Pre-med Requirements

Our pre-medical requirements are detailed below. These prerequisites do not need to be completed to apply but must be met prior to matriculation. Applicants educated outside the United States are eligible for admission, but the required courses must be completed in a U.S., U.K, or Canadian college or university. Advanced courses in the same field may be substituted for required introductory-level courses.

The minimum requirements for admission to the first-year class are:

1. Attendance for three academic years, or the equivalent, at an accredited college, university, or institute of technology.
2. Satisfactory completion of the following courses, including laboratory work:

• General Biology or Zoology (2 semesters)
• General Chemistry (2 semesters)
• Organic Chemistry (1 semester)
• Biochemistry (1 semester - laboratory recommended, but not required)
• General Physics (2 semesters)

Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to review individuals’ specific courses and syllabi to confirm if their courses satisfy our requirements until they have applied. To help students and academic advisors ensure that prospective students are meeting our pre-medical requirements, we’ve provided some general guidelines for acceptable courses below.

All applicants must complete a full year of general biology or zoology with a lab (2 semesters). We will accept advanced or higher-level biology courses (such as Genetics or Cell Biology) toward this requirement. Preparation in biology should emphasize human biology and principles of systems biology.

All applicants must complete a full year of general chemistry with lab (2 semesters), one semester of organic chemistry with lab and one semester of biochemistry (lab recommended, but not required). Preparation in chemistry should include exposure to general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry in a sequence that provides the foundation for the study of biologically relevant chemistry.

All applicants must complete a full year of general physics with lab (2 semesters). Preparation in physics should focus on biologically relevant areas of mechanics, kinetics, thermodynamics, the properties of matter (quantum theory) and wave theory, electricity and magnetism, and optics.

Acceptable courses in these subjects are usually given three to four semester hours of academic credit per semester. Students on a quarter or trimester system must still complete the equivalent amount of coursework, as measured in credit hours. Your registrar’s office and academic advisors can provide information on how to convert your school’s quarter or trimester credit hours into traditional semester credit hours.

Additional coursework without a lab component cannot be substituted for lab requirements. However, you may take a relevant lab independent of a lecture component to meet the lab requirement for a subject.

We have no recommended course of study beyond our premed course requirements. However, we encourage applicants to progress beyond the elementary level in the field of their choice rather than pursue an undirected, generalized program. The student of medicine enters a profession closely allied to the natural sciences and must be prepared to cope with chemistry and biology at the graduate level. But science courses should not be your sole focus: a liberal education is the supporting structure for graduate study and should include an understanding of the humanities, arts, and society as well as the foundations of technology and civilization.