On April 2, the Southwest Ballroom at Hubbard Hall was wall-to-wall with brightly colored recruitment booths as students explored Texas Woman’s University’s Spring Pre-Health Fair.
Over 50 pre-health programs set up shop at TWU for the event, allowing students like sophomore Hannah Abramski, a nutritional sciences major with a kinesiology minor, to learn more about future opportunities in medicine.
“[I get] to, you know, experience all different types of campuses that they have here, like Southwestern, Baylor and even TWU,” Abramski said. “Just to get some insight on pre-reqs, hours of like, shadowing, work and stuff like that just so that I can gain some knowledge about what I need to look for in my future.”
Similarly, post-baccalaureate biology student DaMonika Polk came to the fair to gain insight on how to finance these programs.
“Really, my biggest thing is financial information on medical schools,” Polk said. “Just what the future is as far as, ‘How do you pay for everything, but go to school and not work?’ So my biggest thing is to ask them the financial implications, but also just to see what each one offers and differences.”
The Spring Pre-Health Fair hosted a broad range of medical, nursing, dental and pharmacy schools alongside graduate programs, the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, medical scribing organizations and more. Some of the exhibitors spanned far beyond north Texas, hailing from places like New York, Canada, Arizona and Utah.
Dr. Ann Davis, division head for undergraduate biology studies and the chair for pre-health advising, said that while TWU has hosted smaller-scale pre-health fairs in the past, this one—coordinated with the Texas Association of Advisors for the Health Professions, a state organization for advisors overseeing students entering jobs in health—proved to be its largest one yet. She also stated that the event belonged to a broader effort to meet the needs of TWU’s pre-medical students over the last five years. An article published by the university emphasized this relevance as the school’s pre-health student population has “rapidly grown.”
Much of these initiatives stemmed from a need to “rejuvenate” pre-health advising and support in light of a departmental leadership gap. When Davis was asked to help assess the program in 2019, she examined the amount of pre-health students at the school, where they were applying, acceptance rates and methods to help rejected students.
“We’ve seen a lot of success,” Davis said. “We have nearly doubled acceptance rates to medical school, which has been huge. That was one of our initial goals. You know, obviously we’d love to see 100% of our applicants get in. We’re not there yet, but we are now matching the state of Texas average for medical school acceptances, which we were not five years ago, so I’m really, really happy about that.”
Given the outcome of the Spring Pre-Health Fair, Davis expressed interest in organizing another fair next year. In the meantime, she explained that other resources for pre-health students include meeting with an advisor, looking at physical materials outside of the advising offices and searching for fairs elsewhere.
“There’s honestly a lot of other events both in person and online,” Davis said. “There’s a huge virtual medical school fair, actually next week. It’s a national event that’s being put on by the American Association of Medical Colleges. And there’s virtual fairs like that throughout the year, so that’s a great starting point as well. That’s something you can do just from the comfort of your couch.”
Jocelyn Truong can be reached via email at jtruong1@twu.edu.
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