Department of Allied Health Sciences

The majority of graduate professional health programs have required pre-admission coursework and expect these courses to be completed with a grade of a B or better.  The Allied Health Sciences major is flexible to incorporate most (if not all) graduate program admission coursework into your plan of study. Your advisor can assist you in selecting courses that will generally meet graduate professional health program admissions requirements, but you should consult directly with your program of interest for specific admission requirements and criteria as these vary considerably depending on your intended program of study and discipline.

Admission to a graduate professional health program is very competitive. While students can graduate from the Allied Health Sciences major with a 2.0 GPA, graduate health programs typically require a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. However, to be most competitive, applicants should strive to have greater than a 3.0 (i.e. 3.3 or higher). Additionally, most graduate health programs will also calculate a science GPA; competitive applicants should strive to have greater than a 3.2 science GPA. Students should consult with the program they seek admission to for specific GPA and other admission requirements. Note that, when calculating the science GPA, many common application systems and graduate health programs include all graded attempts (including grades for initial and repeated courses). Therefore, we strongly encourage you to keep this in mind when deciding to repeat a course.

To be most competitive for admission to a graduate health program, you should complete all admission coursework with a grade of a "B" or better. Therefore, it is generally advised (but not mandated) that you repeat any admission coursework where you have earned less than a "B." While most undergraduate transcripts will only factor credit-bearing attempts into your GPA, some graduate programs and almost all common application systems (e.g. PTCAS, CASPA, OTCAS, etc.) will include all graded attempts in calculating your science GPA. Some individual programs may recalculate using only the credit-bearing attempts. We advise that you consult with your specific program(s) of interest to understand individual policies on repeating required admission coursework.

When considering whether or not to repeat a course, here are some helpful hints:

• To appreciably affect your GPA, you will need to have significant improvement in your final grade
• A transcript with many repeated courses will make you less competitive for admission

In general, you should strive to earn a "B" or better in all courses, but especially on courses required for graduate health program admissions. This will help you avoid the need to repeat courses.

Graduate health programs look for applicants who bring a varied background both personally and academically. They want to “see” evidence that a student went beyond taking just academic coursework to prepare for graduate education. Engaging in extracurricular activities demonstrates to graduate admissions committees that an applicant is able to work as a team member, has leadership skills, communication skills, time management skills, etc; qualities that a health professional should possess. To this end, we strongly suggest that students engage in extracurricular opportunities while an undergraduate student. In fact, some graduate programs (e.g. Physician Assistant, Physical Therapy) expect (and in some instances require documentation) that an applicant has experience in direct patient contact in their profession. Below are examples of extracurricular opportunities but students should be creative when preparing for graduate admission:

• Volunteer, Internship or employment (if possible) in the profession
• Research (expected of some programs. e.g. Medical School)
• Meet with a representative in the Center for Career Development for internship program opportunities
• Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), EMT or other professional certification
• Student Activities/Organization experiences (with leadership role if possible) at UConn or community-based
• Volunteerism (i.e. Global Brigades, Collegiate Health Service Corps, etc.)
• Club participation (i.e. Allied Health Sciences Club; Pr-Med/Pre-Dent Society)
• Learning Community participation
• Sport participation

The personal statement is a key element in your application for graduate professional health programs! Some of these tips may help get you started.