Why UCalgary’s nursing lottery system is a step in the right direction
By Josie Simon, March 23 2025—
UCalgary’s Faculty of Nursing will implement a lottery admission system in Fall 2026, replacing competitive admissions. Students with 82 per cent or higher averages will enter the lottery pool—moving away from a system where cutoffs exceed 90 per cent due to competition for limited spots.
When I interviewed Dr. Catherine Laing, Interim Dean of UCalgary Nursing, cited key reasons for this change: high profession dropout rates, elitism in nursing education and students using nursing as a backup rather than a committed career path. This approach aims to address these challenges while maintaining standards.
Breaking down class barriers
The uncomfortable truth is that our current admission system has created a class barrier. Students working part-time, supporting families, or lacking access to tutors are locked out of nursing programs despite having the intelligence, resilience and commitment to excel in the profession.
“We’re trying to decrease that element of elitism,” explains Dr. Laing, who spent years as a nurse at Alberta Children’s Hospital before joining academia. “An 82 per cent student is still an excellent student.”
Indeed, nursing is an applied profession that requires far more than academic prowess. A good healthcare provider requires resilience, compassion and the ability to use knowledge in stressful situations while managing patient care. A student who gets a 95 percent average does not always show these qualities.
Addressing the nursing crisis
Perhaps most compelling is how this admission reform attempts to tackle Canada’s nursing crisis at its source. According to recent statistics, more than half of new nurses leave the profession within two years of starting their careers. By 2030, Canada is projected to face a shortage of 117,000 nurses.
The lottery system aims to attract students genuinely interested in nursing, rather than those using it as a stepping stone to other healthcare fields. The University of Calgary will study how traditional admissions compare to lottery admissions, focusing on academic success and job retention.
“Nobody in the profession needs convincing that something needs to change,” Dr. Laing notes. “There is no healthcare system without nurses.”
A research-backed approach
This an experiment—it’s a carefully considered, research-informed initiative. The 82 per cent threshold was selected based on institutional data showing that students above this mark succeeded in undergraduate programming. The lottery approach itself has precedent in medical schools and universities across Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
Perfect grades don’t make perfect nurses. The goal isn’t to lower standards but to widen the pool of excellent candidates who can contribute to strengthening our healthcare system.
Looking forward
The new lottery system recognizes that grades above 90 per cent are often unachievable for students from less privileged backgrounds who juggle jobs and family responsibilities without access to tutoring resources. This lottery approach removes barriers, allowing talented students from all socioeconomic backgrounds to access the program.
UCalgary will conduct a comprehensive longitudinal study alongside this new admission process, tracking important metrics like program success rates and professional retention for up to 10 years. Researchers hope to demonstrate measurable improvements in nursing career longevity by comparing pre-lottery and post-lottery student cohorts.
In the face of our continuing healthcare challenges, this approach puts the long-term health of our nursing workforce—and, by extension, our entire healthcare system—ahead of outdated metrics that have failed to serve either students or patients. For that reason alone, it deserves our strongest support.
This article is a part of our Opinions section and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Gauntlet editorial board.