Q1: What should I major in if I am contemplating attending
medical, dental, veterinary, podiatry, optometry, or chiropractic school?
A: Professional Associations, including the Association of American
Medical Schools, do not recommend any particular major for professional school
preparation. In addition, there are no specific majors which schools
tend to prefer. Pre-health students can major in anything from engineering
to history to vocal performance. The important thing to consider when
contemplating majors is that you choose something you enjoy. Chances
are, if you enjoy the subjects you are studying, you will do better than
if you choose something just because you think it will get you into a professional
school. So, while majors are not important, your grades and overall
performance in your chosen major is. You should also seriously consider
a back-up plan. Because acceptance to professional schools is extremely
competitive, you may need a back-up plan to use temporarily or for a longer
period of time. You should consider this and plan accordingly.
If you never need a back-up plan - excellent. If you do, you will be
glad you have one. Need help choosing an alternative career?
Visit the Career Resource Center.
Q2: Should I double major or choose a minor?
Will that help my chances at acceptance?
A: Similar to the answer above, professional schools are concerned
with your overall performance. They also desire applicants who take courses
in a variety of fields - both science and non-science. So, if deciding
to double major or declaring a minor sounds like a good option for you, it
is not a bad idea. It will help you explore other subject fields outside
of your major and help you to become a well rounded student. Of course,
you can also take a variety of courses without declaring a double major or
minor. In the end, just like major selection, double majors and minors
will have very little impact on your acceptance.
Q3: What courses should I take to prepare me for professional
school?
A: You will need a strong background in the sciences.
These will include courses in biology, mathematics, chemistry, and physics.
Professional schools also encourage students to take a variety of courses
outside of the sciences to strengthen reading comprehension and writing skills.
For a complete list of the required courses, please see our
Pre-Health Information Sheet
.
Q4: What does a professional school focus on for admission
purposes?
A: Your undergraduate grade point average (GPA) as well as
your science GPA - composed of your Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics
(BCPM) composite GPA. The next important factor to admission is your
Admissions Test (MCAT, DAT, OAT, or GRE) score. These are extremely
important parts of your application. Professional schools are look
very favorably on health care experience in your field. If you are
interested in medicine, optometry or dentistry, you should try to get health
care experience in a variety of settings and with a diverse group of practitioners.
If you are interested in veterinary medicine, you should get experience in
both small and large animal care. Other factors include; part-time work, extra
curricular activities, diversity issues, maturity, well-rounded education,
letters of recommendation, personal statements, and hopefully, an interview.
Because professional schools look at all of these factors when considering
admission, it is important to make them all as strong as possible. Grades
and test scores are most important because professional schools want to make
sure that you are ready for the work that lies ahead. From these applicants,
you will want all of the other aspects of your application to stand out.
There is no magical path to a professional school acceptance besides hard
work and dedication. No major and no particular school will gain you
admission to medical school. You will be responsible for that.
Q5: How important are extracurricular activities for medical
schools admissions?
A: Although extracurricular activities are not viewed as an
alternative to your GPA or admissions test score, professional schools do
look for "well-rounded" applicants and one way to demonstrate this is to
get involved in campus and community activities. Choose organizations
that interest you because those are the ones that will make your collegiate
experience more meaningful. However, you need to keep in mind that
your GPA is more important than campus involvement, so never sacrifice your
grades by becoming over committed with extracurricular activities. If you
are not enjoying a particular activity, choose another. The type of
activity you choose is not as important as just getting involved.
The University of Florida has over 500 student organizations. Some
typical pre-health ones are Pre-Med
American Medical Student Association (Pre-Med AMSA)
, Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED)
, Pre-Professional Service Organization
(PSO)
, Pre Veterinary Medicine
Club
and Minority Pre-Professional
Association
.
Q6: How should I go about obtaining letters of recommendation?
A: You should plan to get at least three academic references
from professors. Two of these letters should be from sciences professors
and the third from a non-science professor. You can collect up to two additional
letters and these should be from an employer, a research supervisor, a physician,
or someone you have worked with. You should avoid letters from congressman,
clergy, or friends of the family. You should ask them, "would you be
comfortable writing me a strong letter of recommendation?" Hopefully
the answer is honest--if they say no, do not be offended but ask someone
else. The actual content of the letter is much more important than
the status of the letter-writer to the professional school admissions committee.
Be sure to give your recommender a copy of your transcript, a resume, and
your personal statement. You may choose to use the
OHLPA Letter of Recommendation Service
to help in your collection and dissemination of these letters.
Q7: How about more information on preparing for the MCAT,
DAT, OAT, GRE?
A: You can find links to commercial courses, an online workbook
and other materials such as past tests from our
Other Links
section of the Pre-Health website. Private review companies
have information about the MCAT and DAT preparation, including Kaplan and
Princeton Review, which have offices located in Gainesville. There
has been no statistical evidence that shows students which take review courses
do better than students who don't. These courses can be expensive ($1000+),
therefore, you may want to buy several preparation books first to evaluate
whether or not you can improve your score by studying on your own.
If you choose this option, make sure to spend the time necessary and do not
let time get away from you. However, if it would make you feel better
just knowing you took a review course then, by all means, take one.
The important thing is that you feel as prepared and confident as possible
when exam day arrives. A good resource is the ability to order old
exams with answers. You can do this off the MCAT, DAT and GRE websites, found
in the
Other Links
section. A general rule of thumb is that you should begin studying
for these exams about 6 months prior to the examination.
Q8: When should I take the MCAT, DAT?
A: Since professional schools have a rolling admission acceptance
policy, it is to your benefit to get your application in as soon as schools
start accepting them (Early June). Therefore, taking the MCAT exam
during the spring of your junior year (April) is preferred. Taking
the exam by this date will allow you test scores to arrive at the application
services soon after June 1st. You could take the August exam if necessary
- either because you could not take the April or because you did not do
as well as you liked on the April exam. However, because medical schools
average MCAT scores, it is important to be as prepared as possible the first
time you take the exam. The DAT and GRE is offered year around on
the computer and the same timelines exist for these exams. You should
have them completed by the beginning of the summer in which you will apply.
The OAT is offered in February and October and you can take either test
date.
Q9: How can I find out which schools I am likely to be accepted
by?
A: There are many publications which you may want to check
out. All of these are available in the OHLPA Library. You can
also purchase them at campus bookstores or on-line. They are Medical
School Admission Requirements , Admission Requirements of United States and
Canadian Dental Schools , Veterinary Medical School Admission Requirements,
Osteopathic Medical College Information Book . In these books,
you will find class profiles, acceptance rates, and tons of other information.
Q10: How do I learn more about individual professional schools?
A: One source to find links to home pages from professional
schools is through the American Association of Medical, Dental, Optometry,
etc. websites. See
Other Links
section. You can learn more about each school and often request
admission material online.
Q11: How can I find out additional information about the
medical, dental, etc. school application process?
A: View the Workshop Calendar for
upcoming workshops.
One on one appointments with the pre-health advisor are available if
you have specific questions that are not found here on the Pre-health
website or if you wish to discuss your own career goals or aspirations
in the health field.
Q12: How else can I stay informed with pre-health activities
and information?
A: The UF pre-health listserv is the best way to be a part
of the pre-health community. Pre-health student groups advertise their
meetings, the pre-health advisors answer questions, professors make course
announcements, and pre-health issues are discussed. To sign up for
this free service, please see the
listserv instructions
.
Q13: How can I find out more about the UF College of Medicine?
A: UF undergraduates are more than welcome to take a tour of
the UF College of Medicine
. If you are interested, please call the Office of Admissions
at 352 392-1365.
Q14: Where should I go if I have additional questions about
professional school?
A: If you have additional concerns or questions regarding medical,
dental, etc. school after you have read the information provided on this
web site, you may schedule an appointment with the Pre-Health Advisor by
calling 392-1521 or stopping by the
AAC
front desk. Be sure to read all of the information on this web
page, such as the handbook and personal statement information, before
seeing the pre-health advisor in order to make your appointment the best
use of your time. Because of the shear volume of students, these
appointments should not be used to disseminate information that can be
read here.
Q15: What percentage of UF students are accepted to
medical, dental, osteopathic, optometry, school?
A: This answer to this question is pretty meaningless.
The University of Florida does not restrict any student from applying to
professional school. In other words, even less than competitive students
can apply to professional school. Clearly, the more of these students
there are, the larger the denominator becomes and the lower our percentage
rate becomes. Conversely, some schools, only consider those applicants
who have a 3.5 or above, for example, as their applicants and base their
acceptance rates from that number. Because there is no consistency
about how undergraduate institutions arrive at their "percentage accepted,"
it is difficult to compare schools on the same criteria. Therefore,
UF does not publish this data as a way to attract students. In the
end, it is not the school that obtains a medical school acceptance, it is
a student. The harder our students work, the more likely they are to
be accepted to a professional school. Following the advice of the pre-health
professions advisors, using the resources available to them such as the
Academic Advising Center's workshops, the OHLPA Library and Services, and
the Pre-Health Professions Handbook, our students are very successful at
gaining acceptance to medical school.
Q16: What do I do if I am not accepted to medical school
this year?
A: Medical school acceptance is very competitive.
In any given year, an average of 22,000 students who apply are not admitted.
Furthermore, medical schools have indicated that they can fill their admitted
class 2.5 times with the same caliber of students as they accepted.
This all means that very good students may not get admitted on their first
attempt at applying to a medical school. What should you do in this
case? Well, you should take a critical look at your application and
try to figure out what part is the weakest. For instance, if your grades
were weak in several of the pre-health prerequisites, then taking additional
coursework might be necessary. Similarly, if your MCAT score was below
average for those accepted, you might want to consider retaking the exam.
However, it is important to know that not all students need to take additional
coursework; only those that had weak grades to begin with will find additional
coursework helpful in strengthening their application. The same is
true for retaking the MCAT. Another consideration in the process is
timing. Because there are so few spots for medical school each year,
the earlier your apply, the better chance you have at securing one of these
spots. That means if you applied late in the application cycle, you
may have been denied admission for that reason alone! In the end,
you should speak with a pre-health professions advisor about how to strengthen
your application and reapply. One more word about this: You
should never reapply year after year if you are unsuccessful. Take
some time to strengthen your application before reapplying. Nothing
is worse than resubmitting a substandard application. Medical school
admissions committees will become desensitized to your application and
reject it year and year without review. There are even some medical
schools now that will not even consider third time applicants. Make
sure that your application is as strong as possible before submitting it.
Q17: What happens if I earning a C in a course?
Should I repeat the course? Should I drop it?
A: You should consider your options carefully before withdrawing
from a course. Medical schools will consider all attempts at a course,
even withdraws and incompletes. Many medical schools consider W's
as failing grades. They figure that if you had to drop one of your
pre-health pre-requisites, you were probably failing the course.
At the least, they recognize that you are attempting to "clean up" your
transcript. This is the reason that W's are not always the solution. Yes,
C's do affect your grade point average and W's do not. However, one C in
a course will never keep you out of medical school provided that the rest
of your grades in pre-health courses are better than C's.
If you develop a pattern of C's or W's, you are becoming increasingly
un-competitive . If you are earning a C in a course, you might
choose to keep the course and commit yourself to working harder and more
diligently with the remainder of your courses. That way your transcript
will not reflect a W and you will not need to repeat the course.
If you do decide to keep the course and earn a C in it, recognize that you
will need to work hard on this section of the MCAT preparation. Because
you will be tested on this information later, you will likely have missed
half of the information in the course if you earn a C. You will just
need to work harder at bringing yourself up to speed in this section.
In the end, it will be your choice. Neither decision will make you
feel good. This is the proverbial "caught between a rock and a hard
place," and you will need to decide if a W or C is better for you at this
point in your career.
