University of Florida, College of Medicine

The University of Florida College of Medicine (UFCOM) presented to the Pre-Medical Society this week information about their medical school.

Their school receives about 5000 applications per cycle. They offer about 300 interviews and they accept about 150 students. Their average GPA is 3.8 for science classes. They have an average MCAT score of 515. In terms of diversity, their accepted students from the last cycle come from 56 different undergraduate institutions, they have a 53:47 ratio in terms of female to male accepted students, 26 percent of their students were population minorities and 13 percent were first-generation college students.

Like many medical schools, UFCOM performs a holistic review on an application. They look for an applicant’s medical experience with patients and physicians. They look for letters of recommendations that must add value beyond what the admissions committee already knows through other parts of the application. UFCOM values students who are “other-centered”, those who put the comfort and convenience of others first before themselves.

UFCOM offers an MD-PhD program.

The UFCOM admissions committee prefers some committee letters over others. For example, Ms. Juliet Hill, the spokesperson for the UFCOM admissions committee, states that some universities provide “narrative” committee letters that do not add more information to the application about the applicant. Ms. Hill says such letters are unhelpful. However, she does mention that some committees offer helpful letters. Ultimately, it depends on how your university’s admissions committee writes its letters.