Readiness and Preparation

Readiness and Preparation

The decision about when to apply to professional schools should be based on your level of readiness. Our staff encourages you to apply to professional schools when your portfolio is at its strongest. As pursuing further education at a health professional school requires a substantial financial, time, and personal commitment, we encourage you to apply only once and when you are ready. This means applying when your portfolio (grades, entrance exam scores, extra-curricular activities) is the best it can be.

Health professional schools look for early evidence that you can manage the challenges of their science-intensive curriculum and will view your cumulative grade point average (GPA) and BCPM (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math) GPA as your way of demonstrating this. Other considerations include trends in your academic performance, the diversity and rigor of your courses, knowledge of the profession you seek to enter, and a demonstrated commitment to health care on an individual and/or societal level.

Entrance Metrics

NYU's competitive candidates for allopathic (MD) medical schools traditionally earn a
3.6–3.7 GPA overall and in the sciences and score above the 88th percentile on the MCAT entrance exam. NYU's competitive candidates for dental schools traditionally earn a 3.4–3.5 GPA overall and in the sciences and score a 20 on the DAT.

There is a movement in admissions toward "holistic admissions", which does consider the candidate's background, access to opportunities, and obstacles overcome. If your metrics fall below the above profile, we encourage you to come in and talk about your story with us, so we can help you better evaluate your personal application readiness.

Professional organizations also publish aggregated applicant and matriculant data. We encourage you to review this information as you assess your application readiness and academic preparation:

We encourage you to use the admissions materials in Preprofessional Advising Center's resource library to help you collect information about your programs of interest, as academic standards vary from discipline to discipline and school to school.