Prospective Students
The most common question asked of those who advise students interested in preparing for a career in the health professions is:
“What percent of Duke students who apply to medical/dental/veterinary school are accepted?”
The short answer is that 80-85% of our seniors are admitted to medical schools each year. While it is understandable that prospective students and their parents are curious about this information, a student’s choice of college or university should not be based on that answer. Why?
Many first-year college students who state their intention to become a health care professional change their minds. In addition, experience shows us that many students who enter college not considering health care as a career develop an interest in medicine and ultimately become health care providers. So to choose a college based on the success rate of its applicants to medical school, dental school, or veterinary school, is only one aspect of your decision. Even if you think today that you will become a health care provider, you might change your mind.
If you are interested in the possibility of becoming a physician, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care professional, you should choose a college or university that will offer you intellectual challenges and extensive opportunities for academic exploration. Health professions schools value broadly educated individuals with formative experiences. Preparation for a health professions graduate program generally requires you to take at least 8 science courses (4 chemistry, 2 biology, 2 physics) and 2 English courses. While you will need to take those courses, you do not have to major in a science. You can choose any major you wish.
How should you choose a college/university if you are considering a career in the health professions?
Look for:
- An excellent faculty and reputation for high academic standards
- Strong natural science departments with good laboratory facilities
- A broad range of courses in the humanities, social and behavioral sciences
- Extracurricular activities that appeal to you and give you a chance for new experiences and to develop leadership skills
- Opportunities for exposure to patient care
- Opportunities for you to contribute to your college community and other communities
- Opportunities for research or other scholarly activity
- A strong prehealth advising program with a track record of sending students on to train in heath professions
- A place that “feels right” for you but at the same time one that will challenge you to reach outside of who you are now and help you develop as an adult
Why Duke?
Duke University offers a wealth of both academic and non-academic opportunities for growth. We do so in the context of a diverse student body, each member of which brings his or her talents and strengths to our campus. We have an extensive health professions advising program that is a part of the academic advising structure within Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and also serves students from the Pratt School of Engineering. The Trinity College curriculum guides students in a way that fosters depth in an academic discipline and breadth across several disciplines, with a particular emphasis on ethical inquiry, cross-cultural experience, and how science and technology affect society. You will develop the traditional skills of a liberal education including critical thinking, problem solving, synthesis, and effective communication. These are all skills that will be of value to you whatever you decide to do with your life, and incidentally, they are highly valued by health professions schools. Pratt students likewise have opportunities to learn these skills through both their Pratt courses and the courses they take in Trinity.
At Duke you will discover areas of study you never knew existed. You may find that your interests lead you to pursue a path in public health, psychology, public policy, or other fields that may or may not be related to health care. Should you decide that you don’t want to pursue the health professions, there will be many other options available to you. Your strong liberal arts education from Duke will prepare you for opportunities in a wide variety of career choices.
If you decide to pursue prehealth planning at Duke, there are a number of resources available to you. Each Duke student is assigned a prehealth advisor upon matriculation to Duke. We encourage our students to meet with their prehealth advisor at least once each year. We have a detailed prehealth advising website so that our students have prehealth information available to them at all times. We offer quite an array of prehealth programming on campus, and students are contacted regularly about opportunities through our prehealth e-mail lists. We also have a specialized prehealth advisor in our Career Center to help students learn about career, shadowing, and volunteer opportunities.
When it comes time to apply to professional schools, each prehealth student is offered the opportunity to interview with a member of the prehealth team who will then write a comprehensive, Duke Prehealth Committee Letter that is sent to health professions schools’ offices of admission. Duke students and graduates are well received by medical, dental, veterinary, and other health professions schools across the country. We have an excellent rapport with professional schools, and our students do enjoy a high rate of acceptance, including by the most competitive programs.
We invite you to explore our health professions advising website to learn more about the specifics of our prehealth advising program. The Career Center at Duke also provides a variety of resources for our prehealth students including opportunities to volunteer in a health care setting, observe health care professionals, meet alumni, contact student groups, find internships, and to identify jobs and research opportunities. Please visit http://www.studentaffairs.duke.edu/career for more information.