Pursuing any health professional program requires significant planning and creating a plan to be a competitive applicant.
Holistic Review
Health professional schools use a holistic review process, which means they look at everything in your application, not just your GPA or test scores.
They consider:
- Academic performance (GPA, coursework, test scores)
- Experiential learning (direct patient care/clinical experience, volunteer work, research, leadership)
- Personal qualities and competencies (communication, resilience, ethical reasoning, etc.)
This approach helps schools understand your readiness for the program, how you might contribute to their community, and your potential as a future healthcare professional.
There’s no single part of your application that will make or break your acceptance. Success comes from a well-rounded, authentic story built across all parts of your application.
Using Advanced Placement (AP) Credits:
If you are planning to pursue a career in healthcare (including medicine, dentistry, physician assistant, or related fields), we strongly recommend that you complete the entire series of prerequisites required for health professional programs at URI, even if you have earned AP credit.
Prerequisite Requirements
Applicants will need to complete the prerequisites for their program(s) in addition to requirements of their major(s) here at URI.
Direct Patient Care/Clinical Experience
Research
Volunteering
Leadership
Pre-Health Competencies
These professional, science, thinking and reasoning competencies are relevant for all health professions
Breadth, Depth and Rigor:
Professional schools don’t just look at your GPA. They closely review what you’ve taken and how you’ve challenged yourself.
Here’s how to think about your classes through the lens of breadth, depth, and rigor:
You’ve explored meaningful coursework outside the sciences.
- Shows you’re a curious, culturally aware thinker through coursework outside of the sciences, or through your experiences.
- Consider upper-level courses in the social sciences, humanities, or languages.
- Examples could include: Helping Skills for Counselors and Health Professionals (HDF 250) or Health, Illness and Medical Care (SOC 224), or any class that deepens cultural or behavioral understanding.
- Tip: Get a letter of recommendation from a non-science professor to reflect your engagement in these areas.
You’ve gone beyond the basics in a specific area of interest. This may demonstrate commitment and the ability to think like a future expert.
- Choose upper-level courses that build on earlier ones (examples might include Immunology and Serology, Inorganic Chemistry or Pharmacology).
- Consider getting involved in research to further deepen your expertise.
You’ve taken, and succeeded in, challenging courses.
Important note: Whenever possible, your prerequisite coursework should be taken at URI—your four-year, degree-granting institution. This demonstrates your ability to handle the full academic rigor of foundational science courses. Taking prerequisites during summer or J-Term sessions, or at other institutions like a community college, may raise concerns about course intensity and consistency.
- Health professional schools want to see that you’ve challenged yourself in a traditional academic setting, so plan to complete these key courses during the regular fall and spring semesters at URI.
- Shows schools you can handle the intensity of health professional programs.
- Your science GPA (BCPM) matters, so be strategic with your STEM course choices.
- Take more 300- and 400-level courses as you advance, especially in biology, chemistry, physics, or math.
There should be a level of “knowing” that this is the career for you.
- You can show you are passionate about pursuing this health profession, more than just “wanting to help people”
- Building a passion for the field by doing work through direct patient care/clinical experience to know what the work is like.
- Own your journey! Research professional associations to find out as much as you can about the career you are pursuing from resources available online: AAMC, ADEA, PAEA and more.
Timelines
The application process for health professions schools can be lengthy and intensive. Applicants formally begin the process during the Fall semester one and a half years prior to when they plan to matriculate to health professional school.
