Application Guidelines and Advice
Frequently Asked Questions
Application Guidelines and Advice FAQ
View all videos: UCLA Medical School Application Guidelines and Advice FAQ
You're going to submit a primary application and this is where you put all your basic demographic information. This will go to DGSOM and any other medical school that you're applying to.
Many schools offer a secondary application and that secondary application is the supplemental application. It has school specific questions. You may apply to ten schools and only get five secondary applications.
Then it's time for the interview process. Not everyone will be interviewed and every interview process is different depending on the program you've applied to.
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The best letter writers are those individuals who know you the best.
It could be a professor, but it doesn't need to be. It could also be a peer, a mentor, or an employer.
What matters is that you get all the qualities that you truly want to highlight written in this letter of recommendation.
That means anybody could write your letter of recommendation.
The PREview exam is a new requirement for admission to the traditional MD program at the David Geffen School of Medicine. We are one of 17 other universities across the nation with this requirement.
It is a new situational judgment test being offered by the AAMC, and you can take it virtually, but it is now a required part of our admissions process.
Our application review process is a holistic one. We take into account all aspects of your application, including your GPA, your MCAT score, your personal essay, your letters of recommendation, and other essays that you will write for your application. Each component is important and tells a story of who you are.
While your grades are important, they're not a standalone feature for your application to be considered.
In the holistic review process, we will review each aspect of your application equally to make sure that you are a well-rounded candidate for our school and for the profession of medicine.
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This can be a particularly tough area to talk about. There's a lot that goes into it and it's very personal. Medical schools understand that.
At the David Geffen School of Medicine, what we're really interested in is not necessarily your life challenge, but how you've responded to it, your resilience, what you've gained and learned from the experience, and how you plan to apply that to a career in medicine.
Being a physician is not just a job. It's a life calling and it requires so much from everyone that enters the field.
So your life challenges can really allow you to demonstrate how you've learned, how you've grown, and how you can handle tough situations.
That's very important to include in your personal statement on the application, as well as in your other essays, and also to talk about in your admission interviews.
The application for medical school at the David Geffen School of Medicine opens up in May and you're eligible to submit your application in June.
The deadline is at the end of September, so that gives you 3 to 4 months to complete your application, to collect your letters of recommendation your materials and everything else that you may need.
So you've got plenty of time, but definitely apply earlier rather than later.
There's definitely no one thing. There are a variety of factors that go into being admitted.
The biggest thing is being confident about what you're bringing to the table and knowing why you want to be a physician. As long as you know why you want to be a physician and you can use all of your experiences, all the things you've done up to this point to highlight why you want to be a physician, you have just as good a shot as anyone else.
We do not have a minimum MCAT requirement. We do not have a minimum GPA requirement. We do not have a set course or group of classes that you need to take. However, we do have a set of competency levels. As long as you meet those competency levels, you can feel confident to apply.