In-coming college freshmen and sophomores: If you are currently enrolled at UAA, set up an appointment with your assigned department advisor (or, the advisor made available in the department through which you are earning your degree). If you are currently undeclared, the sooner that you declare a major, the sooner you will have an assigned advisor. Make sure that you are well-informed with the content on the WWAMI Requirements page prior to any advising appointments outside of the WWAMI department.

College juniors, seniors and post-bacs: WWAMI offers advising for 3^rd and 4^th-year students as well as non-traditional students working toward applying to medical school. See our Advising Page to set up an appointment with a PreMed Advisor.

Take classes that challenge you in high school, like AP courses or advanced mathematics. When applying for medical school, all required courses must be taken at a college or university—high school AP classes do not count. However, taking those classes will help significantly when you do take the college-level, required courses.

*You must have a baccalaureate degree. That degree can be in anything, though there are some degree programs more conducive to preparing for medical school than others.

*You must complete specific, college-level courses (high school AP classes prepare you, but do not count toward medical school). Every medical school has similar but varying requirements in this regard, so consider what schools you might like to attend and ask what their course requirements are.

*You must pass the MCAT. Non-required courses such as Ethics, Psychology, Physiology, Anatomy, Sociology, etc… are strongly recommended, both to strengthen your medical school application, showing that you are well-rounded, but also because a large percentage of the MCAT asks questions pertaining to these subjects.

Any baccalaureate degree will suffice for medical school applications. However, it is more difficult to integrate the aforementioned required course load into some than others. Degrees to consider avoiding include professional degree programs like Engineering, Nursing and Health Sciences. These intensive programs are time-consuming and have requirements that do not include many of the same courses required for medical school, making it extremely difficult to fit those courses in to one’s schedule.

 

Our most updated list of course requirements for the WWAMI Program can be found on our WWAMI Requirements Page.

UAA's WWAMI School of Medical Education offers two annual events geared toward informing students on how to work toward getting into medical school. In the fall, there will be a meeting hosted by the the Director of WWAMI for all in-coming students.

Additionally, the Annual Alaska Health Education Summit will be held at the end of March. This summit is a free, full-day event covering the ins and outs of working toward medical school including lectures, breakout sessions, vendor tables, mock-interviews and hands-on learning activities. Look for registration in March.