How to be a competitive applicant for ANY Health Profession school:

1. Know the Admissions policies of EACH institution to which you apply, through and through. Investigate early, even as a college freshman!  Use your understanding of admissions requirements to design your college career efficiently, with time to go beyond the minimum admissions requirements. Your knowledge will serve you well in the interview; selection committees are always impressed by the candidate who has done his or her homework.

2. Make no errors in your application materials; be on time (or ahead of time) for all deadlines.

3. Plan ahead several years; know where you want to go (Plan A) and also include a Plan B.  Your Academic Advisor can assist you with this process, but it's really up to you to plan.  Your plan should be IN WRITING, such as a chart showing each semester and each summer. Click here to obtain a sample chart to fill out.

4. Arrange a rich set of extracurricular experiences for yourself. 

• The most important of these is the "Shadow-A-Professional" experience, for two reasons. First, such experience is evidence that you understand the realistic day-to-day Professional life that you are seeking and the clientele you will serve. Second, if your relationship with the shadowed Professional is favorable, s/he can write you a powerful letter of recommendation to the Professional school from the "I've done it and s/he can, too" perspective. Shadowing can be done on any time frame, including during vacations.
• You should also try to experience extracurricular activities that have helped you to develop character and diligence, and that have expanded your life experiences beyond your own socioeconomic category.  Extracurriculars might include collegiate athletics, laboratory research, volunteering, outside employment, and so on.  
• A particularly valuable extracurricular is "hospice", or end-of-life care.  This may involve a family member, or volunteer position, or job.  Admissions Committees like to know that you will not abandon your Health Profession because you find out too late that dealing with death is too much for you. 
• Increasingly, Professional schools seek to admit a class each year that is made up of diverse students from a variety of backgrounds.  Recruiters also suggest that students who have overcome obstacles in their lives are often rated very highly (which is information the Committee will only get from you if you tell them, in your personal essay). 
• Extracurriculars should be started in the freshman or sophomore year of college, for best results. Committees are suspicious of activities begun in the Junior year as being "just for show".

5. Work on your writing skills during college English classes and at every other opportunity.  This will help you greatly in the writing section of entrance exams and in constructing the best possible personal essay for your application.

6. Work on your speaking skills during college Speech classes and at every other opportunity.  This will help you do your best during any personal interviews and in your interactions with future clients.  Note: UW Oshkosh's Career Services can help prepare you for interviews!

7. Cultivate broad scientific and public policy literacy.  Professionals of any type are expected to be knowledgeable about their chosen Profession and its national trends. Such trends are dictated by new knowledge and by economic and political developments. The sooner you "catch on", the better candidate you will be, particularly at the interview. This may sound scary, but it's not.  Here are four easy and free ways to get in the habit:

• Web info on definitions of HMO/PPO/POS, Medicare/Medicaid, health insurance reform, malpractice, healthcare ethics, the uninsured, rural healthcare) is found at http://www.healthprofessions.org/interviewing.html.
• Listen to National Public Radio, which has excellent coverage of health care policy and medical advances at all times but also has "science Fridays" each Friday afternoon. Tune in while commuting, doing laundry, cooking, at the gym, etc.
• Sign up for email delivery of "Science in the News" from Sigma Xi, the scientific research society. A daily or weekly email (your choice) will summarize important science news and provide links for further information.
• Sign up for email delivery of the New York Times headlines. Tuesday editions of the Times highlight scientific developments, but there is excellent coverage of national (and international) healthcare policy all week long, as well. 

8. If you can qualify for intermediate college-level Spanish, plan to complete "Spanish for Medical Professionals", a course that is offered periodically by the Spanish Division of UW Oshkosh's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.  Bilinguality is very attractive to admissions committees.

9. Strive for a solid GPA, especially in the courses that your Professional school requires for admission. Most times, your GPA need not be a 4.0 for admission, though it's always good to shoot for it!  Many Professional schools advertise the mean (average) GPA of their most recently admitted class. Consider repeating any prerequisite course in which you earn a C, and then be sure to earn a better grade the second time around.

10. Treat any entrance exam as if it were a course with prerequisites.  Remember that you will need to take the entrance exam a full year before you would start the Professional school, i.e. you will take the exam in your Junior year. Figure out what the entrance exam covers and work backward from it to ensure that you take the appropriate courses that prepare you for its content.  It will do you no good to take Physics or Chemistry (for example) the year after the entrance exam tests you on those subjects! 

• The web sites for the entrance exams usually provide practice questions or even whole exams, to help you get ready.
• Nearly all PreHealth students purchase practice exam books as well. You can get these from bookstores, www.amazon.com, www.ebay.com, or from UW Oshkosh students who don't need them any more.
• There are also intensive exam-prep companies, such as Kaplan, whose courses can help you prepare for entrance exams. You may need to travel to Appleton or Milwaukee to complete these courses.
• One recruiter told me that a course in Symbolic Logic (such as UW Oshkosh's Phil 202) can be very helpful preparation for entrance exams.

11. It is impossible to know exactly what any Admissions Committee is "looking for". Part of their decision is based upon who all applies that year, which of course is different every year. Also, the membership of Admissions Committees can change each year, meaning that different personalities and preferences come to bear on the decision each year.  You are free to get in touch with the Health Professional school's admissions office to ask what more you can do to be competitive. Some of these offices actually have a "Recruiter" whose job it is to help students like you.  It does not hurt to get on the Recruiter's radar as a serious applicant who is leaving no stone unturned for success!

12. Every year, highly qualified applicants are not admitted.  If you are one of those, don't despair!  Keep yourself busy during your "year off"; continue to enhance your skills in support of your application; and consider re-applying.  Often, the overlooked candidate one year is admitted the next.

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Last updated on 04/26/2007.  Contact webmaster.