Medicine and Community is an Honors College service-learning program for upcoming sophomores, juniors, and seniors
planning on taking a gap year, who are interested in a career in health. The program consists of an academic course as
well as an associated student organization. At this time, students must be in the class to be a member of the organization.
The academic course is broken up into a classroom component and a service-learning component. The schedule for each
week includes classroom seminars (Thursday 3:30 – 5:00) and service-learning rotations (Wednesday from 1:00 5:30). The classroom component focuses on the relationship of the physician with the community as well as other topics
in medicine and is organized by Dr. Chelley Alexander. The service-learning aspect involves student-led service projects
in Marion, Alabama, that are health-related, such as volunteering in Sowing Seeds of Hope’s free Hypertension Clinic and
teaching nutrition at Albert Turner Elementary School. During the rotations that do not involve clinical work in Marion,
students will be in various shadowing rotations at the University Medical Center, as well as working on additional service
projects in Tuscaloosa. The class is a 1 year, 2 semester commitment. The program can be taken for 2 credit hours per
semester (although a student interested in doing the program without actual course credit is also eligible and encouraged
to apply). Interested students should be passionate about medicine and about community service. Eligible candidates will
be contacted on March 8th to schedule an interview between March 11th and March 15th.
Application Deadline: 12:00 pm on February 25th, 2013
Return to Honors College Reception Desk, Nott Hall
Full name: ______________________________ CWID: _________________________
Email: _________________________________ Phone #: ________________________
 Sophomore
Fall 2012 Class Standing:
Graduation date: _______
 Junior
 Senior
College:________________________________
Major(s)/Minor(s):_________________________________________________________
Member of:  UHP
 IHP
 CBHP
 Fellows
Overview of Application
One of the main goals of this program is to prepare our students to be successful applicants to medical school.
As such, this year we have adopted a “mini” AMCAS application. The AMCAS application is your application
that you send out to all the medical schools that you apply to, thus this application is good practice for what you
will see in the future! WE ARE SELECTING CANDIDATES TO BE INTERVIEWED BASED OFF OF
THIS APPLICATION. Please take it seriously.
Who are we looking for?
Just like medical school admissions, there is not one single thing that we are looking for. Instead, a strong
applicant for medical school AND Medicine and Community will feature a strong academic record, diverse and
engaging extracurricular activities, and the ability to articulate one’s passions and reasons for going into the
field of medicine.
Course Work
Overview: This section is cut and dry on the AMCAS. You either have the grades or you don’t. One of the
biggest things to keep in mind when applying to medical school is that the AMCAS calculates your GPA on a
different scale than the University of Alabama. AMCAS only awards A+ grades with a 4.0, not a 4.3 like UA
does. A- grades still count as a 3.66.
Grade Point Average: Please provide your UA GPA, as well as the AMCAS calculated GPA.
Visit http://prehealth.cas.nyu.edu/object/cas.prehealth.gpacalculator
Also, if you Google, “nyu prehealth gpa”, it is the first website:
At this website, enter in all your classes and calculate your AMCAS GPA.
University of Alabama GPA: __________________
Calculated AMCAS GPA: ____________________
Courses
Please enter in your course work in the following table. If you have not taken or are currently taking any of the
Pre-Req courses, please list this semester or the semester date you intend to take it under “Grade.” (i.e Spring
2013, Fall 2013, etc.) Please list other BCMP classes you have taken as well. BCMP stands for Biology,
Chemistry, Math, Physics.
Pre-Req Course
General Biology I
Grade
Did you take the Honors version of this class?
o YES
General Biology II
o YES
General Physics I
o YES
General Physics II
o YES
General Chemistry I
o YES
General Chemistry II
o YES
Organic Chemistry I
o YES
Organic Chemistry II
o YES
List Other BCMP Classes Below
o YES
o YES
Work/Activities
Overview: On the real AMCAS application, you will be given up to 15 activities to include in your
work/activities section. This is your chance to explain all the wonderful things you do and why you are
passionate about them.
Directions: We are asking that you please write about three activities that you have done in college. If
you’re a freshman, outstanding activities from high school may be included. On your own paper, please
provide an Experience Description of up to 700 or fewer characters for all three of your chosen activities. Please
provide an additional meaningful summary of up 1325 or fewer characters for ONE of your chosen activities.
Personal Statement
Overview: The personal statement is your chance to let your “voice” come out and show the admissions
committee why you’ve spent the last four years of your life trying to get into med school. This is the
opportunity to tell your “story,” and most people tend to focus on why they want to be a physician.
Directions: We are asking that you actually submit two short essays for this part of the application.

The first one is a true personal statement as described above. The prompt as written on the AMCAS is as
follows: “Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school.” Please keep
your personal statement under 5000 characters.

The second essay is this: “Explain the significance and the role of the physician in the community.”
Please keep this under 5000 characters.