Prepare for Health Professional or Graduate School
Providing a boutique of options geared toward health professional or graduate school success and/or a career in healthcare.
Your goal is our goal – whether it is admission to a professional health school like medical or dental school or winning your dream job in healthcare. We help you prepare for the next step.
The College of Liberal Arts takes a nuanced approach to preparing you for high-stakes, holistic review. It goes beyond taking all of the prerequisites and making sure you have direct-patient or clinical hours or other practical experiences. We prepare you for understanding the pathway for acceptance to a high-stakes professional program or career. Additionally, we give you the tools to better articulate how you understand yourself, what your academics have meant to you, and what your experiences have positioned you for.
Your experiences here and now will shape your professional practice and how you interact with patients or clients.
CLA also provides you with interdisciplinary depth, as it is difficult to manage the bedside if you don’t have insight to history, philosophy, geography/public health, literature, anthropology, psychology, and more.
Please access the following guides for further content on how to prepare for professional school:
- Start here to learn about the full medical school pathway
- Note: In order to graduate from a University of Minnesota, students must have met all Liberal Education requirements, major requirements, and GPA requirements and must have completed 120 total credits.
- Understand Pre-Medicine Definitions and Explanations
- Access Pre-Medical Course Sequence and Degree Planning Guide
- Start here to learn about the full dental school pathway
- Note: Applicants may apply to many dental schools without a bachelor’s degree, but this is STRONGLY discouraged. It is extremely rare that the UMN Dental School admits a student who has not attained a bachelor’s degree for the D.D.S. program.
- Understand Pre-Dental Definitions and Explanations
- Access Pre-Dental Course Sequence and Degree Planning Guide
- Start here to learn about the full pharmacy school pathway
- Note: There is not a “best” option when it comes to a major to get into pharmacy school . ALL majors in CLA are excellent for pharmacy school. In the pathway guide you will find the majors that have the majority of students interested in pharmacy school.
- Start here to learn about the full occupational therapy school pathway
- Note: Occupational Therapy programs may be at the doctoral level (Doctor of Occupational Therapy or OTD) or at the Master’s-level. Currently, the University of Minnesota only offers a doctoral program (OTD), and admissions for this program are competitive and high-stakes. Students interested in pursuing the OTD at the University of Minnesota should be prepared for a comprehensive, holistic review of their background and academic preparation (it’s not all about academics).
- Access Pre-Occupational Therapy Course Sequence and Degree Planning Guide
- Start here to learn about the full physical therapy school pathway
- Note: Physical Therapy programs are offered as doctoral programs (Doctor of Physical Therapy) and leads to state licensure (PT Licensure in Minnesota). Many programs are offered through medical schools. These programs are different from Physical Therapy Assistant programs. Generally, admissions for DPT programs are competitive and high-stakes. Students interested in pursuing the DPT at the University of Minnesota should be prepared for a comprehensive, holistic review of their background and academic preparation (it’s not all about academics).
- Access Pre-Physical Therapy Course Sequence and Degree Planning Guide
- Start here to learn about the full nursing school pathway
- Note: There is no transfer option into the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) nursing program at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.
- This means that transferring into the UMN-TC BSN program is NOT possible if you are not admitted directly to the program out of high school.
- This means that if you are admitted to any other college at the university, like CLA, CBS, or CCAPS, there is NO PATHWAY into the BSN program.
- Note: There is no transfer option into the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) nursing program at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.
- Access Pre-Nursing Course Sequence and Degree Planning Guide
- Access Pre-Nursing with transfer to UMN Rochester Course Planning Guide