Pre-Health Professions

This is the basic information about the role of the Pre-Health Professions Advisory Committee (Pre-PHAC) and the usual procedures involved in applying to medical school.

1. The role of the committee is to help you to determine which career is best and how to be successful achieving that goal.
2. The chair of the committee will guide you in the preparation of a Pre-PHPAC file (see Recommendation Letter Application below). The committee will review the contents of your file and write a composite letter of recommendation to send to the schools you apply.
3. The basic course requirements of most medically-related postgraduate professional schools are:
   • General Biology (BIO101 & 102) 8 credits including lab
   • General Chemistry (CHE111 & 112) 8 credits including lab
   • Organic Chemistry (CHE 241 & 242) 8 credits including lab
   • Physics (PHY111 & 112) 8 credits including lab
     The requirements for all health-related professions are similar. For most schools AP credits don’t count as your prerequisites, you need to show your ability to succeed at the college level.
4. The PHPAC chairperson regularly gets brochures from medical and graduate schools and they put in the rack outside 325 Hudson Hall.
5. Pre-PHAC files are regularly reviewed the week after graduation in May and letters are written at this time. Letters can be requested at other times of the year, however the turnaround time will be longer. If you are planning to apply in a particular year, be sure to be ready at the end of the spring semester.
6. You should set up an appointment to see the chairperson sometime before your senior year to make sure that you’re on track.

Members of the PHPAC

A letter or recommendation from your school’s Pre-Health Professions Committee is a very important part of your medical school application. All schools will want to receive one one have an explanation why one is not included.

How to Apply

In order to have the PHPAC write a letter of recommendation for you, submit the following information and forms to the chairperson of the committee:

1. Official college transcripts.
2. MCAT or other test scores (if available).
3. Curriculum vitae or resume.
4. At least three letters of recommendation (the more good letters the better).
5. Complete these forms:

• Form A
• Form B
• Form D
• Form E

Each year, the committee meets to discuss complete applications and write letters of recommendation during the week after graduation in May. This is the best time for you to have a letter written, so you should focus on this date.  Letters can be written at other times of the year, but may take longer to prepare. If you request a letter at any other time of the year be sure to give the committee at least 3 weeks before any deadlines to complete the letter.

Acceptance Rates

Year	Acceptances
2017–2018	12
2016–2017	12
2015–2016	16
2014–2015	12
2013–2014	10
2012–2013	6
2011–2012	7
2010–2011	9
2009–2010	6
2008–2009	10
2007–2008	8

When most of us say “doctor,” we’re thinking of allopathic doctors. But there is a whole other branch of medicine called osteopathic medicine. Osteopathic physicians are doctors too, and perform the same types of activities as allopathic physicians. And it is often easier to get into an osteopathic school than an allopathic school.

Here is the site for AACOM (American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine).

Check out the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Also see the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine.

Application

Entry into American medical schools has become more and more competitive. MCAT scores that would have been acceptable ten years ago are now considered below consideration by many schools. Part of the problem is that while more and more students entering college are pre-med and apply to medical school, the number of slots available in U.S. medical schools has remained relatively constant.

One option is attending a Caribbean medical school. These schools once had a poor reputation due to the inability to attract good students. With the increasing competitiveness of American schools, these schools are now much more attractive.

The major advantage of attending a Caribbean school is that the entry requirements are much easier. While American schools do an initial screen using only MCAT scores and GPA, Caribbean schools are more likely to look at the whole person. Someone with low MCAT scores or a mediocre GPA may have other qualities that would make him/her a good candidate, e.g., EMT training and experience. Because of the deluge of applications at American schools (e.g., 5000 applicants for 100 seats), they don’t have a chance to see these qualities. Another distinction is that many Caribbean schools have multiple start dates (September, January, and May) and their admission deadlines are closer to the start date than American schools. Many students apply to these schools after they get bad news from American schools. Finally, Caribbean schools usually shorten the preclinical, basic science portion to between 15 and 18 months (as opposed to 24 months in American Schools). This means that there are very short breaks between semesters.

Not all Caribbean schools are the same. Some are fully accredited and some are not. In the accredited schools, students only take their general science courses at the Caribbean campus and then do their clinical rotations in U.S. hospitals. This is important because you will make your connections for letters of recommendations during your clinical years and this will determine your ability to match in a good residency. So it is important to go to one of the schools with U.S. clinical rotations.

Recommended Schools

The Pre-Health Advisory Committee recommends the following Caribbean medical schools:

• American University of Antigua, Antigua & Barbuda
• St. George’s University, Grenada
• American University of the Caribbean, St. Maarten
• Ross University, Dominica
• University of Guadalajara, Mexico

It is a very difficult challenge for international medical students to gain admission into U.S. and Canadian medical schools. Many schools do not accept applications from non-U.S. students and the schools that do accept applications have a limited number of slots.

Read more at Clark University’s website.

Most questions about physician assistants are answered on the web site for the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA).

Q: How long is the average PA program?

A: The average course is approximately 24 to 26 months, post-baccalaureate.

Q: What are the undergrad requirements for admission to a PA program?

A: Most programs require a bachelor’s degree and some experience in a health field. Many require as much as 100 hours of service in a medical field before you can apply.

Q: Is there a “bridge” from PA to MD if you want to go on?

A: I couldn’t find any information on this, but there’s no reason that you couldn’t go to medical school after working as a PA. You may also find that being a PA is fulfilling enough and decide not to go further.

Q: How many programs are there in US?

A: There are 130 accredited programs in the U.S.

Postbac pre-med programs are for students who already have a bachelor’s degree but have not taken the prerequisite science courses. They are designed for people who make the decision to go to med school late in their college career or decide on a career change after working at a different career. They can also be helpful to students who did poorly in their prerequisite science courses and need to improve their academic standing.

Special master’s programs are for students who are almost qualified for med school, but not quite. Maybe your GPA is too low but your MCATs are good, or vice, versa. Students in these programs often take the same classes as students currently in medical school. We recently had an alum take the SM program at Boston University and then matriculate into BU Med School, so these programs work if you qualify.

Learn more at Student Doctor.net.

In order to finish your Plattsburgh commitment in 3 years for the 3 + 4 degree programs you must complete specific requirements.

With 3 + 4 programs, you are eligible to receive a bachelor’s degree after three years at SUNY Plattsburgh and one year at the post-graduate institution. If successful in your first year at the post-graduate institution, 20 credits from that year will transfer back to SUNY Plattsburgh to complete your degree.

• 3 + 4 programs involve three years of study at SUNY Plattsburgh followed by four years at a participating school.
• A student can be any major to participate in these programs, as long as they complete their major, cognate, and Cardinal Core requirements, as well as prerequisites for the program they plan to pursue in three years.  This will be approximately 100 credits.
• Twenty credits will be transferred back to SUNY Plattsburgh to complete the undergraduate degree after the first year at the participating school.
• Each graduate program has slightly different prerequisite courses that are required, and each major at SUNY Plattsburgh has its own requirements.  A three-year pathway should be developed among the student, the student’s academic advisor, and the chair of the PHPAC.
• You will be required to complete a second application process to the graduate program in your sophomore year. Acceptance at SUNY Plattsburgh is not a guarantee of acceptance into the graduate program.

Please visit individual pre-health path pages for specific information and requirements.

If you are interested in becoming a certified Emergency Medical Technician, you can do this any semester and have the credits count towards your degree. Clinton Community College on Beekman Street offers an EMT certification program every spring, summer and fall. It is a six-credit course administered through CCC that runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays 6–10 p.m. 

These credits can be transferred to SUNY Plattsburgh and be part of your degree here. 

Being and EMT is a great service to the community and a good way to get hands-on medical experience. 

For more information, contact The PHPAC chair and see the info on the CCC web page:

Professional Credential: Basic EMT

It depends on the med school, of course, but for a U.S. M.D. school you should have at least a 510 with at least 125 in each of the subject areas. This is >80 percentile. U.S. Doctor of Osteopathy schools and Caribbean Medical schools will accept lower scores. Also, you will need at least a 3.5 GPA in overall and science, but higher is better.

The usual route is through the AMCAS system. This is a central application service. You submit one application to AMCAS and select which schools to send it to. Each school will have an application fee, and a secondary application with a second fee, so you need to be judicious in how many schools you apply to.

You can look at each professor’s research interests in their department’s web page. If you find a project interesting, go and talk to the professor. Keep in mind that while research is a great extracurricular activity it is not a requirement for applying to med school. Only do this if you really have an interest (i.e., doing a half-hearted try at it will not help).

The key, as always, is GPA and MCAT. Once you pass these barriers, your extracurricular activities come into play. Do something you love and impress people. Show leadership. Show mastery of your talents. Impress people enough to get good letters for recommendation from them. Show compassion — volunteer your time. Whatever you do, excel at it.

Intelligence, diligence, focus, perseverance, compassion, dedication. Excellence in all areas of your life.

Prerequisites are typically 2 semesters each of intro biology, intro chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, and English 101. Some schools will require biochemistry, and/or calculus, but to many. I advise taking Biochemistry, PSY101 and SOC101 to prepare for the MCATs. Also, if you are a bio major it is a good idea to take micro for your organismal component and Anatomy and Physiology I & II for your physiology requirement. This will help you when you get to Med School, although they are not prerequisites. You will get all of these prerequisites in either the Biology B.S. or Biomedical Sciences B.S. degrees, although you can be any major as long as you get the prerequisites.

There are many on-line opportunities as well as classes you can take. I am often in touch with people from Kaplan. They run some really good programs that vary in price from the cheapest (on-line exams only) to a 4 week boot camp that is really expensive. You can decide which option is best for you. There are other options as well, including Kahn Academy, Exam Krackers, Altrius, Axilogy … many resources of varying quality Google “MCAT Exam Prep”. From what I’ve heard, you get more out of taking full length practice exams (as many as 10–20) than studying the course MCAT prep books. It’s all about time management, skimming quickly through readings, and answering quickly and correctly. It’s all about learning how to take the exam.

As if your future depended on it, because it does. I had a student a few years ago with an almost perfect application. All his ducks were in a row (high GPA, letters of recommendation, great extracurriculars) except for one thing: one of the 4 scores on the MCAT. He got 79 percentile in CPFBS, 97 percentile in BBFLS, and 86 percentile in PSBFB, but scored 37 percentile on CARS. His overall score was 508 (79th percentile!), but he got no interviews because of that low CARS score. MCATS are vital!!!!

You should start after your sophomore year. At this point you should have most, if not all, of the prerequisites done. Then after the spring semester of your junior year take at least a month, if not a month and a half, to focus only on the MCAT. Take the exam in the summer between junior and senior years.

First and foremost, make sure you are on strong academic ground. High GPA and MCAT are going to get you into med school. Everything else is important if your GPA and MCAT are border line. Outside of academics, find some extracurricular activity that you enjoy and excel at. Most people think of volunteering and research, which are great, but also music, sports, student government, military service — almost anything that shows that you are more than just your grades and excel at everything you do. Impress people with your work, in and out of school. Also, don’t feel like you need to do everything (research, volunteer, shadow doctors, play an instrument … ). If you do everything, but do it all poorly, this doesn’t look good. Find something important and stick to it. For example, if you like research, do it for 2 years and make presentations/publications, don‘t sign up for 1 semester so you can put on your application. This shows through as a lack of commitment.

No. It is a good extracurricular activity but not a requirement. Don’t get sucked into the mentality that you need to do X, Y, and Z to apply to med school. Do fewer things but do them all the best.

Any volunteer activity is good, but make sure you are doing it for the right reason. Again, you are not just checking off a box on the application that says “Did you do any volunteering?” Find a cause that you are passionate about and give 100%. Be assertive; make the opportunities for yourself; be a leader.

Yes, but only professors who you feel you have impressed. Make connections with your professors. I often have people ask me for letters and all I can say is he/she was in my class and got an A. That’s not a particularly strong letter. Also, ask people who aren’t professors — maybe a supervisor where you work or volunteer or a doctor you shadow. When you excel at your extracurricular experiences people will recognize this and be happy to write you a letter. The more letters, the stronger your case will be for your character.

About 3–5 years. If the person has been very instrumental in your life, the letter can last longer. You should ask for the letters soon after you have worked with the person, if your time with them is ending. People forget; lock in that good letter of recommendation before it’s too late. You can have the letters sent to me and I will keep them in your PHPAC file.

After you have applied through the AMCAS system, schools that are interested in you will ask you to fill out a secondary application with more specific questions. If you make it past this screening you will be asked to come for an interview. These are typically held from November to February. Getting an earlier interview is better as most schools have rolling admissions. Usually the interview involves a tour of the campus and about 2 one-on-one interviews with people associated with the medical school (doctors or admission counselors).

The interviewer is going to evaluate your character, personality, communication skills, how easy it is to get along with you, how confident, honest and sincere you are, and if you are truly interested in medicine. The best tips is try to be calm and confident. Have some questions for them prepared (which means researching the school and knowing what is important about it). Look the interviewer in the eye, like and equal, but be humble, not arrogant. Above all, be yourself. Nothing turns an interviewer off more than an obsequious phony.

Most people in med school didn’t get there on their first try. Plan on re-applying in 2 years and take the time to build your application (you probably can’t make a big enough difference in one year). If your GPA is weak, go to grad school and build a stronger academic record to apply with. Get a job in a health field and gain more experience and good letters of recommendation. Also, always have a Plan B. You may never make it into med school; let your decisions going forward lead you to an alternate career if med school doesn’t work out.

Unfortunately, yes.  A 3.5 from Harvard is much more appealing to med schools than a 3.5 from a state school. This is why you need to have the highest GPA possible.

New York schools are very competitive, even for in-state applicants. About 1–5% of applicants will eventually matriculate. Other states are less competitive for in-stat applicants. Vermont, for example, will accept up to 40% of in-state applicants. The key is to move there, gain residence, and then apply.

It is really hard to say because some students apply without ever contacting me and some are accepted and don’t tell me. Of the students who eventually apply, I feel that approximately 3-4 per year are truly qualified and these students typically get in, if not in the first year then by years 3–5.

Providing healthcare to underserved minorities is a struggle in this country. Med schools are aware of this and make an effort to recruit qualified minority applicants. They don’t have quotas and would never accept an unqualified applicant, but being from an underserved minority group can be an advantage. Also, many schools offer minority summer research programs, which are excellent opportunities to get a foot in the door of the medical school.

Med schools in the U.S. are all 4 years. The first 2 years are academic work with minimal patient contact and the second 2 years are rotations through clinical departments. After med school there will be 2-8 years of further training, depending on the specialty that you decide on.

It is better to study here. During medical school you will make connections that will help you get a good residency. People in the U.S. have a better chance of “matching” at their choice of residency program. There are 4 Caribbean schools that we recommend for their ability to match residents in the U.S., mainly because they prepare the students for the USMLE exams and provide clinical rotations in the U.S. for the third and fourth years of med school. European medical schools are on a different medical system and it is difficult to move back to the U.S. You would need to take the USMLE step I, II, and III exams without help from the schools in passing them if you returned to the U.S.

This is a personal decision. There are many reasons to delay applying to med school and with more experience your application will only get stronger. Med schools are wary of students that are very strong academically but don’t have the necessary maturity to be a physician. Experiences after undergraduate school can help build that.

Almost none as a med student, little as a resident, and adequate time as an M.D., although it depends on the specialty. Some M.D.s work a 9–5 and go home (e.g. dermatology). Some will have call every other night. It depends on what specialty you go into.

Websites

• StudentDoc is a great Pre-med/Med student website. Lots of great info.
• To see the average MCAT and GPA’s of med school applicants and those accepted into med school, check out Association of American Medical Colleges.

Resources available in the PHPAC office:

I have copies of the PHPAC files of five previous Plattsburgh students who were successful medical school applicants. You can borrow this and make a copy for yourself.

Medical College Reference manual — This has a listing for every Medical College in the U.S. and Canada, with a 2 page summary of entrance requirements and a description of the college.

Important Exam Dates

• Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT):
  • Here is a link to the information on registering and test dates: https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/reserving/
  • For more information, go to the AAMC student’s web site.
• Dental Admissions Test: visit the American Dental Association https://www.ada.org/en
• Graduate Record Exam:http://www.ets.org/gre
• Optometry Admissions Test: https://www.ada.org/en/oat

Visit Test Prep Review to access free GRE practice exams.