The Prehealth Podcast at Penn State

The Comprehensive Review process is a tool used by PreHealth Advisers at Penn State to help guide their students to success in the application cycle. Even if you aren't a Penn State student who has access to this sort of opportunity, you can still take the details of how we approach this process and use that to support your own process. For Penn State students, please refer to these resources to h...

This is a rerelease of a past episode. We will routinely rerelease content to assist listeners with content at timely parts of the year. For this week's episode, we are talking about common myths and misconceptions that we hear about during the application cycle. We will have more "mythbusting" episodes in the future but for this one, we start from the very beginning of the application cycle all t...

The Eberly College of Science at Penn State University has an Early Assurance Program with the Salus University Pennsylvania College of Optometry . This episode will discuss the ins and outs of the application, who this program is a good fit for, and some strategies for approaching the application to best showcase your readiness and fit for this program. AUDIO: INTRO Song is This Science by Coma-M...

This will be the first in a series of rebroadcasted episodes to be able to reach new listeners with our back catalog of episodes. Roughly 1 in 4 students at Penn State identify as 1st Generation (this varies by campus). First-generation (first-gen) students tend to have higher satisfaction in their college experience compared to their peers, greater learning gains, and demonstrate a greater abilit...

The Eberly College of Science has an Early Assurance Program with the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine in NJ. This episode will discuss the ins and outs of the application, who this program is a good fit for, and some strategies for approaching the application to best showcase your readiness and fit for this program. AUDIO: INTRO Song is This Science by Coma-MediaOUTRO Song is Screening by Coma-M...

In this episode, we are focusing on the myths and common misconceptions about the standardized test for students pursuing medicine as a career. We see a lot of students with counterintuitive thoughts and understandings around the exam. We break down the most common things we see and try to set you up for success. AUDIO: INTRO Song was This Science by Coma-MediaOUTRO Song was Screening by Coma-Medi...

The Penn State PreHealth Podcast is BACK! To open up season 2, we invited our advising colleagues to talk about their favorite moments from Season 1, some things we would like to see in Season 2, and what is on the horizon for our episodes of this season, of the Penn State PreHealth Podcast

This week we are thrilled to welcome several professionals from The Western University of Health Sciences College of Podiatric Medicine in Pomona, CA. Unfortunately, we ran into some audio issues with this episode that we were unable to resolve. Please excuse the audio quality for this episode as a result. Our colleagues, however, were incredibly insightful about the opportunities and dynamics of...

In the current admissions process, schools are looking for more and more data to evaluate and compare candidates for their programs. Over the past few years, situational judgment tests have risen in prominence and use. This episode discusses the most common situational judgment tests in the health professions (Altus Suite - CASPer and DUET & the AAMC's PREview Exam), their structure, design, i...

The Primary Application shows an overview of your preparation and what makes you a broadly attractive candidate. The Secondary Essay/Application phase gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your fit for individual schools and programs. This week's episode features us discussing strategies for doing this well and understanding how a strong approach to these essays can make or break applications t...

This week, our conversation is about the academic major that students choose to prepare for the competitive applications to the health professions, what that means for admissions, and what options are out there. Our guest is Dr. Beth Johnson, Director of the Science Major in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State University. AUDIO: INTRO Song was Fun Life by FASSounds OUTRO Song was Best Time...

If you are a Penn State student in the Eberly College of Science, you can pursue an Early Assurance Agreement with the Penn State College of Medicine, which is an early offer of admission to medical school! This episode discusses the requirements to be able to apply, who this program is right for, and some guidance on the application process. EAP Program Website: https://science.psu.edu/interdisci...

NOTE: A previously released version of this podcast had an audio error. We apologize for that issue but have corrected the audio files for this release. At the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Dr. Bernadette Gilbert is a leader in guiding the selection of the next cohort of healthcare professionals. In this special episode, we were thrilled to be able to learn more about Dr. Gilb...

Right and wrong is not as black and white as we would like to think. And the big questions of our time will take interdisciplinary approaches, thinking, and problem-solving. In this week's episode, we chat with Dr. Michele Mekel, Associate Director of the Bioethics Program at Penn State about Bioethics, Medical Humanities, and the big questions of our age. Referenced Collaboration: 2nd Annual PSET...

The term "professionalism" is often a nebulous concept and not always clear to many of our first-generation, academically underprepared, and underresourced students. In this episode, host Kimberly Johnson breaks down this concept to help ALL of our students grow in this essential area as they prepare for careers in the health professions.

This week's episode is a talk-through guide for Penn State students to request their Penn State transcripts and how to send them to Liaison-based common application services such as CASPA, AACOMAS, PTCAS, AADSAS, OptomCAS, AACPMAS, etc. This is a super short episode.

This week's episode is a talk-through guide for Penn State students to request their Penn State transcripts and how to send them to AMCAS. This is a super short episode. Next week, we will have another super short episode walking through this same process but for Liaison-based application systems (CASPA, AACOMAS, PTCAS, AADSAS, OptomCAS, AACPMAS, etc.). AUDIO: INTRO Song was Fun Life by FASSoundsO...

As a current student at VCOM and Penn State grad, Brooke Nelson joins us on the podcast today to talk about her journey to medicine but also some of the challenges of making the transition to the next phase of your journey.

PostBac programs are incredibly varied and can benefit some students while not being right for others. In this week's conversation, we sit down with our friend and colleague Dr. Rarig from Temple University about PostBac programs, who they are right for, what they can look like, how they work, and what to consider. AUDIO: INTRO Song was Fun Life by FASSounds OUTRO Song was Best Time by FASSounds A...

In the 1980s, there was one topic that was more on the mind of infectious disease specialists than anything else but was rarely talked about at all. This disease would eventually be known as HIV/AIDS. Despite the public health crisis presented by this disease, very few physicians would treat patients with the symptoms, or when testing became available, the disease. In the state of Utah, your only...

What is required to be a competitive applicant starts with your preparation years. In the past, students with great grades and good MCAT scores were shoe-ins for admission. We know that the admissions process now in 2023 is far more complex and competitive for even the most incredible students to navigate. This episode breaks apart some of the common, myths, misconceptions, and barriers to prepari...

In the first episode of our student stories series, we interview first-generation college student, Era Pasha. We discuss her life, journey, passion for healthcare, and the challenges she has overcome along the way. AUDIO: INTRO Song was Fun Life by FASSoundsOUTRO Song was Best Time by FASSounds ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The Penn State PreHealth Podcast is a production of the PreHealth Advising Office in th...

One part of your application process that has the greatest influence on your success, is selecting a great school list. In this week's episode, we talk about the important aspects to consider when crafting your school list and the ways in which this list can impact the success or failure of a cycle. AUDIO: INTRO Song was Fun Life by FASSoundsOUTRO Song was Best Time by FASSounds ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: T...

This section can be EXTREMELY tedious. But, it is important to do right. This week, we discuss the grade entry and standardized test portions of the application. These items "open the doors" for schools to want to look more deeply at your application and can influence how schools interpret you as an applicant. AUDIO: INTRO Song was Fun Life by FASSounds OUTRO Song was Best Time by FASSounds ACKNOW...

Sometimes viewed as the "resume" section, the Work & Activities (or Experiences and Achievements section depending on your application service) couldn't be further from a simple resumer. In this section, we discuss the anatomy and physiology of the work and activities section and discussing how this section is used by Admissions officers to make decisions and better understand an applicant. We...