Frequently Asked Questions
Individuals who are usually accepted into the program include:
- Individuals who have been personally impacted by health care disparities, socioeconomic or educational barriers
- Individuals who have MCAT scores from the 25th percentile or better in each section or overall
- Individuals who have an undergraduate science or overall GPA of 2.9 or better
This is self-defined. You will write your Drexel Pathway to Medical School essay explaining why you feel that you have personally experienced health care disparities, socioeconomic or educational barriers, including any struggles that you encountered growing up. The essay character limit (including spaces, punctuation marks and paragraph breaks) is 5,300 characters.
Drexel Pathway to Medical School is a very competitive program. The graduate school receives between 500 and 700 applications for approximately 65 seats.
Yes, a valid MCAT score is required to be considered. Please be advised that the Drexel Pathway to Medical School program is a provisional acceptance into Drexel University College of Medicine. A valid MCAT is the only standardized test that is accepted for admission into this program. Your most recent MCAT must have been taken after January 2021 to be considered valid for matriculation into the medical school upon completion of the program, regardless of whether the MCAT must be retaken in the program.
Please be advised that, due to the competitiveness of this program, the College of Medicine has a very strict deadline of April 12, 2024. All materials, including MCAT scores, must be received by the deadline. GRE scores are not accepted. The latest MCAT that you would be able to take is March 9, 2024. To be fair to all our applicants, no extensions or exceptions will be granted. To release your MCAT scores, please go to the AAMC website and release your scores to "Drexel Medical Sciences Office."
If you are unable to take the March 9th MCAT, we encourage you to apply to one of our other special master's programs. The deadline for the other pre-medical and pre-health programs is July 31, 2024.
If you would like to set up a phone appointment to discuss your other options, please send an email to CoM_MedicalSciences@drexel.edu.
The graduate school does offer a fee waiver with attendance at a Pre-medical & Pre-health Information Session. Please visit our website to register for an upcoming virtual information session at drexel.edu/grad/events/overview.
Drexel Pathway to Medical School does not utilize rolling admissions. Rejections and interview invitations may be sent out prior to the deadline date. However, no acceptances will be offered prior to the deadline date. We receive 500–700 applications for approximately 65 seats. The number of seats is determined by the medical school and is not a guaranteed number; the medical school reserves the right to accept the number of applicants that they feel meet their criteria.
Once an applicant is accepted into the Drexel Pathway to Medical School program, they must achieve a cumulative GPA of 3.4 with no grade lower than a C in any course and without repeating or remediating a course. If an applicant is accepted into the program with an overall MCAT score less than 502 or any section less than 123, they will be required to take an MCAT prep course provided by Princeton Review while in the program as part of the curriculum and retake the MCAT by the date determined by the medical school. The student must achieve a minimum overall score of 502 with no section less than 123 on the MCAT to matriculate into the medical school. Accepted students sign a contractual agreement with Drexel University College of Medicine acknowledging that they are prohibited from applying to any other medical school while in the program.
All material should be sent electronically to enroll@drexel.edu or, if electronic submission is unavailable, mailed to:
Drexel University
Application Processing
P.O. Box 34789
Philadelphia, PA 19101
Yes. There is a 5,300-character maximum, which equals about 1.5 pages, single-spaced and in 12-point font.
You have three different options for submitting your letters of recommendation.
- Committee letter or letter packet sent from your undergraduate university: This letter will either be a pre-health committee letter or a collection of letters of recommendation/evaluation that your undergraduate university will collect and send as a packet. Please check off “Committee Letter” in your application for either of these. This packet can be sent electronically to enroll@drexel.edu.
- Interfolio: Interfolio accounts are set up by the applicant, not the letter writer. Interfolio is a letter collection service that many applicants use to compile and send their Letters of recommendation/evaluation. An Interfolio account is NOT required; we offer it as an option for those applicants who have an account. If you are sending your letters from an Interfolio account, please check off “Interfolio” in your application. You will not be required to enter each of your letter writers' names in your application when you choose this option.
- Enter your individual letter writer’s email addresses in your application: You will enter each of your letter writers' individual email addresses in your application. Once your application is submitted Drexel will send an email to each of the letter writers with instructions on how to upload their letter directly into your application.
Can I submit an additional letter or replace a letter writer after I submit my application?
You may submit an additional letter with any of the letter submission options by having your additional letter writer submit their letter directly to enroll@drexel.edu.
Please be sure they include identifying information about you (i.e. full name, program of choice) upon submission.
Please note LOR requirement will only be marked complete on your checklist once the letter submission option you chose has been satisfied.
If you need to change/replace the letter submission option or writer AFTER you’ve submitted your application, please email enroll@drexel.edu with the updated information.
You must submit your application to access your student portal with your application status. This includes the receipt of supporting documents (i.e. transcripts, MCAT scores, etc.). Go to Discover Drexel Student Portal.
Orientation and classes for the mandatory six-week summer (pre-fall) session starts during the last week of June. The fall semester begins in mid-August.
Yes. You should also frequently check your status online at Discover Drexel Student Portal.
No. Drexel University College of Medicine accepts applications from U.S. citizens or permanent residents only. Permanent residents must provide a copy of their green card with their application. Unfortunately, the College of Medicine does not accept DACA students into the MD program.
You will receive an official email notification from the Drexel College of Medicine’s admissions office. If invited for an interview, this will be the official medical school interview that grants you provisional admission into DUCoM after successful completion of the DPMS program. Currently, interviews are being held virtually.
No. Your consideration for the DPMS program will not be affected by submitting a secondary application to any of the other Pre-medical Pre-Health (PMPH) programs.
We need letters of recommendation from three faculty members who can talk about your academic abilities in the classroom. We need two from science professors and one from a non-science professor. Research mentors or physicians with whom you have worked do not count toward the requirement. The letters must be from faculty members. If you've provided the three faculty member letters, additional letters are accepted.
Letters from professors are preferred, however letters from direct report managers/supervisors at your current/past employer will be accepted. This should only be your last resort option if obtaining a faculty letter is not possible.
Unfortunately, there are no program or institutional scholarships available for this program. If you’ve been awarded a private scholarship, please visit Drexel Central for more information.
Yes. It is difficult to make an assessment for the program because acceptance into the DPMS Program is not strictly about numbers. The essays, letters of recommendation and extracurricular activities are all very important and taken into consideration when making a decision on your application. The requirements for this program have been set forth by the College of Medicine, and all decisions are made by the admissions committee at the College of Medicine. Please keep in mind that this program is extremely competitive, we generally receive over 600 applications for approximately 65 seats. With that said, we strongly encourage all interested applicants to apply.
Yes. The DPMS application and MD application processes are independent of each other with no impact of consideration for either program.
No. We do not accept AMCAS applications for the DPMS application. You can use the same LOR’s written specifically for medical school that you submitted to AMCAS and/or Drexel for the MD application but they must be resubmitted to the DPMS application from the letter writer/university or a letter collection service such as Interfolio. We cannot retrieve/share materials from your MD application for your DPMS application.