Requirements
Applicants are expected to earn a bachelor’s degree from a college of arts and sciences or engineering that is accredited in the U.S. or Canada. Applicants who have not graduated from an accredited U.S. or Canadian institution, but who completed a minimum of two (2) years in such an institution, including all of the prerequisites, may be considered to be eligible and should bring the details of their record to the attention of the Committee on Admissions. Occasionally a candidate of unusual ability is accepted after attendance for three academic years in an undergraduate school if he or she has satisfactorily completed all of the prerequisites and the minimum entrance requirements of 90 semester hours. Applicants currently enrolled in a professional or graduate school program must be in the terminal year of the degree program to be considered for admission to the first year class.
Prerequisite Course Requirements
- English Composition or Literature (1 year)
- Humanities (1 year)
- Biology with Lab (1 year)
- General Chemistry with Lab (1 year)*
- Organic Chemistry with Lab (1 year)*
- Physics (1 year)
*We can accept what your school defines as the adequate lab experience for these courses. If this does not equal one full year, please explain the circumstances in the text box below the Prerequisite Grid in our supplemental application.
All prerequisites must be completed before a student can matriculate at BUSM. We generally prefer that applicants take these courses at 4-year undergraduate institution rather than utilize advanced placement credits. If an applicant chooses to use advanced placement credits, rather than taking a course at a 4 year accredited college, he/she will be asked to explain the circumstances as a part of their BUSM secondary application. The Committee on Admissions will then consider the matter as a part of its comprehensive review of the application. This applies also to CLEP, community college, junior college and online/distance learning courses as well. If an applicant has placed out of a required college level course, we will also accept another course in that discipline at the same or higher level.
Applicants are urged to acquire a broad experience in the humanities, as well as in the behavioral and social sciences during their college years, and we encourage all applicants to follow their own interests whether in the arts or in the sciences. Applicants are generally well advised to refrain from modifying their undergraduate course selections in an effort to anticipate subject matter that will be studied in medical school.
Letter of Recommendation Requirements
Those applicants who attend, or who have recently graduated from, an undergraduate institution or a post-baccalaureate premedical program which offers a Health Professions Advisor or Advisory Committee should submit a letter from this person or committee. If no such institutional letter is available, the applicant should explain this on the BUSM supplemental application and substitute a minimum of three individual letters, two of which must be from a professor who has taught you in Biology, Chemistry or Physics. The secondary application will not be considered complete until we have received all required letters, on official institutional letterhead and with a hand-written signature.
If you are enrolled in, or have completed, a formal, degree-granting program of graduate study, please provide a letter from your thesis adviser or a graduate professor for non-thesis programs. If you are engaged in research, either as a part of a degree program or in any other substantive way, a letter from your research supervisor or the director of the research program would be appreciated.
Boston University School of Medicine only accepts letters electronically through the AMCAS Letter Service. AMCAS will accept letters from users of VirtualEvals, Interfolio and via the US Postal Service. The address to which letters should be sent is located on the AMCAS Letters Request Form. For more information on this process, please visit AMCAS Letters FAQ.
MCAT Test Requirements
All applicants must take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) and should communicate directly with the Association of American Medical Colleges, for information concerning these examinations. Applicants who have not taken the MCAT by September 10, 2011 cannot be considered for entry in 2012. The oldest MCAT scores considered for entry in 2012 will be the April 2008 tests. Applicants are encouraged to take the MCAT in the spring of the year of application and to have most of the basic science requirements completed at the time of application. While we do our best to give equal consideration to all applications that are completed prior to our published deadlines, we have a very large applicant pool and early applications may be more likely to receive a favorable review.
