CBU's Steps for Success

To get into competitive professional (e.g., medical, pharmacy, dental) schools, there are five things that are important:

1. Grades At CBU most of our science courses have labs associated with them, and the instructor for the lecture is usually the instructor for the lab. Our professors have at least 10 office hours each week to help students both with their coursework and with advising for their career plans.

2. Entrance tests (e.g., MCAT, PCAT, DAT) The excellent courses supported by well equipped labs prepare our students for these tests. In addition, the CBU Career Center offers practice tests to try to help prepare our students.

3. Experience in the field At CBU we provide our students with many opportunities to gain experience (see a slide show) in their chosen field. In the freshmen Principles of Biology courses we have a discussion section that spends some time talking about what it takes to get into various fields. In the sophomore year we have a Biology Careers course that has students shadow a couple of professionals and hear many more make presentations about their fields. In the Junior year we have a Junior Seminar course that brings researchers onto campus to talk about their research. All of our majors have a senior capstone research or internship course. This experience is viewed very positively by the various health professional schools.

4. Recommendations from your professors and the supervisors of your work in the field. At CBU you are encouraged to really get to know your professors. If you take advantage of this, the professors will be able to write very specific letters of recommendation for you.

5. Interviews As part of the admissions process for professional schools, students are required to attend an interview. At CBU we help students prepare for this opportunity by holding mock interviews staffed by our alumni and other health professionals.

To help and guide you in your preparation for pursuing any of the health careers, we have a Pre-Professional Heath Director, Dr. Stan Eisen. He has a very extensive set of web pages on the various health careers and what it takes to get into these professional schools.

Our Results:

In the last five years (classes of 2002 to 2006),

• we had 32 of our graduates accepted into medical school (91%* acceptance rate)
• we had 13 of our graduates accepted into pharmacy school (87% acceptance rate)
• we had an additional 33 students accepted into various other health professional schools such as physical therapy, dentistry, nursing, veterinary and optometry.

* In reviewing these percentages, please note that we do not pre-screen our applicants to the various professional or graduate schools as some institutions do. Some of our students were initially rejected but were accepted in a following year.

For comparison purposes with medical school acceptances at UT and nationwide:

• UT-Memphis accepts 170 out of about 1,300 applications (13% acceptance rate).
• nationwide, 17,000 are accepted out of 37,000 applications (46% acceptance rate).

The picture on the right shows CBU grad Jason Higdon getting his "white coat" in his first year in Medical School.