Advice for Pre-Health Students

If you have an interest in a career in a health profession, the University at Albany uses a basic guide to prepare students during the first two years of undergraduate study.  This is called the Pre-Health curriculum. Although most pre-health students are science majors, a student may select any major to pursue, as long as the courses in the pre-health curriculum are incorporated into the overall degree plan. Choosing a major in psychology with a minor in biology, for example, would be a perfectly valid choice for a pre-medical student as well as for a pre-occupational therapy student.

How do you design your first semester in college if you are hoping to be accepted into a competitive health professional school?  If you follow the Pre-Health curriculum, you would be taking:

A Bio 110, General Biology (with lab),
AChm 120, General Chemistry 1,
A Chm 124 General Chemistry 1 Lab,
Math, and
General Education class.

The Pre-Health curriculum is designed for students to go directly from May graduation from the University at Albany into Fall admission at a medical, dental, optometry school, or other allied health profession.   It is also designed to display a student’s ability to handle a rigorous undergraduate curriculum and prove the student’s ability to manage the academic demands of Medical or Dental school.  Students may elect to begin with a lighter load to test their ability to manage these demands, although this may impact the timing of the student’s eligibility for medical/dental school.   It will be important to meet with your academic advisor and the pre-health advisor during your first semester to design the best combination of courses to meet your goals for subsequent semesters.

If you are unsure about following the pre-health curriculum, you may decide to take just Bio 110, General Biology 1, to see whether you like science on the university level. Ask yourself these questions:  Were science courses the courses you enjoyed in high school? Did you do well on the New York State Regents exams in the sciences?  If you enjoyed the sciences in high school and did well on science Regents exams, or possibly took an Advanced Placement course in the sciences, then you are more likely to succeed following the pre-health curriculum. You will have the opportunity to discuss these issues in more depth with the Pre-Health Advisor when you meet with her at orientation.

The Pre-Health website is a valuable resource for pre-health students. Read about special opportunities for pre-health students such as:

• Early Assurance to Albany Medical College
   

• Joint degree/7 year program with Boston University’s Goldman Dental School
   

• Joint degree/ 7 year program with SUNY Optometry
   

• Early Assurance to Physician Assistant Master’s degree at Albany Medical College
   

• Guaranteed Acceptance Program with Sage Graduate Program for the Doctor of Physical Therapy and the Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy.