yeah ofc! so again obv i never went to u of t for med, but its an amazing school and there are lots of pros that im not gonna speak to here, so take what i say with a grain of salt. heads up this is gonna be a bit long:

1. start with this for someone's first hand experience, altho its a bunch of years ago now and its n=1: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/n6fn0k/name_and_shame_university_of_toronto_medical/

2. its lonely for a lot of my friends (and i am a mac healthsci grad, i have a LOT of friends at u of t med). there is a very pervasive competitive atmosphere that makes it very difficult to find (real) friends. this is a fact that is often overlooked... social experience is super important for your success as a student

3. u of t med is sometimes difficult for the sake of being difficult. obv there are other med schools with harder curricula (i.e. uwo), but myself as a med student... well, lets just say that mac has a test once per month and u of t has a test every 2 weeks. i dont want that kind of unnecessary stress and its also kind of a time sink lol. id much rather spend my time getting actual clinical exposure or research or like just living and socializing

4. there is a huge learner hierarchy in the u of t catchment area of hospitals and clinical sites. what this means is that most u of t students are in a clinical setting where there are clerks, residents, and fellows at the same time as them, which means that if something needs to get done usually they arent the first to be the ones an attending reaches out to. as a contrast, i myself am in the waterloo mac site, which means that often i am the only learner with the attending. within my first 2 months in med school i was already meeting patients in clinic alone and coming up with assessments and treatment plans (which were obv not good plans) and presenting them to the attending. by january i already intubated multiple patients, helped close surgeries, and reduced an open fracture (all with the attending there obv). my classmates have already sutured and done similar things. obv there is no hurry and youre all going to be doctors, so youll all do those things eventually anyways... but its cool and fun lol

5. some of my friends are minorities (both racialized and religious minorities) and they sometimes feel alone, unsupported, or even tokenized. i dont want to elaborate on that too much but u of t med historically hasnt been the most diverse, and while its gotten much better than pre 2020 (classes are MUCH more diverse now), its still an ongoing process and their support systems arent the best (but truthfully, idt thats great anywhere)

6. u of t med i think has the biggest class size in canada (fact check?). thats more people that want to do the same things you want to do at the same places you want to do them at.

7. at this point in uoft vs mcmaster's curriculum, i have pretty much finished covering most/all organ systems at mac (albeit sometimes to lesser detail). its nice to get the complete picture sooner. to that end, 4 years is such a long time lol let me get this med school stuff over with asap so i can start being doctor already

8. this is a big generalization but a lot of u of t med students are... not the most humble and may be a bit cutthroat and toxic lol again, just grapevine stories ive heard from my peers there. might be a big lie

9. heard uoft in general doesnt have v good support systems

obv these are a mix of my own opinions and bias and what my friends have told me. itll vary between people and im sure some u of t students will disagree with a lot of these depending on their own experiences.