Compiled by Prof. Stephen
George , Chair, Health Professions Committee,
and Dean Carolyn Bassett,
Health Professions Advisor
This is the second page of Part II of the Guide. At the end of the page are navigation buttons to help you get to other parts of the Guide and other Health Professions pages.
Fall, 2007:
January, 2008:
February:
February or March:
April:
April 18 :
April 18:
May 16:
May (i.e. before leaving campus if at Amherst):
June:
July 15:
June - August:
September:
From then on: Interviews and acceptances!
The Role of the Amherst College Health Professions Committee (HPC)
The HPC will send a recommendation packet on your behalf to each medical school you select. The packet will be mailed by the last week in August. It consists of a cover page with information about Amherst College, a Committee letter of evaluation signed by Dean Bassett and Prof. George, four faculty letters of recommendation, and a statistical page showing median grades in the premedical science courses you took at Amherst. The purpose of the statistical page is to show that grades in Amherst science courses are not all A's.
Students applying while at Amherst (i.e. at the end of junior or senior year) are expected by medical schools to apply through the HPC, rather than having individual recommendations sent separately to medical schools. Recent graduates who took most of their required premedical science courses at Amherst are also welcome to apply through the HPC. Students who took many premedical science courses elsewhere after graduation should apply "on their own", not through the Amherst Health Professions Committee. The section on Letters of Recommendation below contains more information on what is needed to apply through the HPC.
How and When to Begin the Process
Register with the Health Professions Secretary, Nadine Alexander,
in the Biology Department Office. You may register any time after
January 1; the beginning of second semester is an ideal time.
Waiting until later than mid-March will make it difficult to gather
recommendations and meet deadlines. Nadine will give you materials
related to the application process, some of which you will fill
out and return to her. Registering will put you on the mailing
list for information about other aspects of the process like the
April meeting run by Dean Bassett. To contact Nadine:
For questions about academic requirements, advanced standing, and letters of recommendation, contact Prof. Stephen George, Chair of the Health Professions Commitee, at Biology Dept., Amherst College, Amherst, MA 01002-5000. Phone 413-542-2477.
For questions about the application process, contact Dean Carolyn Bassett, Health Professions Advisor, at Career Center, Amherst College, Amherst, MA 01002-5000. Phone 413-542-2265.
However, don't send items to Dean Bassett or Prof. George unless you're asked to do so. Nadine Alexander handles all paperwork for the applications.
INFORMATION FOR THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS COMMITTEE
The Health Professions Committee requires a variety of information so that we may learn more about you and your plans to study medicine. By May 1 you must submit a resume, personal statement, and waiver form to Nadine Alexander. You must also have conducted a one-hour interview with Dean Bassett, to which you will bring the pre-med interview questionnaire which you receive from Nadine when you register. Interviews may be scheduled as early as February 1.
Résumés should be one page in length and include the titles and dates of pertinent activities such as internships, research, volunteer work, extracurricular activities, and leadership positions. It is helpful to ask a Peer Career Advisor in the Career Center to review your résumé.
Your interview with the Health Professions Advisor is an opportunity to speak in detail about your interests and experiences, as well as ask questions about the application process. Contact the Career Center to schedule your interview, and please bring your interview questionnaire and an unofficial transcript with you. Alumni living at a distance may conduct this interview by phone. Students who study abroad in the spring semester should schedule their interview the previous fall semester.
Submit a personal statement approximately one single-spaced page long in which you convey to us how you know you want to be a physician. Commonly, students incorporate previous experiences, values, particular talents, and personal goals into this essay. When you submit your AMCAS application, you will be asked to include a similiar statement, so this can be a way to get a start on that part of your application. Here are some questions to consider, taken from last year's AMCAS instructions: "Why have you selected the field of medicine? What motivates you to learn more about medicine? ... In addition, you may want to include information such as special hardships, challenges or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits."
Your Health Professions Committee letter will be based on four (i.e. exactly four--not more or less than four) letters of recommendation from faculty and others at Amherst College that you request, plus your personal statement, résumé, and interview with Dean Bassett. Copies of these individual letters of recommendation are sent along with the Committee letter of evaluation, which contains quotes from the faculty letters. Register with Nadine before asking faculty to write for you, so you can give each recommender a copy of the information sheet for recommenders, four copies of which you'll receive when you register.
At least two of the four letters of recommendation you request must be from science professors at Amherst. ("Science" in this case means Biology, Chemistry, Math/Computer Science, Physics, or the Neuroscience faculty in the Psychology department.) There are no exceptions to this rule. The other two letters may be from science or non-science faculty, Deans, coaches, and administrators.
Transfer students, or students who studied at another instutition on an exchange program, may obtain one of the four letters from faculty at the other institution. We do not take letters from faculty who may have taught you in summer school courses. Since what we prepare is an institutional recommendation from Amherst College, we do not use letters from job supervisors or others outside Amherst College. Ask those who know you well in an educational or scientific/medical context outside Amherst to write a recommendation and send it directly to the medical schools; supply these recommenders with stamped envelopes addressed to each medical school admissions office exactly as the address appears in the Medical School Admissions Requirements book.
The only exception to the "four and only four" rule is that, if you are applying at least one year after graduation (i.e. you graduated in 2006 or earlier), you may if you wish include one additional letter from someone outside Amherst who knows you well in a science or educational setting since graduation. (We emphasize that this is optional.) Even if as a graduate you have the optional outside letter sent, you still must have four Amherst recommendations, at least two of which come from science faculty, in order to apply through the Amherst Health Professions Committee.
It's up to you to keep track of which recommendations have been received by the secretary. Send a follow-up note to your recommenders shortly before the due date of April 18 (or May 16 if you're in the prof.'s class this semester), thanking them for their willingness to write the recommendation, to serve as a reminder for them.
Consequences of missed deadlines
If you miss deadlines for submitting items to Nadine, or if your faculty recommendations don't arrive by the due date, your recommendations may miss our August submission date. We will do what we can for applicants who miss deadlines. However, at some point in the early summer it becomes impossible to include applicants with incomplete files in the August mailing without delaying the mailing, and we won't delay it by even one day to accommodate a late applicant. It takes many weeks for Nadine Alexander to format and assemble the packets on behalf of our 50 applicants each year. Before she can begin, the Health Professions Committee edits all recommendations and then meets to finalize them. Before that, the Health Professions Advisor has to draft the committee letters. Before she can do that, each applicant's file must be complete. Count back in time from the August mailing, and you can see that we can't include someone in the August mailing if the applicant's file is not complete by early summer.
If you do miss the August uploading of recommendations, we will process your recommendations after the beginning-of-semester rush is over, i.e. late September or early October. This isn't optimal, but neither is it fatal to your applications. Some colleges don't send out any recommendations at all until September.
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("The MCAT; The Application: AMCAS and non-AMCAS") |
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("Contents; Overview; Some Up-Front Advice") |
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