Canadian-Friendly American Medical Schools: How To Get In

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A step-by-step guide to mastering the U.S. medical school admissions process, plus a list of American medical schools that accept Canadian students

A group of Canadian medical school students wearing blue scrubs

Students interested in applying to Canadian-friendly American medical schools should research each school’s specific requirements

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Part 1: Introduction

Many aspiring Canadian doctors are increasingly moving across the border to get their medical degrees in the United States. Some are hungry for an international experience. Some just want to get away from home. And some are put off by the extreme competitiveness of the Canadian school admissions process—where around 80 percent of applicants are routinely rejected from every institution to which they apply.

You might be considering joining the great migration but are probably beset with all sorts of questions.

What’s different about the American medical school admissions process, compared to its Canadian counterpart? Which U.S. admissions committees are most Canadian-friendly? How expensive is tuition at U.S. medical schools? And will you even be able to find a residency program—whether at home or in the United States—if you get your degree abroad? Can getting a medical degree in the U.S. help you eventually become a citizen?

The goal of this guide is to answer those questions and more. We’ll provide all the information you need to decide whether an American degree is right for you, plus a step-by-step plan for how to ace the admissions process.

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Part 2: Considerations for Canadians applying to U.S. medical schools

Which American medical schools accept Canadian students?

For all the uproar over rejection rates at Canadian medical schools, the U.S. admissions process is hardly a cinch either—only 43.7 percent of all applicants to American medical schools matriculated in the 2023–2024 application cycle. Just as in Canada, doctor shortages in the United States haven’t fully translated into higher medical school admissions rates because the demand among students to become doctors has grown as quickly as the need to train new ones.

This has made admissions especially difficult for international applicants, only 9 percent of whom were accepted last year. Most medical schools get state funding, and governments typically want their money to go to American students who are more likely to stick around and deal with the doctor shortage. Many schools, such as Albany Medical College and the Chicago Medical School, won’t allow international students to apply.

Canadians, however, have a leg up on other foreign applicants. Similarities in education and medical styles mean Canadian citizens who did their undergrad degrees at home have almost no trouble getting their coursework accepted and, in the case of so-called “Canadian-friendly” schools, are sometimes considered in the same applicant pool as out-of-state U.S. citizens.

How much do U.S. medical schools cost for Canadian students?

Getting your MD in the U.S. will, inevitably, cost you much more than it would in Canada. In the U.S., the median costs of yearly med school tuition for non-residents (i.e., out-of-state students) currently run $67,308 at public medical schools and $70,596 at private medical schools. That converts to around $90,764 and $95,199 CAD. These numbers are accurate as of February 18, 2024 on XE’s currency converter.

Compared with the cost of attending medical school back home—currently $16,798 CAD per year on average for Canadian citizens—enrolling in an American med school is about five times as expensive.

Canadian students are typically not eligible for medical school scholarships or financial aid, which are often government-funded and reserved for American students (though affluent, privately-funded institutions, such as Yale and Harvard, do have aid available for international students).

And since many schools—such as the New York Medical College—require you to prove you can pay your way through every year of the program at the time of admission, holding the money in escrow until you finish your degree, most students will have to apply for a hefty student loan from the Canadian government or a line of credit from a bank.

That’s about $330,000 CAD up front (not factoring in cost of living expenses). Interest on those loans can accrue quickly, especially if you opt for a line of credit (perhaps because your provincial government student loan program won’t foot the bill for the program you want).

So, assuming you’ll have little-to-no income during the four years of your MD and a salary of approximately $60,000–$75,000 CAD per year during your 3–5 year residency, it’ll probably take you much longer to repay those loans compared to a Canadian degree, which would only cost around $67,200 CAD in total.

So before you make your decision, contact your provincial student loan office, your local banks, and the financial aid offices at your chosen schools, to see what they might be able to offer you. You’ll have a better estimate of the costs and more clarity to decide what makes the most sense for you.

Can I bring my American MD back home for Canadian residences? Can I stay in the U.S. for my residency?

Unfortunately, your chances of matching to a residency program both at home and abroad will decrease if you decide to get an American medical degree.

In Canada, you’ll have to deal with a residency matching process that heavily favors graduates of Canadian medical schools. In 2023, 80.6% of Canadian medical school graduates successfully matched into Canadian residencies (2,850 out of 3,532), compared to 0.4% of U.S. medical school graduates (USMGs). Some Canadian residency programs don’t even consider USMGs, whereas others—such as the University of Toronto and McMaster University—place limits on such applicants.

This is in part because of the lobbying efforts of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, who want their students to fill up those coveted residency spots. (Officially, they justify their stance by claiming their curricula better prepare graduates to deal with Canadian medicine, but self-interest likely plays a role as well. They need to assure their students that they’ll get a return on their tuition fees.)

In the U.S. residency matching system, having a U.S. medical degree will be an advantage, but a preference for U.S. citizens and permanent residents will hurt you. Though we can’t quite know the extent of this preference, we know it exists because the number of residency programs to which a U.S.-trained Canadian can apply is restricted to those who are willing to offer them a J-1 or H-1B visa.

And while Canadians have, historically, had an easier time getting visas than applicants from other countries, the process is not immune to politics. You can learn more about the visa requirements for Canadian applicants in this guide.

So, if you’re deciding between Canadian and American degrees, a Canadian MD will maximize your chances of landing a residency in Canada. You’ll still have the option of relocating to the United States after your residency—though you’d then have to find an employer, pass the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), and get through the bureaucratic slog of attaining a U.S. H1-B or permanent residency.

However, if you’re deciding between doing your degree in the U.S. and another foreign country, such as Ireland or Australia, a U.S. degree is far safer if you want to do your residency in North America. Those nations’ MD programs train their students based on standards of local practice, which are unlike those of the United States and Canada (which are, by contrast, quite similar). As a result, international medical graduates (IMGs) educated outside of North America are less prepared for both the USMLE and the Medical Council of Canada Evaluating Examination.

Match rates for IMGs are also far lower in both systems, clocking in at 55–60% in the United States and 30% in Canada in 2021. Note that IMG status is determined by where you attended medical school, so if you graduate from an American med school, you won’t be considered an IMG when applying for American residencies, regardless of your citizenship.

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into Residency Programs as an IMG: The Ultimate Guide)

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Part 3: Getting into U.S. medical schools as a Canadian applicant

You might have read online that U.S. medical school admissions are more “holistic” than admissions in Canada, putting greater weight on life experience and personal context than GPA and test scores. But as we wrote in our guide to Canadian medical school admissions, the goals of the two processes aren’t necessarily that different.

Both cultures weigh GPA quite heavily, with the average GPA of successful applicants to U.S. medical schools hovering around 3.7. U.S. schools also tend to be more concerned with MCAT scores, since educational standards vary more across the country than in Canada; the average score of successful applicants to the American system is around 511.

(Recommended reading: Average GPA and MCAT Score for Every Medical School)

Yet both are also very aware—given their medical shortfalls—that most of their graduates will enter practice straightaway. They, therefore, tend to accept those applicants they think are most likely to make good doctors rather than simply choosing brainy types who might, say, thrive in a Ph.D.

That means accepting students with experience in the medical system and personal traits such as empathy, strong listening skills, and the desire to address public health issues. It also means accepting students who can add diversity to their student body, bringing an awareness of and commitment to the unique medical needs and histories of communities that are not white, urban, or affluent.

The difference between the two systems lies less in those final goals than in the metrics each nation uses to measure how well an applicant embodies those ideal-doctor traits.

Whereas personal statements, secondary essay questions, and panel-style interviews don’t carry as much weight in the Canadian system, most American institutions stand by them. And each of those metrics is designed to let you highlight a different aspect of how you would make a good doctor.

So, here’s how you can ace each of those metrics and the American medical school admissions process in general, step by step.

Step 1: Make a list of schools to apply to (1–2 years before deadline)

Canada has only 17 medical schools. The United States has 155 MD-granting institutions. Trying to apply to too many of these institutions—along with whatever Canadian schools you might be considering—can severely harm your application, draining your effort and motivation to tear through your secondary essay questions as much as your bank account.

So, put together a list of 15–25 schools according to our breakdown recommended in the guide below, making sure that your admissions target list has the right balance of competitiveness and restraint.  

(Recommended reading: How Many Medical Schools Should I Apply To? Which Ones?)

Step 2: Check the U.S. medical school admissions deadlines and requirements (1–2 years before deadline)

Most U.S. medical schools use the American Medical School Application Service (AMCAS) for their admissions process. (Notable exception: medical schools in Texas have their own application service, TMDSAS.) They’ll typically require you to submit:

  • An undergraduate transcript from an accredited Canadian or U.S. post-secondary institution showing you have completed certain academic prerequisites

  • A 5,300-character personal statement

  • MCAT scores

  • Secondary essays

  • 2–3 reference letters

  • A panel-style interview

As in Canadian admissions, academic prerequisites for U.S. medical schools will consist of a variety of science courses in biology, chemistry, and the like, but are more likely to include courses in the humanities, which schools such as Duke demand. Furthermore, while most American med schools will accept Canadian coursework for prerequisite fulfillment with no questions asked, you might want to call the admissions officers at your chosen schools and ask about their policies, just to be safe.

The AMCAS process usually revolves around the following dates:

  • End of May: Applications open for submission

  • End of June: Application deadline

  • Early–mid July: Secondary application questions released

  • September–February: Interviews

  • Mid-October–April 1st: Decisions released

You should therefore do the following:

  • Make sure that you’ve fulfilled or will fulfill prerequisites for chosen programs (one year before deadline)

  • Start arranging letters of recommendation (six months before deadline)

  • Take the MCAT three months before deadline (at the latest)

(Recommended reading: The Ideal Medical School Application Timeline)

Step 3: Beef up your extracurriculars (1–2 years before deadline)

A typical Canadian student’s application for U.S. medical school will look a lot like their American counterpart’s, including research, leadership and volunteering experiences, usually in fields connected to the medical system.

Elsewhere, we’ve written about how these activities, while necessary, are also common enough that they won’t really help you stand out from other applicants. A well-crafted personal statement, filled with genuine reflection on those experiences (or perhaps even more personal ones), is to some extent more important.

But some Canadians nevertheless feel they’re at a disadvantage in the U.S. medical school admissions process with regards to their extracurriculars, for a few reasons.

First, legal restrictions in Canada often limit students’ opportunities to get clinical experience before applying for medical schools, which admissions committees often look at to see whether a student has had a chance to observe what it means to be a good physician. Shadowing opportunities, for example, are far rarer and more limited in scope.

Second, Canadian applicants’ extracurriculars and experiences are, for obvious reasons, less likely to speak to the history, practices, and problems of U.S. healthcare—an invaluable asset in a system where universities are expected to train doctors for local practice.

Some Canadian applicants try to address this by going to the U.S. or some other foreign country and, for example, trying to volunteer at private hospital in order to demonstrate familiarity with a format far different from Canada’s public, single-payer system.

But a better approach may be to do things in your local community which speak to transnational problems. Try to volunteer with groups tackling healthcare issues ranging from nutritional health to geriatric care where you live, and do some research to see whether those issues have echoes in the areas where your preferred U.S. schools are located.

Vancouver’s safe-injection sites, for example—which provide drug users with clean needles, lowering overdose and HIV transmission rates—have been cited by numerous groups in the United States as a model to be followed as the country faces its opioid epidemic. American schools located in areas with similar problems to Vancouver would be very interested to hear from a student who’s volunteered at those sites.

They’d also be interested to hear from a student who has learned about mental health by counseling a friend over a number of years, or about the ways abuse can inhibit access to medical care by working at a women’s or senior’s center. Those activities might be less spectacular, but they’re important and universal issues nonetheless. What’s key is that you do some reading and learn how you can connect your local experiences to a U.S. context. (We’ll talk about how you can make these connections without sounding presumptuous later on.)

Step 4: Write your personal statement (2–3 months before deadline)

The personal statement is your chance to show admissions committees how your story sets you up to be a fantastic physician—how it helped you understand the importance of empathy and listening, or how it gave you an intriguing perspective on an important medical issue. This is exactly why the AMCAS personal statement prompt is so vague, asking applicants to “use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school” in up to 5,300 characters.

Forgettable personal statements are the main reason qualified applicants are sometimes rejected from every medical school they’ve applied to—for instance, essays that only discuss accomplishments rather than lessons, that hang on clichés such as how being a doctor is a sacred honor, or which talk about experiences without relating them to personal qualities or principles.

Our comprehensive guide to the medical school personal statement is the best place to learn how to craft a glittering essay—so be sure to read through it. One piece of advice specific to Canadian students, however, is to highlight experiences that relate, in some way, to an American context. Talking about the integration of secessionist Quebec into the Canadian medical system, for example, might be too niche. But discussing distrust of medical professionals among some immigrant communities is far more relatable.

Be careful, however, not to hammer on the similarities between Canada and the United States, because that’ll feel like pandering, as we see with this example:

When I saw the scenes in Flint, Michigan, I was shocked but not surprised. As a Canadian with family members from the far north of my province, I knew our government had neglected our peripheral areas as well. For too long, both our countries have been indifferent to rural people.

Instead, try to tie your experience to some universal, without explicitly linking the two countries. Here’s an example:

I was used to rural communities, like my father’s, being invisible in politics and in pop culture. What I was shocked to learn, when I shadowed a physician, was about their complete absence in healthcare education. The doctors who treated the rural patients who’d driven into the city weren’t aware of the water contamination in their communities, and were baffled by their complete lack of vaccine coverage. I wanted to become a doctor as a first step towards redressing that imbalance.

Step 5: Complete the AMCAS Work and Activities section (2–3 months before deadline)

Similarly to many Canadian universities, AMCAS lets you describe up to 15 extracurricular experiences at a maximum of 700 characters, and three at a maximum of 1,325 characters.

Our guide on the AMCAS Work and Activities section will tell you which activities to select (don’t include all of them—choose your 15 best) and how you can effectively write about them. Just as the personal statement is your chance to explain the “big picture” qualities and experiences that would make you a great doctor, the activity descriptions aren’t just a space to describe exactly what you did during each activity, but also what you learned and what it proves about the sort of doctor you would be.

Each activity description should, ideally, point to a different attribute of who you are. And, as always, don’t assume American readers have context to understand, say, why it’s valuable that you worked at an indigenous healing center in Canada. Tie those more distinctively “Canadian” activities to broader, transnational issues—explaining, for example, that the healing center taught you about how mainstream medicine has ignored the needs of marginalized groups.

Step 6: Complete your secondary application (~2 weeks after deadline)

After reviewing the materials we’ve covered so far, most schools will ask you to complete a “secondary application.” This will consist of an application fee, a series of yes or no questions about your background, and often a few short essays. Like the personal statement and the AMCAS activities descriptions, these are an opportunity to highlight the characteristics that would make you a great doctor.

Our guide to medical school secondary essays will explain the sorts of questions you’re likely to be asked and how to answer them, including:

  • The diversity essay (e.g., “Our university benefits from a variety of perspectives, as does the medical profession. What unique perspective do you bring?”)

  • The challenge essay (e.g., “Describe a significant challenge you overcame and what you learned from it.”)

  • The “Why us?” essay (e.g., “Why do you hope to attend our school?”)  

All are broad enough to allow you to expound on all those doctorly attributes.

If you choose to use your Canadian identity to answer the diversity question, try to use an experience which most American applicants are unlikely to have had. For instance, as a Canadian, you’ve grown up in a public healthcare system that, while universal, has to deny patients certain expensive but highly effective surgeries. How does your perspective on that add value to American hospitals and your future American peers?

But don’t assume that your diversity essay has to be about your non-Americanness. Your academic background (maybe your BA was in English), non-medical interests, or ethnic, racial or gender identity might, actually, give you a far more interesting perspective to offer. So don't limit yourself!

Also, pay particular attention to the question on why you’re interested in this specific school. Canadian students especially should not answer this question generically, regurgitating the school’s mission statement or talking about its incredible faculty and the clinical exposure that it provides.

Look into the school’s curriculum, its faculty, its research, its relationship to its area, its community projects. Tie your narrative to your own story. If you do all that, you’ll surpass the biggest obstacle for Canadians trying to get their MDs in the United States: the perception that they’re there for the degree and won’t remain to fill the doctor shortage.

Step 7: Prepare for interviews

If admissions committees have liked your primary and secondary applications, schools will invite you for an interview sometime between mid-October and February. Most American medical schools use the traditional panel format for their interviews, though some use the Multiple Mini Interview style common across Canada or some other strange concoction that they’ve brewed in-house.

Our comprehensive guides to traditional medical school interviews and MMI interviews will help you prepare for these, so look through them. And be sure to check each school’s website for information on precisely what interview format they use.

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Part 4: Strategies for admission

There are a few tried and tested tips we routinely dispense when discussing strategies for admission to U.S. medical schools. We’ve mentioned how things work a little bit differently south of the border, but aside from different application deadlines, requirements and interview styles, you’ll need to think strategically to stand out.

Strategy 1: Consider the uniqueness of each school

Each school has something that makes it unique, whether this is a focus on research, a commitment to underserved communities, a particular program, style of teaching, or approach to the practice of medicine.

When crafting your personal statement and secondary essays, keep this in mind as you make the case for yourself as an applicant. Your essays should communicate why you would be a great fit for that school, so the more specific you can be, the better.

For example, the Carle Illinois College of Medicine bills itself as the “world’s first engineering-based medical school.” If you were an engineering major as a premed, you could be a natural fit for this program. If you have your heart set on becoming a surgeon, the Grover Surgical Society at the University of Colorado School of Medicine would be something to convey your interest in joining.

Remember that adcoms are not only looking at your scores and extracurriculars, they’re also thinking about what you will add to their student body. Aside from specific programs or societies, this can also be done by showing how your experiences line up with their ethos or mission statement.

Perhaps you’re applying to a school in a rural area. Often these institutions pride themselves on their commitment to the local community and the distinct concerns of an area far removed from urban amenities. If you spent time as an undergrad volunteering at community clinics or you hail from a rural area yourself, it would be beneficial to think through how best to highlight this on your application.

Strategy 2: Plan your time around your secondary essays

It goes without saying that applying to medical school involves a lot of work. A personal statement, the AMCAS Work and Activities section, ensuring you have enough extracurriculars, and getting letters of recommendation all take time. Add to that the need to adhere to deadlines and requirements in two different countries and it’s a lot to juggle.

During this time, it’s helpful to plan and control what you can. Each school has different numbers of secondary essays, so taking the time to map out which ones you will complete first can be a real time saver.

For U.S. medical schools, we’ve created a guide that lists every secondary essay prompt for every school. By reviewing how many prompts a school has and the content of the questions, you can determine how best to tackle this part of the application.

Perhaps you’re someone that works better by ticking off “easier” boxes first or perhaps you like to get work that may take longer out of the way initially. Either way, having a solid plan in place will allow you breathing room and reduce the stress inherent in the application process.

Final thoughts

Getting into an American medical school is tough, no matter what. And, if you’re coming from Canada, you might feel like the odds are even slimmer. However, gaining admission to American medical schools is possible if you’re able to achieve high academic stats, ensure that your background and experiences align with the type of students they’re looking for, and spend time crafting memorable application essays.

On top of this, by strategically tailoring your school list to include medical schools that are friendly to Canadian applicants, you can maximize your chances of earning your MD in the United States.

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian headshot

About the Author

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on medical school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school using his exclusive approach.

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Appendix A: List of Canadian-friendly American medical schools

Below is a list of Canadian-friendly allopathic institutions, which we compiled using data from the AAMC’s Medical School Admissions Requirements (MSAR).

For the purposes of this list, we’ve defined “Canadian-friendly” schools in a couple of ways. Some are institutions that have formally declared to the AAMC that they consider Canadian applicants in the same pile as out-of-state U.S. applicants, rather than as international applicants. Others have stated that they consider all applicants in the same pool, regardless of citizenship, and their admissions statistics demonstrate that they regularly matriculate Canadian applicants.

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Appendix B: List of American medical schools that accept Canadian applicants (allopathic)

In this section, we’ve listed other allopathic American medical schools that accept Canadian applicants. While these institutions are not explicitly Canadian-friendly in the manner that we’ve detailed above, they are still worth considering as you make your list of schools to apply to.

It’s probable that if you asked the schools below how they consider Canadians in their admissions processes, you’d find a few that would express generosity towards Canadians up to the point of being “Canadian-friendly”—without having the formal designation. For that reason, you shouldn’t assume that these schools necessarily have drastically lower admissions rates for Canadians.

So, plan to go ahead and ask medical schools how they feel about Canadians. You should use both this list and the “Canadian-friendly” list above not to rule schools out, but rather to find new ones.

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