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Inside of the Box Experiences

Academic Preparation

Did you know that health professional schools have a list of coursework that must be completed prior to being accepted into their program? Pre-Health students can BE ANY MAJOR as long as they complete the prerequisite courses required by the schools.

For a list of specific prerequisites, visit our Webcourses:

Dental School
Medical School
Optometry School
Occupational Therapy Programs
PA Programs
Pharmacy School
Podiatry School
Physical Therapy Programs
Veterinary School

  • Overall GPA should be 3.5 or above to be a competitive applicant for health professional schools.

  • Science GPA should also be around 3.5 or above to be a competitive applicant for health professional schools. The types of courses that will be calculated into a Science GPA will vary by health professional school application system, but will typically include: Biological Sciences (ex. General Biology, Anatomy, Microbiology, etc.), Chemistry courses, and Physics courses, and sometimes Mathematics and Statistics courses.

Treat your admission test as the most important test you will take in your life so far. Your score on your admission test can greatly affect your competitiveness for admission. Students who earn high scores on admission tests like the MCAT often study for 2-3 months, 5-6 days per week, 4-8 hours per day for their test. Different tests, different student learning styles, and different student life circumstances will necessitate different amounts of preparation time and different types of preparation though. PHPL can discuss test preparation options with you and help you determine the best test prep option for you.

Extracurricular Preparation

  • Shadowing experiences involve observing a health professional while they work. These experiences are typically unpaid. Health professional schools ideally want to see shadowing/observation multiple health professionals in many different specialties (breadth) and for extended periods of time (depth).

Outside of the Box Experiences

  • Join a UCF Pre-Health Student Organization.
  • “Distance-Traveled”- defined as the road traveled to become a health professional school applicant. For example, the “distance traveled” by a socioeconomically disadvantaged applicant is often farther than other applicants.
  • Sports/Athletics Involvement (even intramural sports)
  • Arts/Dance/Music Involvement
  • Study Abroad
  • Business Experience
  • Mission Trips (international or abroad, medical or non-medical)
  • Cultural Competency Experiences
  • Hobbies
  • Artistic Endeavors
  • Non-Science Major/Minor
  • Multiple Research Publications
  • Healthcare Work Experience (if Pre-PA, then this is highly recommended)
  • Military Experience
  • Life Experiences
  • And many others!