This program leads to a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree at the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine. It is one of a small number of three-year MD programs in North America, compressing what is elsewhere a four-year curriculum. Clinical exposure begins early, with students starting to work with patients within the first few weeks of the program, and the curriculum follows a patient-centred, presentation-based learning approach rather than a traditional lecture model. Instruction is based at the Health Sciences Centre on the Foothills Campus in Calgary, Alberta. The program is connected to the Pathways to Medicine scholarship initiative, which supports the enrolment and success of prospective MD students from groups traditionally under-represented in medicine across Alberta. Full admission requirements are detailed separately on the Cumming School of Medicine's own site rather than on this overview page. The program suits students seeking an accelerated, clinically immersive route to a medical degree within Alberta's health system.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Admission is eligibility-based rather than by a single competitive index. Alberta residents need a minimum admissions GPA of 3.20; non-Alberta residents need a minimum of 3.80, and the GPA is not rounded up. Applicants must have completed, by the time of application, at least two full-time years of university education (a minimum of 24 units). Alberta-resident applicants face no MCAT minimum; non-Alberta residents must score at least 128 on the MCAT CARS sub-section. At least 85% of seats are reserved for Alberta residents, defined as 24 consecutive months of physical presence in Alberta between age 15 and the first day of classes; the programme does not admit international students, so no English-language test requirement is published. Full academic and application requirements, including course prerequisites, are set out in the Cumming School of Medicine's Applicant Manual and the UCalgary Calendar's MD Admission Eligibility section, which applicants should consult directly.
Application Details
Application Deadline:For Fall 2027 entry, the University of Calgary opens undergraduate applications for domestic applicants on 1 October 2026 and for international applicants on 15 August 2026, both closing on the same firm application deadline of 1 March 2027, with supporting documents due by 15 March 2027 and offers accepted by 1 May 2027. International applicants follow the identical March 1 deadline; the university publishes no separate, later international closing date. Applications are not accepted on a rolling basis after the deadline for most direct-entry programmes, though a small number of programmes (e.g. Nursing) run further selection rounds into the summer while space remains. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
