Admissions Criteria
The Dell Medical School admissions process incorporates unique features intended to consider each applicant as a person and a leader — not as a set of numbers on a page. The admissions committee looks for notable characteristics and experiences in leadership; innovation and creativity; teamwork; and community engagement.
Mission Contribution
Dell Med was created through an unprecedented partnership with its community — a partnership that continues as Dell Med faculty, students and staff maintain a focus on improving health locally as a model for the nation. This work requires a rethinking of health care, education and research systems, and the school’s physician leaders are on the front lines of such change. Students with demonstrated strengths in creativity, innovation, teamwork, resilience, leadership and community engagement will help further advance Dell Med’s mission and vision.
Personal Attributes
It’s no secret that health care professionals today are facing many hurdles as they work to optimize care delivery and improve outcomes. Graduates of Dell Med will rise to the challenge and act as change agents for good. With this role comes the need for these character strengths: integrity and ethics; reliability and dependability; service orientation; social and interpersonal skills; teamwork; capacity for improvement; resilience and adaptability; cultural competence and oral communication. Short essay questions and vita of past experiences in the TMDSAS application, the secondary application and letters of evaluation are opportunities to demonstrate personal qualities and strengths.
Life Experiences
Physicians repeatedly draw from their own life experiences when treating patients and working with colleagues. A diversity of such experiences fosters a broad perspective that’s invaluable to a doctor. The admissions team looks for evidence of this in personal statements, essays, letters of evaluation and interview sessions. Life experiences come in many different forms: For example, the current class of students includes a U.S. Army veteran who plans to make a difference in emergency medicine, a businesswoman whose career trajectory was altered by a close encounter with a military coup, an engineering graduate who’s integrating his research experience and a UT Austin alum whose first step to becoming a physician came when he took a job as a janitor at a mental health care facility.
Academic Ability
By creating a curriculum from scratch, Dell Med leaders had the freedom to incorporate leading-edge methods and develop a model that uses student time as efficiently as possible. It includes accelerating the pre-clinical basic science curriculum to 12 months — two years is typical — with a greater focus on team-based learning and self-paced study. Students with a strong academic record will excel in this accelerated curriculum, although the admissions team also reviews each applicant’s history for other evidence of academic aptitude and stamina. GPAs, transcripts and MCAT scores inform this assessment, but the team considers them in the context of other qualifications for holistic evaluation.
MCAT & GPA
Dell Med does not set a minimum MCAT score. The MCAT score is evaluated as one indicator among many others and must be considered in light of those other factors. The admissions team accepts MCAT scores received up to five years prior to the expected date of matriculation.
The school does not set a minimum GPA. An applicant’s GPA is one indicator among many that are considered in the application evaluation. The team reviews GPAs in prerequisite courses, rigor of advanced coursework, trends in the context of the applicant’s experiences and nonacademic obligations.
Prerequisite Courses
Medical education fosters core competencies required of modern physicians — but a strong foundation in these is required of applicants. Competency is demonstrated by completing the following courses designated as “for science majors” at a regionally accredited U.S. college or university:
- Biology: 11 semester hours, two of which must be labs (A genetics course is strongly recommended.)
- Physics: Eight semester hours, two of which must be labs
- Chemistry: 12 semester hours, to be composed of a combination of:
- Two semesters of organic chemistry and one semester of general inorganic chemistry (for a total of nine semester hours with three semester hours of lab)
or - Two semesters of general inorganic chemistry and one semester of organic chemistry (for a total of nine semester hours with three semester hours of lab)
- Two semesters of organic chemistry and one semester of general inorganic chemistry (for a total of nine semester hours with three semester hours of lab)
- Biochemistry: Three semester hours of biochemistry
- English: Three semester hours of composition-based English
- Math: Three semester hours of statistics
Advanced Placement and correspondence courses are acceptable if the official transcript indicates specific course numbers and credits granted. A grade of “C” or higher must be recorded in each of these courses. Any quarter-hour credit equals two-thirds of a semester-hour credit.
Dell Med supports the movement toward competencies. Applicants are free to demonstrate competencies by any means; for most, the easiest method will be through satisfactory performance in appropriately rigorous coursework. Any applicant that believes competency has been established by some alternate means is invited to petition the admissions team by email.