenous re-
applicant, the questions you must answer have changed and you must demonstrate your connection and
commitment to your Indigenous community. At this time, Memorial has Indigenous seats reserved for
residents of Newfoundland and Labrador only, however, we encourage all Indigenous applicants to apply.
4Education
You must enter all secondary and post-secondary institutions you have attended and list any degrees
obtained at the post-secondary level. If you have completed an exchange semester, you do not need a
credential evaluation (www.wes.org) IF you have only one exchange semester. If you have 2 or more
exchange semesters you will need a credential evaluation with a course-by-course analysis. If you have
completed your post-secondary education outside of Canada or the United States, you will need a
complete credential evaluation with course-by-course analysis. Credential evaluations must be sent to
CaRMS by the application deadline; your application will not be considered without this evaluation.
Credential evaluations can take up to two months or longer; therefore, you are strongly advised to
investigate the requirements well in advance of the application deadline.
If you are not a student or graduate of Memorial University, your official transcript must be issued by your
institution on or before the deadline date. All transcripts issued on your behalf by your university have
an issue date – this date must be on or before the application deadline. This does not mean that your
transcript must be received by CaRMS by the deadline date. Electronic transcripts issued by your
institution by the deadline date and submitted to the URL provided by CaRMS will be visible on your
CaRMS account within 48 hours; those by mail should be received within two weeks and will be accepted.
Transcripts will be accepted electronically via one of the three methods below:
1. Via URL:
i. Advise your university’s Registrar’s Office that there is an online URL for sending
transcripts to CaRMS with your request for a transcript;
ii. The university should then contact CaRMS at admissions@carms.ca to request the
necessary information and to obtain a URL;
iii. Once CaRMS receives the transcript they will upload it to your application.
2. Via email directly to CaRMS:
i. If your university cannnot use the URL but can send a transcript as a PDF it should be sent
to CaRMS at documents@carms.ca and issued to CaRMS, as directed on our webpage.
3. By a third-party provider:
i. If your university uses a third-party provider and will not send official transcripts via the
URL above or the document@carms.ca email, you should request a transcript from your
institution and have it issued to “Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of
Newfoundland”
ii. Request that the transcript be sent to Memorial via munmed@mun.ca
iii. You will receive a confirmation from the Admissions Office via email when your transcript
is received and it will be forwarded to CaRMS by our office; CaRMS does not retrieve
transcripts from third-party providers.
Under no circumstances are you to send your own transcript to CaRMS; transcripts received in this way
and issued to the applicant are not accepted by the Admissions Office. You are strongly advised to
request your transcript in plenty of time to allow for processing within your institution; depending on your
5university, this can be up to 7 business days or longer. Applications that are incomplete due to transcripts
being issued after the deadline date will be closed. Due to COVID-19, we will be accepting electronic
transcripts ONLY if they are sent directly by your institution to CaRMS.
If you are a student of Memorial University, you do not need an official transcript to accompany your
application, we are able to access and upload your transcript internally.
Yearly Progress
You need to enter your annual progress at the post-secondary level, with the total number of courses
taken and the average over that time period. For a four-year degree, most applicants have a minimum of
4 entries (3 if you will be finishing your degree in the semesters after your application is submitted). For
many applicants, an annual academic year runs from September to April (August if you are in studies over
the summer).
Correct:
Due to COVID-19, any grades obtained in the Winter 2020 semester should be entered like the above
examples. If you were only able to receive ‘Pass/Credit’ as final grades, for example, from your university
for the Winter semester and also have grades for the Fall 2019 semester, please enter your grades as
below:
Institution Start date End date Number of Courses Average Grade
Dalhousie University Sept. 2017 April 2018 10 85
Dalhousie University Sept. 2018 April 2019 10 84
Dalhousie University Sept. 2019 April 2020 10 84 Enter average for Fall 2019 semester only.
Enter all courses taken.
In the above example, you obtained all numerical grades in the Fall semester for 5 courses and received
‘Pass/Credit’ for the 5 courses you took in the Winter 2020 semester. The latter grades will be looked at
separately in conjunction with your past academic performance. If you received all ‘Pass/Credit’ for the
Winter 2020 semester, please note that the omission of one semester numerical grades will not greatly
impact your overall average, in either a negative or positive way, and will not be significant enough on its
own to either remove or include you from interview consideration.
6If you were able to obtain grades for the Winter semester for either some or all courses, include any
numerical grades in the calculation of your Average Grade from September 2019 to April 2020 (or August
2020).
Incorrect:
Do not enter GPA for Average Grade:
Do not enter averages per semester:
Enter all courses completed during the same time period at the same university as one annual entry*.
*This should be one entry, Sept 2015 – April 2016, 10 courses, avg. = 93.
Academic information entered by the applicant is validated internally via their official transcript. If there
is any disagreement between the official transcript and entries made by the applicant, the former will
prevail.
Pending Courses
If you will be continuing with post-secondary studies after the application deadline, enter the courses that
you plan on taking in the fall, winter, and summer (if applicable) semesters. The actual courses you end
up taking are not as important as the intention behind the courses. Since course offerings are subject to
change for many universities, students are not required to take the courses indicated on their application.
For example, if you list BIOL 4325 on your application for winter semester 2021 but due to scheduling
7conflicts (or other reasons) you are unable to take this course, and need to take BIOL 4450 instead, that
will be ok. As long as the requirements of your degree are fulfilled by the time you would start class in
August of 2021, the actual courses listed on your application are not as important, unless they are required
courses. However, keep in mind that it is expected that students maintain the degree of difficulty in their
courses as they progress through their degree, i.e. if you are in your 4th year of studies, your elective
courses should be third and fourth-year courses, not entry level courses from first-year that are typically
easier.
If you are not a current student of Memorial University and; will be completing courses after the
application deadline; and are offered an interview, you will need to forward an updated copy of your
transcript after the fall 2020 semester is complete.
MCAT
Entering your AAMC ID into your CaRMS application DOES NOT release your MCAT score(s) to Memorial
University. You need to enter all writings of the MCAT into the application and then log into your AAMC
account (the same account you created to register for and write the MCAT) and manually release your
score(s) to Memorial University. If your score is available when you submit your application, it will be sent
to CaRMS. If your score will become available between September 2, 2020 and September 29, 2020,
inclusive, you can release it in advance through your AAMC account when you write the exam (it will be
sent automatically to schools that you designate when the score is released) or you can release it to
Memorial after it is available by AAMC. Exceptions will not be made for applicants who fail to release
their MCAT score by the published deadlines and you will not be contacted by the Admissions Office to
release your MCAT score. The MCAT must be written within 6 years of the application deadline; scores
written before September 2, 2014 are expired and will not be considered 1. The final date to release MCAT
scores is October 3, 2020. Submitted applications with missing or expired MCAT scores will be closed
on October 4, 2020.
Other
Scholarships & Awards
List any scholarships and/or awards given in sequential order with a brief description of the
award/scholarship in the space provided as well as indicating the monetary value of the award, if
applicable. Common awards like the Dean’s List do not require a description; anything unique to your
post-secondary institution or community, particularly if you are an applicant who resides outside of
Newfoundland and Labrador, that others may not recognize should have a brief description.
1
This extension applies to the 2020-2021 application cycle only. The normal timeframe for valid scores is 5 years.
8Employment
When completing employment, enter work-experience obtained starting at the post-secondary level. If
you began working in a position or for a company/organization while in high school AND continued doing
so while completing your post-secondary education, it is permitted as a work experience entry. Do not
enter any work experiences that have not already occurred or are tentative into the future. For example,
if you will start a new position in September 2020 that will continue into the future, do not enter it as a
completed work experience with a future end date.
Use the following definitions to guide you in categorizing your work experience descriptions:
• Work Term - if you have completed a work term, practicum, or placement that is required as part
of your degree, Master’s, or Ph.D. program, whether paid or unpaid, use Work Term. Do not use
Full-time during University. If you completed a work term/placement that led to employment at
the end of the work term, outside of the requirements for your post-secondary program, make
two entries: one identified as Work Term and one as employment as defined below.
• Part-time – less than 30 hours per week at one position, either upon graduation from of a post-
secondary degree or in the summers (or equivalent) between post-secondary semesters. You are
not in school during this time.
• Full-time – 30 or more hours per week at one position, either upon graduation of a post-secondary
degree or in the summers (or equivalent) between post-secondary semesters. You are not in
school during this time.
• Part-time during University - less than 30 hours per week at one position, while attending
university on either a full-time or part-time basis.
• Full-time during University - 30 or more hours per week at one position, while attending university
on either a full-time or part-time basis.
Extracurricular Activities
Extracurricular activities are an important part of the application and can encompass a wide range of
undertakings; they are an opportunity to show the Committees how you spend your time outside of
employment and/or academics. Acceptable extracurricular activities are those that you take part in or
perform regularly and have a history doing for a notable period of time over the past 5-7 years, not one-
off events. The number of entries you can make is limited; therefore, it is important that you select those
activities that demonstrate long-standing commitment and/or involvement.
General Guidelines
Don’t include:
• research completed as part of an honours, Master’s, or Ph.D. thesis; this is assumed to be included
in your academic history if a thesis was a part of your post-secondary education.
• unpaid work terms or placements that are part of your post-secondary education; these go in
Employment.
• regular daily activities i.e. childcare, cooking meals, leisure activities, etc.
9• activities that have yet to occur i.e. a new volunteering position whereby you anticipate
involvement 2 hours per week into the future but currently have no or very limited hours.
Do’s
• volunteer research not associated or required with the completion of your post-secondary
education;
• consistent involvement with charities, non-profits, community groups or volunteer organizations;
References
In order to submit the names of referees, you must complete the payment first. After you do so, you will
be directed back to the reference page to enter the contact info for your referees.
The rules for acceptable references have changed, effective June 2020. You must have two acceptable
references, one of which must be from an academic referee. Please consult the Reference Guidelines
2020-2021 for comprehensive descriptions of acceptable referees. References submitted on behalf of an
applicant from referees that do not meet the acceptable criteria will not be accepted and the
application will be closed. If you have requested a reference from a referee that is not acceptable, you
will not be contacted by the Admissions Office, either before or after the application deadline, to submit
a new reference. You are strongly advised to be self-informed on the Reference Guidelines and contact
the Admissions Office for advice if you are in doubt over the acceptability of a referee.
If a referee is not responding in a timely manner to your request, it is highly recommended that you select
a new one to avoid the closure of your application. In such instances, you must notify CaRMS at
admissions@carms.ca and the Admissions Office at munmed@mun.ca so your application can be updated
with a new named referee. CaRMS will send the new referee a reference link after they have received
your request.
Additional Information
If you feel the emergence of COVID-19 has had an impact on your application, with respect to academics,
extracurricular activities, and/or employment, you may use this section to explain how your application
has been affected.
If there is any important information, excluding autobiographical information, that you feel is important
for the Committees to know that does not fit in the other categories, you can add it in this section. Most
applicants leave this section blank; it is an optional section and there is no need to add further
information.
10Attaching Documents
Do not supply more documents than you are asked to provide in the application. Many applicants attach
their CV, letters of support (excluding Indigenous applicants), extra references, publications, etc. Any
additional documents that are supplied but not relevant to or required for the application process are
removed from your application prior to review by either the Interview Committee or the Admissions
Committee. The only references considered are from those referees who are named in your application,
unless you have had to change a referee and have informed both CaRMS and the Admissions Office
accordingly. References supplied from referees not named on your application are not read or considered
and are removed from your file.
Payment
The total cost of applying to Memorial University is a processing CaRMS fee of $156.75 (plus applicable
provincial tax) plus a $75 application fee to Memorial University. You must make payment in full before
reference requests will be sent to named referees on your behalf.
Financial assistance with the application fees is available to applicants who demonstrate sincere hardship.
If you need to avail of fee assistance, you must contact the Admissions Office at munmed@mun.ca at
least two weeks in advance of the deadline date. If you fail to allow enough processing time for your
request to be considered, your request for financial assistance will not be reviewed sufficiently before the
application deadline. Fee assistance cannot be retroactively granted to applicants who have already paid
the application fees.
Submitting Your Application
After your application is submitted, you will not be able to edit any information entered, with the
exception of personal contact info. If you move or obtain a new phone number or preferred email, you
will be able and must update it on your application. It is strongly recommended to start your application
several weeks in advance of the deadline and to ensure it is proof-read for inclusion, accuracy, spelling,
punctuation, and grammar. Requests to modify applications after the deadline, including the addition of
information that was left out by the applicant, will not be honoured. It is the applicant’s personal
responsibility to ensure that all information they wish to present about themselves is included in their
application at the time of submission.
11If you are attending any post-secondary education after the application deadline, you will need to send
an updated transcript to the Admissions Office at the end of that semester with your final grades, ONLY if
you are selected for an interview.
You are able to monitor your account under “Document Tracking” for documents received on your behalf
at CaRMS and are encouraged to do so. A document can be considered in the system when it has a status
of ‘Submitted’, ‘Scanned’, or ‘Uploaded’ and a date appears under the Date column. If a reference letter's
status is 'Created' or 'Finalized', it has not yet been received at CaRMS.
Do not contact the Admissions Office to confirm receipt of documents unless you have checked your
CaRMS account first and enough time has passed that your documents should have been received at
CaRMS.
If you have any questions that are not answered in this guide, please contact the Admissions Office at
munmed@mun.ca or 709-864-6328.
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