There are four components of our Health Professions Advising Program:

1. Experienced Health Profession Advisor, Dr McNelis, available for individual meetings, see his profile here
2. An incredible team of 12 Health Professions Peer Advisors that advise pre-health students but also, plan, support and implement programs and initiatives to support pre-health students. This centers the student perspective in everything we do in our program to make sure what we are offer is relevant and engaging to pre-health students.
3. An extensive Health Professions Canvas Advising “Course” has been constructed to answer many of the common questions and provide access to high value resources for pre-health students. This page receives 11,000 page views a month, so our pre-health students are very active in using this comprehensive resource. See the list of modules below or a brief video tour here. Our canvas modules include...
   1. Introduction to the Program
   2. Advising Resources – Health Professions Advising and Peer Advising 
   3. Curriculum Planning for Professional Goals and Academic Support
   4. Health Career Exploration and Education
   5. Experiential Opportunities – Volunteer and Clinical Opportunities; Clinical Research Experience 
   6. Testing Support and Best Practices - from SCU students’ experiences and most successful practices/resources
   7. Professional School Application Information and Support
   8. Health Professions Conference and Informational Programming
   9. Health Related Student Groups and Programming 
   10. Certifications and Training 
   11. Post-Graduation Experience and Programs
4. Your engagement with our program and resources. There are no required elements to our program so students can engage with our resources at any level. We are here to support pre-health students and our experience suggests students benefit greatly by actively engage with our resources and program.  There are many misperceptions and myths that pervade this process and having the most relevant and current information more effectively supports students achieving their health profession goals. Not surprisingly, the students who attend our programming and engage with our advising and resources achieve better outcomes.

We have developed excellent resources to support professional exam preparation for SCU students. Through communication with and surveys completed by SCU pre-health students who have taken professional exams (MCAT, DAT etc.) and have performed well, we have compiled the best practices in exam preparation used by SCU students. Included in these resources are the list of low-cost and most impactful resources that have helped students successfully prepare for these exams. Our most successful students are our in-house experts on profession exam preparation and we leverage and share their experiences to the benefit of all of our pre-health students.

We focus on two aspects of the application process that are the most significant indicators for success in this process:

1. Application Readiness
2. Personal Statement (and other high-impact sections of applications) Preparation

We have a number of tools, including national and SCU specific data to assess application readiness and those resources are available on our Health Professions Advising Canvas page.

For personal statement preparation, we have curated the best resources and practices for writing these statements and we run programs supporting personal statement writing. We partner with our HUB Writing Center, whose staff has provided our pre-health students “incredibly valuable” feedback on their personal statement drafts. 

For experiential learning in the health professions, we have curated an extensive number of opportunities through connections with a number of organizations. We are continually adding to this list of collaborations and connections for our pre-health students. We create these pipelines and opportunities uniquely for SCU students, and we disseminate them to our pre-health student community through our Health Professions Camino page and our weekly newsletter.

Importantly, Santa Clara has an incredible number of meaningful experiences and programs on-campus to for pre-health students to engage with that are outstanding experience for the future health professional. See https://www.scu.edu/health-professions/experiential-learning-and-clinical-placements/ for more details.

High-quality undergraduate research is a hallmark of Santa Clara STEM departments and programs and pre-health students who are interested in research will be able to find opportunities to work on projects of interest. Research opportunities at SCU are not limited to just a few students; STEM departments strive to involve every student who is interested in research.

Research in health professions programs, especially medical school, is increasingly supported and emphasized in the training of health professionals. Beginning research while completing an undergraduate degree provides valuable training in preparation for research in the specific health professions.  

We are available to support students program selection process and we advise using the best practices, using data and resources like the MSAR and other professional school specific information.

We have compiled very interesting and useful list of schools using the last 5-years of acceptances for SCU students to medical school (unfortunately the data for other programs is not accessible as of yet!).  We have identified our pipeline schools that have a higher propensity for taking SCU students, including the most competitive, top-tier schools. This data provides valuable insights for students building their school lists and ranges of schools to target in the application process. 

National averages of acceptance rates to MD schools are determined by the AAMC, for the most recent application cycle it was 43.7%. For medical school, the national data is very comprehensive and is posted here: https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/students-residents/report/facts.

I use the AAMC data as an advising tool. There are a number of myths that pervade this process, such as GPA or MCAT requirements for acceptance, best majors to be accepted (the data does not support a "best" major) etc. We have tracked where our students are being accepted most often and what MCAT and GPA metrics contribute to acceptance. This has provided valuable insight and continues to shape how I advise our pre-health students and develop our pre-health program. 

 Acceptance rates are applicant dependent, not school dependent; our stronger classes of students generally have higher acceptance rates. We are comparable to many California schools that report their data.  Below is the data for UCLA, their institutional research office posts this: https://sairo.ucla.edu/amcas.

Although this could seem controversial, acceptance rate to medical school is not a primary metric I would recommend using for deciding on which university to attend. School reported rates can be inflated or qualified by some GPA or MCAT thresholds. This is an admissions practice at many institutions; we don’t do that at SCU to attract students to our program. I would view any reported acceptance rates significantly higher than the national average skeptically. In fact, even though our acceptance rates are significantly higher in recent years, I don’t report those numbers to prospective students or post that information on our Health Professions website.

We have a great program, and we are constantly improving how we can support pre-health students. If SCU is a great fit for a student, I believe that assessment should be based on criteria that will affect a student’s opportunity to be accepted to a health professions program:

• great teaching and research opportunities
• first-rate health professions advising program
• resources for experiential opportunities, career discernment and professional testing preparation
• supportive culture within the pre-health student community

The national averages highlight that acceptance to medical school is very competitive. Choosing a university that has a supportive environment where you can thrive academically will provide the best outcomes for applications to health professions programs. When I address prospective students and their parents, I emphasize our great programs and supportive culture and provide valuable information to help students make the best school choice for their overall academic interests and goals. 

This is a common question for pre-health students.  We encourage students to apply, when they are ready and to assess their preparedness using national acceptance metrics and the data we have about SCU students acceptance metrics. Students often have some internal, or external, pressure to apply and be accepted by some timeframe or deadline. This generally does not support students gaining acceptances to the programs they are most interested in. We want students to apply once and to be successful in this application process.

The national data is clear; more experienced students are accepted more often. For example, the average age of the first-year medical student is 26. The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) information on this from medical school admissions officers is below:

From the AAMC: Admissions Officers Bust Common Medical School Application Myths

Myth #4: You should apply to medical school straight out of college.
Admissions officers shared that students who have taken a year or more after school to pursue other experiences are typically more successful in the admissions process and more successful in medical school. Panelists shared that the majority of their applicants take gaps year(s).