Name
Addressing Inequities in Medical School Representation of Community College Transfer Students
Date
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
Time
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM (EDT)
Authors

Maxwell Pendleton - University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine
Alex Sigrist - Community College of Vermont
Leila Amiri - University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine

Description

There does not currently exist advising specifically for prospective pre-medical students at the Community College of Vermont (CCV). Pre-medical students at CCV might find themselves lost in how to transfer to a 4-year institution while also ensuring adequate preparation for the application process to US medical schools using the Association of American Medical College’s (AAMC) American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS). Additionally, AMCAS does not publish data on proportions of students that matriculate to AMCAS-participating medical schools that, at any point, were fully enrolled in community college during their undergraduate education. This advocacy track aims to identify areas for improvement to increase accessibility to US medical schools for community college students, such as community college (CC) pre-medical advising services, inclusion of pre-medical course requirements in CC course offerings, and CC extracurricular opportunities. This track’s goals are longitudinal for CC pre-medical students and involve what we have defined as the core facets of pre-medical education, which exist for every pre-medical student: baccalaureate performance, extracurricular activity participation, and application timeline optimization for AMCAS submission. Additionally, this track seeks to address unique barriers for CC pre-medical students, such as the transfer process, in their completion of the facets of pre-medical education. This track provides recommendations to 4-year-college pre-medical advising services, community college student advising services, and 4-year-college registrar offices: be conscious of barriers that are unique to CC pre-medical students, provide resources for CC pre-medical students to succeed, and formalize advising pathways between community college and 4-year-colleges’ advising services.

Presentation Topic(s)
Justice, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)
Presentation Tag(s)
Pre-Med, Best Practices, Inclusive Teaching