Requirements for Admission

Academics

Applicants must have completed at least 90 semester hours from a recognized college or university.  Although a baccalaureate degree is not required for admission, it is highly unlikely that an applicant will be admitted without a four-year college degree.

Required college course work includes:

• English composition or writing intensive, 2 semesters
• College-level mathematics (college algebra or above), 1 semester
• General biology (6 hours) with lab (2 hours)
• General chemistry (6 hours) with lab (2 hours)
• Organic chemistry (6 hours) with lab (2 hours)
• General physics (6 hours) with lab (2 hours)

You must receive a passing grade in all of the above courses (C or better). One or two courses in biochemistry are strongly recommended, and one or two additional biology or chemistry courses are recommended. Only those courses required for science majors are acceptable; introductory survey science courses meant primarily as general education courses are not.

MCAT

The Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) is required.  Candidates may register electronically through the AAMC website at www.aamc.org. Scores older than 2008 will not be accepted. For 2012 entry, we will accept scores from exams administered through September 2011.

Letters of Recommendation

For the 2012 application year the University of Missouri School of Medicine will be participating in the AMCAS Letter of Recommendation program. We are accepting recommendation letters ONLY through the AMCAS letter service.

When letters are requested, please visit the AMCAS website for more information on how to submit letters of recommendation to the University of Missouri. To ensure efficient processing of your letters by AMCAS, be sure to carefully follow instructions.

At the University of Missouri, we will not accept any Letters of Recommendation sent directly to the medical school. Any letters we receive will not be accepted, will not be placed in your application file, and will not be retained in any other form.

To summarize:

• ALL letters need to be submitted using the AMCAS letter service.
• Do not send any letters directly to the University of Missouri School of Medicine.
• All reapplicants must submit letters through AMCAS. We will not pull forward letters from the last application cycle.
• We will not retain any letters sent directly to Missouri.

We require three individual letters from professors who taught the applicant and issued the applicant grades. The only exception to this requirement is if your highest degree was awarded prior to 2005. It is strongly recommended that at least two of the three be from science faculty. The only exception to this is if you haven't taken ANY college courses for more than 6 years. Letters from teaching assistants will not satisfy this requirement. Applicants may submit a premed committee or composite letter in lieu of the three individual letters. MU appreciates colleges/universities who submit a premed committee letter as well as individual letters. Additional letters beyond the three required may be submitted to supplement or validate other aspects of an individual’s candidacy, but the Committee requests that no more than 6 letters be sent. Deadline for filing letters of reference is January 15.

Secondary Application

All Missouri residents will have files opened.  Residents of states contiguous to Missouri with at least a 28 MCAT and 3.5 cumulative GPA will have files opened.  Residents of contiguous states who do not meet the aforementioned criteria and residents of all other states will be asked to complete an information sheet to provide additional information.  The Associate Dean for Student Programs will review these information sheets to determine if files will be opened.  All applicants for whom files are opened will receive via e-mail a login and password to access the secondary online application. To continue consideration, applicants are required to complete and submit the Secondary Application with the $75 fee by the January 15th file completion deadline. The University of Missouri School of Medicine offers a fee waiver to those applicants who have already received a fee waiver from the AMCAS Fee Assistance Program (FAP).

Applicants must be either a US citizen or permanent resident.

/requirements.shtml updated 5/11/11