This is a College of Arts and Sciences committee that consists of all the College's premed advisors plus one nonscience faculty.  It's a very stable committee, with infrequent changes in membership. Any student applying to medical, dental, or pharmacy school should appear before the committee for an interview, after which the committee will write a joint letter of recommendation for the student. This usually occurs during your junior year, or fall of senior year. It is an unwritten law that it is very difficult to be admitted to a medical-sciences professional school without a good committe recommendation.

Committee Membership:  Dr. Martin Brock, Chemistry (Committee Chair); Dr. Suzanne Byrd, Biology (Committee Co-chair); Dr. Debra Bautista, Chemistry; Dr. Rodney Eisenberg, Chemistry; Dr. Michael Foster, Biology;  Dr. Laura Newhart, Philosophy; Dr. Barbara Ramey, Biology; Dr. Frank Williams, Philosophy.

If you are an applicant/interviewee, the committee will make judgments about and comment in the letter on your: academic performance, work experience, extracurricular activities, social skills, health-field-related experience,  maturity, communication skills, breadth of knowledge (outside of science), reliability, creativity, people-skills, dedication to your chosen profession, self-discipline, study habits, . . . and so on.

You may wonder how the committee could know enough about you to judge you in such matters. Of course your academic record will obviously be available, and various teachers of courses you've taken will be asked to send comments to the committee; but on what basis could it judge those other things? Well, if the committee doesn't have much basis for judging them, you're in trouble!

Because they are likely to say in the letter that they don't know you very well, and the other comments will be at best educated guesswork based on nothing other than a 30 minute interview. The interview will provide some basis for judgment, but really not enough.

So, if you exercise good judgment, you will reflect on how you can make yourself known to committee members and other (especially science) teachers 'way prior to the interview.  If a committee member is your advisor, or teacher in a course, find opportunities to discuss your career plans and aspirations with him/her.  Ask for advice about how to prepare yourself, other than just by taking the prescribed courses; and take the advice seriously. Do not go to your advisor merely to get your schedule approved!  Preprofessional advisors have lots of advice worth serious consideration, but they aren't likely to offer it unless you show enough interest to ask for it!  Also, try to take courses from them (and get A's).  In class and lab, show some enthusiasm and interest.  This is not just a matter of scheming how to advance your interests.  If you don't find the classes interesting, why take them? If you have no enthusiasm for the career-prep undergraduate classes, that's evidence that you aren't very well suited for that career!  If you never have questions to ask in or after science classes (for more information, elaboration, or just curiosity questions) . . . well, that's sort of strange -- what are you doing on a science-oriented career track?

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