Decoding the University of Colorado Medical School Student Profile: A Comprehensive Guide
The University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus stands as a prominent public institution, established in 1912 and situated in Denver, Colorado. It is known for blending a rigorous training curriculum with a focus on life outside of school. Offering undergraduate degrees in 167 majors, the university is also home to a highly regarded medical school. This article delves into the student profile at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, providing insights into admissions, academics, campus life, and more.
Admissions Overview: Selectivity and Acceptance
The University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus is considered a somewhat selective school. Each year, the school receives approximately 15,000 applications. With an acceptance rate of around 78 percent, approximately 11,300 students pass the admission process. However, only about 1,480, or 13 percent, of the accepted candidates ultimately choose to enroll at the University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus.
Gender Distribution
Based on application data, 40% of the applicants were men, while 59% were women. Interestingly, after receiving acceptance letters, enrollment figures show that 40 percent of men decided to enroll compared to 59 percent of the women.
Standardized Testing and Advanced Placement
Applicants are required to submit their ACT or SAT scores, and accepted students typically score between 20 and 27 on the ACT or 1,050 and 1,270 on the SAT. The institution also accepts Advanced Placement (AP) credits, providing opportunities for students to accelerate their undergraduate studies. SAT/ACT scores are considered but not required to apply.
Application Fee
The University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus’s undergraduate application fee is $50.
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Academic Requirements and Curriculum
Prerequisite Coursework
The University of Colorado School of Medicine requires a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university prior to matriculation.Specific required courses include:
- College Mathematics (6 hours)
- Biology with lab (8 semester hours)
- Chemistry with lab (8 hours)
- Organic Chemistry with lab (8 hours)
- Physics with lab (8 hours)
- English Literature and English Composition or Creative Writing (9 hours)
Applicants must demonstrate mathematics competency at least through college-level trigonometry, either with college courses or placement test results. The University of Colorado School of Medicine recognizes that the experiences and undergraduate academic experience of our applicants varies greatly, encompassing the necessary foundational knowledge in the biomedical sciences and humanities.Reasoning, statistical principles, and appropriate mathematics to describe or explain phenomena in the natural world.Social Sciences and Communication: It is important that applicants demonstrate competence in the humanistic understanding of patients as individuals and members of families, communities, and society. Applicants should be aware of factors that influence individual, community, and societal decisions regarding health and health care delivery. as long as the US accredited degree granting institution includes these credits on their transcript as fulfilling certain institutional requirements. in these areas. accredited degree-granting institution.
MCAT Requirement
Students must take the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), with the oldest exam accepted no more than three years prior to matriculation year. For example, applicants applying for August 2021 matriculation must have MCAT results from January 2018 - October 2020. assessment (CASPer), to assist with our selection process.
Letters of Recommendation
The School of Medicine requires three to five letters of recommendation. These letters can come from a faculty member, clinical experience, research experience, or a current job, provided the letter transmits cogent information about the applicant’s work. Obtaining a letter from the employer who you are working with during the application year is highly recommended. Evidence of a successful engagement in a post-college experience is considered a valuable addition to other letters that also may be part of your file. A committee letter is sufficient to meet the medical school letter of recommendation requirements. All letters must be transmitted electronically through AMCAS’ application process. from family friends or others who know the student only peripherally.
Holistic Review
Completed secondary applications are forwarded to the MSTP admissions committee who perform a holistic review of applications and invite select applicants for an interview. Interview invitations are on a rolling basis - December through February.
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Application Fee
Students invited to complete the secondary application must submit an application processing fee of $100 with the secondary application.
Curriculum Pillars
The pillars of our curriculum are Leadership, Curiosity, and Commitment. Tell us about how you have embodied one or more of these attributes in your path to medicine thus far. In which of these areas do you see the most opportunity for personal growth and why? Limit this response to 1000 words.
Fort Collins Program
*Please note: MSTP applicants CAN NOT apply to these programs. Please tell us why you are interested in being a part of the 4-year CUSTOM at CSU (Fort Collins Branch campus). With the background that FCB’s smaller class sizes and unique structure lead to a highly interactive curriculum, please tell us how this campus matches your learning style and personal philosophy. Describe your personal and professional goals in becoming a rural physician. In particular, describe your interest and ability to spend your clinical year in a rural community. You may also include how past experiences living and/or working in a rural area and your ties to or interest in rural Colorado communities align with your goals.
Competitiveness
CU admits 184 students each year to the School of Medicine. Over 10,000 primary applications are submitted and over 700 interviews are offered for each admission cycle. Many admitted students are natives of Colorado, but CU is increasingly recruiting prospective students from across the country. CU is considered a competitive academic institution. CU also features a Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), which is the MD/Ph.D. curriculum where students spend 8-9 years obtaining both their MD and Ph.D. It’s a highly selective school, with an MSC Competitiveness score of 71.
Degree Programs
The University of Colorado School of Medicine offers a variety of degree programs, including MD, PhD, and MD/PhD programs. The school also offers joint degree programs with other schools within the university, such as the JD/MD program with the University of Colorado Law School.
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Structured Interviews
Structured interviews with group and individual interviews are conducted for admissions.
Longitudinal Integrated Curriculum
The curriculum has recently transitioned from a traditional block-based system to the Longitudinal Integrated Curriculum (LIC). While in the long run, the LIC model will be optimal for medical students to complete their clerkships with continuity in mentorship, the current transition phase does not come without some hiccups along the way.
Campus Life and Environment
Location and Facilities
The main campus is located in Aurora, Colorado, about twenty minutes from downtown Denver. The main campus houses the 3 major pillars of the institution: education buildings (lecture halls and study space), research facilities, and 3 hospitals which include the University Hospital, the Children’s Hospital, and the VA Hospital. The layout of the campus speaks to the interdisciplinary culture at CU. The campus is state-of-the-art; it features a comprehensive University teaching hospital, Colorado Children’s hospital which is ranked in the Top 5 nationally, robust research facilities, and many student learning spaces, lecture halls, study rooms, the campus library, and social activities.
Denver's Appeal
Denver sees over 300 days of sunshine each year. There are tons to do such as see the Colorado Rockies or Denver Broncos, visit museums, explore the Craft Brewery scene, biking trails, and dog parks, and witness gorgeous sunsets. CU is known for blending a rigorous training curriculum with a focus on life outside of school too. Many students find themselves enjoying the Rocky Mountains for skiing and hiking or exploring Denver.
Faculty
CU is a strong academic institution. Many of the faculty tend to be heavy researchers, making them leaders in their field. CU features many physician-scientists that help translate research into clinical practice.
Hospital System
A key advantage of CU is the clinical opportunities available for medical students. University Hospital is the main tertiary care center in the region. Patients come from as far north as Montana and as far south as New Mexico to be cared for. Additionally, medical students rotate at Denver Health, which is our county hospital. Medical students will observe trauma cases and patients who are acutely ill at Denver Health.
Student Life Services
The Office of Student Life provides a wide range of services for students in the School of Medicine. Our mission is to help create and support a positive medical school culture for students, one that enhances and supports learning.
Insights from Admissions Leadership
Dr. Jeffrey SooHoo, Associate Dean of Admissions and Student Affairs, offers valuable insights into the admissions process. He emphasizes the importance of a well-rounded application with authentic and longitudinal experiences. Dr. SooHoo notes that applicants are more sophisticated and resourceful than in the past, but advises them to be mindful of the "noise" on online platforms.
Standing Out
Dr. SooHoo has held different roles in involvement in medical education. He has worked in the GME (graduate medical education) space and served as the residency Program Director for Ophthalmology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. SooHoo also shares that his involvement with admissions actually started when I was a medical student where I went to medical school. I was a student member of the admissions committee, and I really liked the process of talking to candidates and learning about them and why they were passionate about medicine. And so when I joined the faculty at the University of Colorado, I asked if they needed volunteers to do interviews. And I think I volunteered a lot. And it sort of snowballs and eventually led to this role.Dr. SooHoo states that applicants can stand out in a variety of ways. I’ve often talked about applicants that are really well balanced, where they’ve sort of checked the boxes that you historically hear about, where they have a strong academic record. They’ve done well in standardized tests, and they’ve performed well in community service activities or leadership activities, research, whatever it might be. But they’ve done those things in a way that’s authentic and longitudinal.Dr. SooHoo shares that we try and contextualize people’s experiences. I think what stands out for me the most about applicants is when those experiences are varied and when they inform the candidates’ decisions in a sort of nuanced and reflective way. So I often talk about an experience can be the same thing on paper, but the way a candidate talks about it can really be different. And so I’m looking for that reflection piece because I might see a candidate who was the captain of the soccer team, let’s say, and that’s a great leadership experience. And I can get very different responses, right? I can get someone who’s like, that was cool. We won the state championship and it was fun. And I can get someone who says, when I led my first practice, I realized that what different groups of players wanted wasn’t necessarily the same. And it was an iterative process I learned that leadership isn’t just about having a vision for how things should be, but it’s also about being able to incorporate other people’s visions into the experience.
Evolving Applicant Landscape
Dr. SooHoo states that I’ve had sort of different views of it, of course, as just an interviewer and then sort of now being sort of more behind the scenes and seeing the big picture of the whole process. I think the applicants on the whole have more resources, even such as yours, and they have more knowledge, and there’s student doctor net and there’s Reddit, and there are things that didn’t exist when I was applying to medical school. And many of those things can be helpful, right, about logistics of when to apply or where to apply or how to get things done. But there can also be a lot of noise in those platforms. And the applicants are just much more sophisticated. They’re thinking three steps ahead of where I was when I was applying to medical school. I just wanted to get into medical school and be a doctor. I had never heard of step one or step two. I didn’t know it was a medical specialty. And so I think the applicants nowadays just have a lot more exposure and have thought more carefully about the field of medicine, mostly in positive ways, sometimes in ways that are a little bit detrimental if they get too in the weeds for certain details.
School's Strengths
Dr. SooHoo believes that at the end of the day, I think most medical schools are more alike than they are different. So of course I’ll give a biased answer. I love our medical school. I wouldn’t work at our medical school, and I wouldn’t hold the role I do at our medical school if I didn’t believe in our people and our mission in the way that we train future physicians. I will say something that definitely makes us stand out is our curriculum. So we no longer have any traditional block clerkships.
Advice for Applicants
Dr. SooHoo usually tells students a few things. One is to get lots of advice because if you are just talking to the free medical office at your undergraduate institution, or you’re just talking to your friend’s parent who went to medical school 30 years ago, or whatever it might be, or they’re just talking to you or me, they’re going to get one idea about what medicine is or how to navigate the process. So talk to a lot of different people at different stages of the process, someone that got into medical school last year and someone that finished medical school 30 years ago, and everything in between, as much as you can. And the nice thing is, because of those platforms I mentioned earlier, even if you don’t personally know anyone that’s a physician, and I didn’t when I was growing up, you can still tap into some networks that way. This is what I wish I had done differently, those kinds of things. So taking those things in and listening, but recognizing that not everybody’s experience is going to be the same as yours. The other thing that I think is really hard for students to understand is just the scale of the applicant pool and how good it is. I think it’s very tempting as a student to say, I’ve done all the right things, right? I should get into medical school. And yes, statistically you should, and yet you may not, because the numbers, at least at any individual school, are never in your favor. There’s no medical school where most of the applicants get in, and so you have to apply appropriately and apply broadly, and then you have to be sort of critical about where might your deficiencies be in your own application. And it’s hard, it’s very personal when it’s your life and your activities that you put down on paper.Dr. SooHoo also states that I think the curriculum in our medical school is unique. I think what I would say, I’m lucky in my role. I get a seat at the table for pretty much all sorts of major committees at the medical school. And I think what I would tell you if you could see behind the curtain, is just how much people care. I think it feels like a really impersonal process, both on the admission side and even as a student sometimes, right? Or why do we have to do XYZ? This is a waste of my time. Everything that we’re doing in all of our sort of thought processes and then all of our evaluation and changes that happen, it’s all framed around what’s best for the students and their education. And I have never seen a group of people come together with a common purpose like we do within the medical education department at our medical school.
Residency Programs and Career Paths
The most popular residency programs for the 2001 graduating class included Internal Medicine (29 students), Family Medicine (21), Surgery (9), Pediatrics (13), Emergency Medicine (4), Anesthesiology (15), Ob/Gyn (4), and Orthopedics (6). A significant portion of graduates entered primary care fields, and many often stay in Denver for training.
Academic Performance
The median GPA for accepted students was 3.82 and MCAT 515.
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