Do you find that most applicants have volunteer experience, is it very common in Canada to volunteer in hospitals? I'm really curious about this, it seems quite strange to me that this should be prevalent and also that you'd find it detrimental particularly (even if they're a bit full of themselves). At the normal Uni entry age most in my country wouldn't have done any volunteering not least in a hospital.
Volunteer experience is very common here. In BC there was recently discussion of making some number of hours of "volunteer" activity a requirement for high school graduation.
I don't think such activities are detrimental in the slightest; but they're not at all exceptional here. (Also, it's a very common "resume-building" tactic, so there's always the question of whether a student performed the activity because they wanted to help the community or because they thought it would pay off in scholarships.)
I think the students who wax lyrical about their volunteerism are usually in the liberal arts, though.