How to Write the OMSAS Autobiographical Sketch (ABS), With Examples

The OMSAS Autobiographical Sketch (ABS) is the list of your activities since age 16 that every applicant to an Ontario medical school submits through OMSAS. It's the one part of the application where you decide what a file reviewer learns about your life outside the classroom. Each entry has a 50-character title and a 150-character field for the substance, and most applicants expect to finish it in an evening. Then the character limits bite, the verifier questions start, and a list of up to 32 activities turns into weeks of second-guessing.

This guide covers the ABS categories, a field-by-field template with every character limit, how to choose and write your entries, and what each Ontario school does with the sketch. It includes six example entries, one per category, from Shahzeb Khan, a medical student at the University of Ottawa, and the planning advice Olivia Rennie, an MD-PhD student at the University of Toronto, wrote for the first version.

OMSAS ABS Categories and Age Rules

The ABS holds up to 32 entries, and each entry goes under one of six categories: Employment, Volunteer Activities, Extracurricular Activities, Awards and Accomplishments, Research, or Other. You don't have to fill all 32 slots, and a shorter list of activities you're proud of reads better than a full one padded out with weak entries.

You choose the category for each activity. Shahzeb's rule for the borderline cases is that the formal version of an activity goes under its named category and the independent version goes under Other, so a university weightlifting club is an extracurricular activity and lifting on your own is Other.

OMSAS accepts activities from age 16, but the University of Ottawa and Queen's University don't assess an activity done only in high school. An activity that continued into university counts at both schools for its postsecondary part only, and Ottawa asks you to give priority to postsecondary experiences. If you're a year or two out of high school, that rule shapes most of your list, so read it before you plan.

One ABS goes to every Ontario school you apply to. OMSAS arranges it in the order each school requires, and some schools ask you to mark entries or write about them separately, which the section on each school covers.

ABS Template: Fields and Character Limits

The ABS counts characters rather than words, and the limits below match the copy of the form Toronto Metropolitan University publishes. Every entry opens with the same fields: the category, a start date, a to date (which can be "Present" for an activity you're still doing), a 50-character field called Description, and a location. The name Description misleads applicants, because the field is the entry's title. "ER Assistant at Brampton Community Hospital" is a Description. What you did there goes in the 150-character field further down, and that field's name changes with the category.

The rest of each entry depends on the category. Employment, Volunteer Activities and Extracurricular Activities ask for your level of education and your hours, given per week or per month with a total. Each of the three also has a 100-character field for when the activity happened, such as the academic year or the summer, and Employment adds whether the job was full-time or part-time. Awards and Accomplishments asks for the date received, the duration and a 100-character field called Qualifications. Research asks for your level of education, the project title and a 100-character field called Type of publication, which takes a paper, an abstract or a presentation and whether it was accepted, submitted or in preparation. Other has no fields beyond Additional information.

Use these fields as a template. Copy them into a document for each activity and draft there before you open the form.

Write each 150-character field to its name. A reviewer reading "Competition involved" wants to know how many people were eligible and how the winner was chosen, and a reviewer reading "My role" wants your part in the project rather than the project's aims.

The hours fields matter more than they look. Ottawa's instructions ask every entry to carry your education level at the time, whether the activity ran during the academic year or the summer, the start and end dates, and the total hours per week or per month. Fill them in for every entry, including the ones where the number is small.

Every entry also needs a verifier, a person who can confirm you did it. The Verifiers section below covers who to choose and what OMSAS asks about them.

Choosing ABS Activities

Plan the list before you open the form. Write the six category headings on a page, then take real time over what you've done since age 16. Aim for variety, because 32 awards and scholarships won't get you into medical school however prestigious they are.

The list should show the best of you, which means leaving activities off. Say you have 20 solid experiences spread across the categories and five short, weak ones that don't fit the person the rest of your application presents. The five can stay off. For each activity, ask whether you're proud of it and whether it shaped who you are.

Shahzeb adds that the ABS is read for well-roundedness. Your transcript already carries your grades, so a sketch built from academic awards and little else repeats what the reviewer knows and leaves out the rest of your life.

How Far Back to Go

Your situation decides how far back to go. The rules allow activities from age 16, but if you're a mature applicant in your thirties, reaching back two decades won't help you. File reviewers want to see what you've done recently and what you're doing now. Include an older experience if it mattered to you, but be careful if most of your entries are years old, and remember that Ottawa and Queen's set high-school-only activities aside.

Unusual Activities

Look past the obvious as you decide what to include. Your hospital volunteering and your term co-chairing the premed society still belong, and so does an activity that says who you are. Olivia Rennie, who wrote the first version of this guide, included three entries that weren't on her first list:

In the years before I applied, I took theater classes and performed in several productions, so I included that. I'm a recreational runner, and I worked with a coach to train for local races. One of my favorite entries was about card magic, a hobby of mine. It became a talking point in one of my interviews, where I described doing card tricks for children while they waited in the emergency department.

None of these were on my list when I started brainstorming. They came once I thought about what mattered to me and how I spent my time outside the typical premed activities I was also doing, and they made my application stand out.

How to Write an ABS Entry

The pattern that works in the 150-character field has two parts: what you did, then the impact it had. An entry that only lists what the experience involved leaves out the second part. That part is the "so what", and it's what a reviewer remembers.

Shahzeb's rules, from the drafts he reads, turn that pattern into a checklist:

1. Write two clauses, split by a semicolon. A clause is one task with its impact. Applicants try to fit three, four or five, and each one shrinks until none of them shows a competency.
2. Put at least one number in the entry that isn't already in the hours or dates. The number of students you tutored, the dollars you raised, or the families a neighborhood project reached each do more than another adjective.
3. Keep the whole sketch in the past tense, including the activities you're still doing.
4. Pick your abbreviations once and use them everywhere. If "&" and "w/" appear in one entry, they appear in all of them, and using them frees characters for the substance.
5. Vary your action verbs. "Organized", "facilitated" and "led" on every line read as one entry repeated, so try "spearheaded", "fostered" or "streamlined" where they fit.
6. Spread the CanMEDS roles across the sketch. Five mentoring roles that each say you tailored your teaching to individual needs cover one competency five times, so change what each entry emphasizes.

One rule comes from a school. Queen's University asks applicants not to use acronyms when naming the company or institution, and the 50-character Description is where that name sits, so write it in full there.

OMSAS ABS Examples by Category

Shahzeb wrote the six entries below as examples, one for each category. Each one uses the field names the OMSAS form prints for that category, so each table also works as a template. Organization names are blanked as [name]. The verifier row shows the person and their role, and the form also asks for their contact details.

Employment

Two clauses, each a task with its result, fill the field at 146 characters. The number 15 is one the hours fields don't carry, and "directed" and "mentored" name two different kinds of work.

Volunteer Activities

The $50,000 and the 200 care packages are measurable results, and both sit outside the hours and dates. The second clause says what the money became, which is the impact.

Extracurricular Activities

This activity ran from high school into university, so Ottawa and Queen's count only the postsecondary years, and the Level of education field says so. An activity with no dollar figure still gets a number, 18+ teammates, and the entry shows the Collaborator and Professional roles without naming either.

Awards and Accomplishments

"Competition involved" asks how hard the award was to win, and "1 of 14 players" answers it in four words. Qualifications says what the award recognizes, and the two fields don't repeat each other. Like every entry, an award also needs a location and a verifier, which this example leaves out.

Research

A single short placement is still a research entry, and the field carries two clauses with a skill in each. My role keeps to the applicant's part of the work rather than the lab's aims. The form also asks for a project title and a type of publication, which this example leaves out.

Other

Caring for a relative belongs in Other, and the verifier is the home care nurse who saw the work rather than a family member, which is what Ottawa asks for. The 6 medications and 12 visits make a private responsibility concrete.

Rewriting a Weak ABS Entry

The draft Shahzeb was given reads:

Volunteered at the hospital. Helped patients and staff with different tasks. Learned a lot about healthcare.

He rewrote it as:

Engaged 40+ hospitalized patients via daily check-ins, offering emotional support; collaborated w/ nurses to run weekly recreational activities

Three vague sentences became two clauses, and every general word was replaced by a specific one. "Different tasks" became daily check-ins and weekly recreational activities, "patients and staff" became 40+ patients and the nurses on the ward, and "learned a lot" became the support he offered, which is the impact. Put your own count where the 40+ sits, and make it a number your verifier would confirm.

Independent Activities, Certifications and Shadowing

Independent Activities

A hobby or a project you did on your own goes under Other, and the difficulty is the verifier. OMSAS requires one for every entry, and Ottawa asks you to avoid friends, family members and co-applicants wherever possible. Shahzeb's answer is to find the person who saw you do it: the trainer or a staff member at the gym where you lift, or the neighbor you shared your baking with. A peer is the last resort, and a weaker one.

Certifications

A certification such as CPR or lifeguarding goes under Awards and Accomplishments when it's a real accomplishment, and under Other when it isn't. Shahzeb advises dropping a basic certification whenever a stronger entry is available for the slot.

Job Shadowing

Shadowing is viewed cautiously in Canada. Access to it depends on who you know, and it puts a person without clinical training near patients and their information. Applicants commonly hear that it hurts their chances, and whatever the truth of that at any one school, an entry that says only that you watched a physician for a week says nothing about you.

If you include it, title it as what it was and describe what you observed and learned: how the care team communicated difficult news, or how treatment decisions were shared between providers and families. Those observations show the Communicator and Collaborator roles. Don't retitle shadowing as a clinical or assistant role. The Description has to match what your verifier would confirm, and Ottawa disqualifies an application that carries false or misleading ABS information.

ABS Verifiers

Every entry needs a verifier. OMSAS asks for their first and last name, their title if they have one, their email, their telephone, and their address with country, province or state, city and postal code, and it leaves room for a comment. One person can verify several entries, so a supervisor who saw three of your roles is listed three times.

Nothing in the ABS, including the verifiers, can be changed after you submit. Ottawa contacts verifiers at random, and an entry your verifier wouldn't recognize is a problem you can't fix once the form is in. So describe each activity in words your verifier would agree with, and ask each person before you list them, so they know what to expect if a school calls.

Ottawa says to avoid a friend, a family member or a co-applicant wherever possible. Shahzeb's advice is to keep a backup list while you draft: up to three people per entry, in order, with the person who supervised you directly at the top and the occasional contacts, such as a colleague you shared shifts with, below them. If your first choice has moved on by the time you fill in the form, you take the next name. If a school can't reach a verifier after you've submitted, it contacts you.

How Each Ontario Medical School Uses the ABS

Every Ontario school receives the same ABS, and each one reads it its own way. A few ask for a selection or an extra piece of writing, and the instructions are the school's own, so follow them exactly. We checked the rules below against the schools' and OUAC's published instructions in November 2026. Schools can change them each cycle, so open the linked page before you submit.

• The University of Ottawa asks you to pick your top three entries in each category, up to 18 in total, and to list each category in chronological order. Ottawa gives priority to postsecondary experiences, may review the whole ABS beyond your top three, including Other, and warns that not following its instructions may disqualify your application.
• Queen's University asks for your top three in Employment, Volunteer Activities and Extracurricular Activities only, up to nine. An activity done only in high school can't be among them. Queen's calls listing your entries most recent first "extremely helpful", and asks you not to use acronyms when naming a company or institution.
• The University of Toronto requires a separate 500-word ABS statement about one impactful experience from your sketch.
• Western University has its own written Western ABS, completed on Kira Talent after OMSAS closes. It's separate from the OMSAS ABS.
• McMaster University and NOSM ask for no selection. Every entry still needs a verifier, and the ABS is part of their file review.
• Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) asks essay questions whose answers must cite your ABS entry numbers, so keep a numbered copy of your sketch beside you when you write them.

Beyond those instructions, Shahzeb advises against tailoring the sketch to any one school. One ABS goes to every school, so building it around one school's mission statement means writing for one reader and sending the result to six others. Write it around the CanMEDS roles instead, which every Canadian medical school shares, and let your strongest activities lead. Where you already have experience a school values, such as rural or underserved community work for NOSM or research for McMaster and the University of Toronto, describe it well and tie it to the roles.

CanMEDS Roles in the ABS

CanMEDS names the seven roles a physician fills: Communicator, Collaborator, Leader, Health Advocate, Scholar, Professional and Medical Expert. The 2026 edition of the framework keeps all seven, with the same names.

Keep the roles in mind as you write, and don't name them. "Strong communicator" in an entry asks the reviewer to take your word for it. "Relayed medical instructions to family" shows the role, and the reviewer names it for you. When the sketch is finished, read it against the list and see which roles appear often and which never appear. The fix for a missing role is usually to change what an entry emphasizes rather than to add an activity.

Revising the ABS to Reapply

Shahzeb's advice to a reapplicant starts with the selection. Go through the list and replace the older and weaker entries with recent, relevant ones, since a year has passed and the list should show it. Then reword the entries themselves against the checklist above: two clauses, a number in each, past tense, consistent abbreviations, varied verbs, and a spread of CanMEDS roles. An entry that was fine last year may be the weak one once the rest of the list improves.

Final Advice

You've come a long way to reach the point of creating an OMSAS account. Use the ABS as a time to reflect on what makes you who you are, and pay no attention to what other applicants put in their sketches. Medical schools aren't looking for one ideal person. They want students who are genuine, with the intelligence to become good doctors and the human qualities to match. If you'd like a second reader before you submit, scholr's advisors edit OMSAS applications and Autobiographical Sketches.