Abstract
This presentation will provide pre-medical advising guidance, especially for underrepresented students, from the perspective of the UC Davis School of Medicine. Michelle Villegas-Frazier, Program Coordinator for the UC Davis School of Medicine, Office of Student and Resident Diversity, specializes in working with pre-medical students from underrepresented student populations in medicine. The focus of this presentation will emphasize that there is more than one approach to preparing for medical school. Topics will cover competitive pre-medical preparation in the areas of recommended coursework, suggested extracurricular activities, and the AMCAS medical school application. Medical school admissions committees now take a holistic approach to considering medical school applicants. The“standard” pre-medical student has evolved into an array of students with a variety of metrics in GPA and MCAT scores, and a variety of extracurricular experiences.
Speaker Biography
Michelle Villegas-Frazier
Michelle is Program Coordinator for the UC Davis School of Medicine Office of Student and Resident Diversity. Dr. Latimore, Associate Dean, and Michelle Villegas-Frazier created the Medical School Preparatory Enhancement Program (MSPEP) that provides MCAT preparation and pre-medical advising to an annual cohort of UC Davis and Sacramento State University juniors and seniors. Seeing a need for students to begin a path to medical school earlier another program was created in collaboration with the UC Davis Student Academic Success Center is the Academic Preparation and Enrichment Program (APEP), which supports students in the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) who may be interested in attending medical school. Her personal goal is to increase access for marginalized communities in education.
