Admissions
Application Process and Interview
Students who are considering applying to VCU’s School of Medicine and also wish to be considered for the M.D/Ph.D Program must apply to the medical school through the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS). Please designate “Combined Graduate/Medical Degree” on your AMCAS application.
All applications are reviewed by the Director and a file reviewer and selected candidates are invited for interviews. The Program pays for two nights lodging. We interview about 35 students per year. There are 12 interview days per year, beginning in October and going through March. All interview days are on a Monday and Tuesday unless there are extenuating circumstances that require a special interview day. We strongly discourage requesting special interviews. The process is as follows:
- The interview is a two–day process, the first day focusing on the medical school, the second day on the combined–degree program. Candidates are asked to come in the night before the first day’s interview and will go to dinner with two of the current students. All conversations at dinner are kept confidential from the Director and faculty. Prospective students are encouraged to feel at ease and ask as many questions of the students as they wish.
- The following day, the student is interviewed for medical school by faculty members or students who are members of both the Medical School Admissions Committee and the M.D./Ph.D. Program Steering Committee. Interview for medical school is by one faculty member while the interview for the M.D./Ph.D. Program is by the Director, a different faculty member and a current M.D./Ph.D. student.
- Following the interview there is an information session about the medical school followed by a tour and lunch with medical student tour guides. All applicants, to either medical school or the combined degree program, participate in the group sessions and tour.
- In the afternoon of the first day the student visits the research lab of a faculty member and discusses the faculty member’s research project.
- All combined degree program applicants go to dinner with current students. Applicants are encouraged to ask questions and get the students’ sense of the Program.
- The second day begins with a continental breakfast and information/question session led by the Director.
- The breakfast session is followed by separate interviews with the Director and a member of Steering Committee. Both are accompanied by a current student.
- Applicants attend the semimonthly M.D./Ph.D. Seminar at which either a student or a faculty member presents his/her research.
- Following the Seminar, students visit two more research labs.
- Students go on a tour of the medical center with the M.D. applicants, led by a current medical student.
It is important to note that both the application to medical school and to the M.D./Ph.D. Program are processed in parallel and are independent of one another. Thus, the student could be accepted to medical school and receive notification of that acceptance before he or she hears about the status of their application to the M.D./Ph.D. Program. At VCU there is no delay in consideration for medical school if an applicant applies to the M.D./Ph.D. Program.
Interviews usually begin in October and go through the end of March. Three or four applicants are interviewed on a given day.
Offer Dates and Procedures : Initial offers are made in the middle of December and a second round of acceptances is made in February or March. In accordance with the recent guidelines proposed by the AAMC:
- Students have two weeks after receipt of their written acceptance offer to accept the offer. If there is no response in this time period, the offer will be considered rejected.
- After April 15, students must withdraw from any other program at which they hold acceptance. They may remain on other programs’ waiting lists until May 15. After that time they must withdraw from waiting list consideration and commit to our Program or our offer will be withdrawn.
