Admissions Tips for the University of Central Florida College of Medicine

Below is a transcript of the conversation with Ms. Laurel Poole, Director of Admissions at University of Central Florida College of Medicine:

An Introduction of Ms. Laurel Poole

My name’s Laurel Poole. I’m the Director of Admissions for the UCF College of Medicine. I am a UCF alum myself. I got my bachelor’s and master’s degree here. I’m an Orlando native. My path to ending up in medical education—I actually started in higher ed as a campus tour guide when I was a student at UCF, and then that kind of segued into my first job, which was in undergraduate admissions at UCF.

I did academic advising for a few years after that, and then in 2014 I came to the medical school as an Assistant Director, and then I’ve been the Director here since 2019. So that was sort of how I progressed from campus tour guide to Director of Admissions for the medical school.

What Makes A Pre-Med Applicant Stand Out?

That’s a great question. It’s a question we ask a lot as we interact with students through different recruitment events. So I think one thing that really makes students stand out is in their application—if they don’t just talk the talk in their personal statement, but they walk the walk. So the activities that they list really back up what they say they want to be, why they’re motivated to be a doctor. You know, not just saying, “I really love to help people,” but then you don’t really see much volunteerism or any evidence of that in the résumé. So, you know, the people that have that real demonstrated passion for medicine, that have put in the hours, put in the work to show that they really do wanna be a physician—and they’ve done the things necessary to explore the career so that they can really go into it knowing, as best they can, what it is they’re signing up for.

Because it’s a huge commitment. It’s not just a job—it’s a career, it’s a lifestyle for most types of physicians. So we really want people to come in having an idea of what it is that they are getting into, and also that have the heart for medicine. They’re doing it for the right reasons, and that shines through in different parts of their application—their personal statements, their activities, what other people say about them in letters of recommendation. So, you know, I just like—I really like to see the consistency. If they say they’re one person, that I can see that in other places in their application.

What Are Some Recent Changes to the Medical School Admissions Process?

One thing that has changed a lot—maybe not just since I’ve worked in medical education, but has definitely been a progression—is applicants taking time off between undergrad and starting medical school. I think that the expectations that we have for applicants are so high that it’s really hard to get everything done in four years of college. So it’s hard to get that really good GPA, study for the MCAT, do all the extracurriculars we wanna see in four years. And a lot more students have to work in college that are pre-meds than maybe did in the past. So adding that additional time constraint and responsibility really does make it difficult in four years.

And I see no issue with people taking any time off—whatever time they need. If it’s a year, if it’s 10 years, if they’re a total career changer. When you’re ready to do this, you should apply when it’s the right time for you and when you feel your application is the most competitive. And I think, you know, the more life experience, the better. It’s gonna make you a better doctor.

So, you know, that’s something that has, over time, just kind of normalized—that taking time off. I used to get that question a lot more when people were concerned about taking time off, and now I think more and more students know that it’s okay to do. We’re still trying to combat the negativity that some people—or maybe some applicants whose parents were doctors and they went straight to medical school from undergrad—and they kind of expect their student to do that. But it’s definitely much more accepted.

I have never heard any medical school tell a student, “Oh no, you’re way better off if you apply straight out of undergrad.” So, you know, it’s very individual.

In terms of the application process itself, of course we’ve seen lots of changes in the past couple of years at the legal levels. So that has altered lots of medical schools’ approach to how they review applications. But I think for the most part, the holistic review has stayed pretty consistent. I think most schools really do try to look at the whole picture. It’s not just the numbers.

The numbers matter—I never would lie to a student and say, “Oh, you can volunteer your way out of a bad GPA.” It’s just not possible. Because at the end of the day, this is school and you have to show that you can do the work. But, you know, I think there’s a lot more opportunity for students who maybe don’t have the perfect GPA or have a perfect MCAT, who have demonstrated they can do the work. They have solid numbers to back up all the other good stuff.

So, I think years ago, schools said they did a holistic review because it was sort of a trendy thing to say you did—and it maybe took some schools longer than others to catch up on actually implementing it in their review. But that’s something I would say is a positive transformation over the years. It’s not just whoever has the best GPA and the best test score gets in.

What Makes the University of Maryland School of Medicine Special?

So a few things that make the UCF College of Medicine stand out: One thing that, in terms of our curriculum, that’s a bit unique is our Focused Inquiry and Research Experience. It’s known as the FIRE module here. It is a required research project all first- and second-years will complete. So they will usually join a project. We have a huge database of faculty and physicians that are looking to work with our students. So it’s not like undergrad, where you’re kind of begging people to let you into a lab. We have lots of established programs and projects going on, or if a student has a novel idea that they want to pursue, our module director can work with them to find an appropriate mentor.

I would say most people join an ongoing project. Anyone who’s done any research knows it takes years and years to get anywhere with most research. So we have plenty of projects that are looking for students to continue what the last student may have been working on. We have, I think, really cool projects like space medicine, which is probably unique to us since not everybody’s near the Space Coast or has NASA nearby. So we pull things like that. We’ve had students work on creating apps with physicians, lots of clinical research, medical education research, global health and health disparity research. So really anything related to health or wellness or medicine is on the table. They’ll be handheld as much as they need through that project, so it definitely shouldn’t be something they’re intimidated by.

And we’ve got students in each medical school class that run from very little research experience to people who have a PhD. So they will accommodate wherever you are on that spectrum.

Some other things that are really great about our medical school: we have a lot of our staff and leadership administration who serve on national boards and are chairs of national boards, and that’s a huge benefit to our students. That and our administration are so plugged in nationally in so many different organizations—that really provides a voice for our students and makes sure that the people that are here supporting them really know what’s going on, not just here at medical school but nationwide in terms of trends and best practices.

And finally—I mean, we live here in Orlando. So where better could you experience medical school than 20 minutes from Disney World and about 25–30 minutes from Cocoa Beach? And, you know, it’s just a beautiful campus. We have really great facilities for our students to study at, and it’s just a really nice suburb of Orlando that we are located in.

What is Your Biggest Piece of Advice for Medical School Applicants?

My biggest piece of advice to students is always: apply when you’re ready. Don’t rush the process. If you need an extra year—I know for a lot of students it feels like a year is an eternity—but it’s a lot longer of a year if you apply and you don’t get any interviews, you don’t get into medical school. It’s better to get some advice from people who know, whether it’s a pre-health advisor or a consultant, somebody who can guide and look over your application and make sure you’re on the right track.

Because there’s just so much competition. We get over 5,000 applications. We interview 500 students. So, you know, there are so many great applicants every year that we aren’t even able to interview, even if we wanted to. So really trying to get yourself in the best position so you only have to go through that experience once.

It’s not something most people enjoy, necessarily. It’s very anxiety-provoking—a lot of emotion and time and money is put into applying to medical school. So really taking your time, not feeling rushed. Don’t feel like you have to be the first application out the gate at AMCAS. You don’t.

We are reviewing applications—and most medical schools are reviewing applications—for months and months. So you don’t have to be the first one in May or June if you’re still tweaking, still working on it. Because once you submit that application, you can’t edit anything other than your contact information.

So you want to be ready for prime time. And you want to be ready to start medical school. You don’t want to feel like you rushed things and maybe there was something you really wanted to do. Maybe you wanted to do Teach for America for a year. Maybe you wanted to go get a master’s in something you’re really interested in.

Once you start medical school, that’s it. You’re gonna go to school, and then you’re gonna go to residency, and then you’re gonna work the rest of your life. So if there’s something you just really want to do, do it before you start medical school. Do it before you apply. And it will only make you a more interesting applicant, a more well-rounded applicant, and you’ll have much more to talk about during your interviews.

What Additional Tips or Info Would You like to Share?

Well, I guess I can plug our school a little bit. We do have the option—we have bimonthly tours of our medical school. We also do a monthly info session on Zoom. So if anyone was interested in learning more about our program—or, I know the summer’s coming up, so if people were happy to travel to Orlando—they could check out our tour schedule. I know not a lot of medical schools do regular tours, so we’re happy to show off our beautiful facilities and answer questions for anybody who’s thinking about applying.

A lot of times, UCF is actually the second-largest university in the United States by student enrollment. We are not a small school by any stretch. We have our own separate Health Sciences campus, so we’re not on the main campus with the 74,000 other people. But we have all the resources of the main campus and a lot of great opportunity. That’s the UCF slogan: “We stand for opportunity.” And I think when students come to visit us, they really—if they didn’t know a lot about us beforehand—they’re very pleasantly surprised by what a beautiful campus we have, and really engaging students, friendly faculty and staff, and it’s just a very nice collegial feel.

When students are here at the medical school, our students really work well together. We have great classes every year. And we do recruit students from all over the country. We take about a third of our class from out of state. So even though we’re a state university, we do have usually about 30 to 40 students of our 120 each year that are not Floridian. So if you’re not a Floridian, you’re still more than welcome to apply.

And I can’t speak for my colleagues in admissions, but I’m always happy to hear from applicants. Let me know if they want to check in periodically during the admission cycle. I want to know who’s interested in us. And we’ve got a lot of great applicants, and we’ve only got so many interview spots, so I can’t—emailing me is not gonna guarantee you an interview—but I can guarantee you I’ll go look and see where you’re at in our process. So don’t be shy.

It’s better to send one email to an admissions office—and maybe they’ll respond and maybe they won’t—but the worst thing that happens is they delete the email. Nothing bad’s gonna happen. It’s better than just sitting back and kind of letting the process happen to you.

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