New expectations of medical professionals mean new admissions standards at medical schools. These schools are now looking for well-rounded candidates who not only have science backgrounds but have also developed interpersonal skills and an understanding of healthcare’s complex social, systemic, and human contexts. Liberal arts schools generally, and Washington College specifically, are particularly well-suited to prepare students for this new reality.

Washington has a long history of helping its students succeed in medical fields. The College created its premed committee in 1987 to guide students through the entire application process, including fulfilling the requisite academic courses and acquiring the new skills medical schools are looking for. With a success rate of 87.5% of students who go through the program getting at least one acceptance into medical or dental school, the premed committee has an excellent track record. (The national average is around a 40% acceptance rate.)

Premed chair Libby Yost, whose doctorate is in medical sociology and gerontology, said having a premed committee to help students is specific to liberal arts schools, but that Washington takes a more thorough approach than most.

The premed committee guides students who are on track to become physicians, dentists, podiatrists, and optometrists. Medical schools have always required these candidates to have a solid foundation in the sciences, and Washington’s top-notch faculty in biology, chemistry, and related natural sciences provides this foundation. What the premed committee adds is not only to make sure the students have the correct combination of these sciences, but also have the additional courses and experiences that make them attractive candidates. It offers students guidance from an interdisciplinary team of faculty mentors that includes experts in psychology, sociology, and philosophy, as well as the life sciences.

This variety of perspectives and approaches makes a difference when it comes to acceptance into medical schools. The schools have evolved from simply looking for strong test scores and thorough knowledge of the life sciences to looking for more well-rounded candidates with an understanding of people and their cultural, physical, and health contexts.

“Part of our process allows us, from the committee perspective, to highlight all of those unique pieces: Look at what these Washington students have done,” Yost said. “They've worked with the public health department, and they're volunteering at the adult day care. They're working in hospice. They're doing collaborative research with faculty members one-on-one. They've published a paper.”

Yost joined Washington College in 2016, recruited to create the public health minor that is now often picked up by students on the premed track. Zach Tipton ’27 is a biochemistry and molecular biology major who came to Washington knowing he wanted to become a doctor and was very focused on taking the courses in the natural sciences he needed to get there. During his first year, he realized many of the older premed students were minoring in public health, so he took the two core courses this past year: Introduction to Public Health and Global Health Disparities.

“It is one of my favorite series of classes. It’s so fascinating,” Tipton said. “If you want to go into a profession that is in healthcare, you have to be receptive and understanding. It has really shaped my trajectory.”

Yost will be teaching the first environmental health course at Washington in 2026, and she is exploring courses in medical humanities and health economics. Yost is also working on a partnership with professors of music and psychology to expose students and local retirement home residents to music therapy, and the premed committee may add another faculty member from the humanities.

Veveka Pasipanodya ’28 arrived at Washington College from Zimbabwe knowing he wanted to go into medicine, but also already aware of some of the systemic issues patients face. He took Yost’s medical sociology class in his very first semester and is adding statistics and public health courses to broaden his understanding of the human condition on top of courses he’s taking for his biochemistry and molecular biology major.

“I've seen all these health outcomes in my country. There are health inequalities and no access to adequate health facilities,” Pasipanodya said. “I want to know where exactly these issues are coming from, which is why I like the social sciences. They really tackle the why, and then the science is the how and what it is.”

The Washington premed program is designed to help students learn the what, how, and why of medicine. At least once a year, although most do it more often, each student meets with Yost and Phil Ticknor, the coordinator of the pre-health professions programs. Together, they go over where students are in the process, what they might need to add, drop, or reprioritize in terms of courses, experiential opportunities, and other extracurriculars to ensure a well-balanced and successful journey through their Washington College years and into the right graduate program or career for them.

“Many medical schools are looking for applicants who are a little bit different, and they can see that our students come with a different set of skills,” Yost said. “We now have several schools that have taken two or three of our students a year because they know that our students are a particularly good fit.”

—Mark Jolly-Van Bodegraven