Guided Self-Assessment

The Prehealth Advising guided self-assessment is designed to help you take a closer look at your readiness to apply. We will be asking you to gather information and answer reflective questions. Once you submit the self-assessment form, we will be available to go over any concerns or suggestions we may have regarding your potential application. 

For those who want to utilize Prehealth to have letters of recommendation bundled for application submission, this self-assessment is mandatory. Once the form has been submitted, we will review it and either provide you with information on next steps, or we may first require you to meet with us. Please give us up to two weeks to contact you. 

Please note: If your overall and/or science GPA is around 3.5 or lower, we will require you to meet with a Prehealth Advisor. We will also be looking for a clear pattern of diverse clinical shadowing, volunteering, and/or paid employment in relevant healthcare settings over a sustained period of time. Experiences from high school are generally ineligible. 

As a final step before accessing our letter collection service, you will be asked to make a one-time fee payment of $40. This is the only fee you will pay to utilize our service for up to five years, should you need to reapply and collect additional letters in the future. 

Once the fee is paid, give us up to a week to email you with access to our letter collection service. Instructions for how to use that program can be found on the Letters of Recommendation page. 

The self-assessment form will be available each year starting in January. This will be a flexible process and you can pursue it at your own pace, but we encourage applicants to submit it early so that you can gain earlier access to our letter collection service. The latest date that a self-assessment can be submitted is August 1. 

Applicants who have all letters received by April 1 will have letter packets ready to be uploaded to their applications by June 1. All others will be bundled and uploaded in the order that they are received. How long that will take will depend on how many packets we are processing at any given time. 

Please note that we offer this earlier soft deadline of April 1 for anyone that wants to have their letters secured earlier, but it's not necessary. Applications can be submitted without letters being uploaded, and later letters do not typically impact your application as there will be time between when you submit your application and when a school is actually going to look at it. For some additional perspective, keep in mind that when we had a Prehealth Committee, letters were uploaded around the end of July. 

The last date that letters can be received is September 1 for that cycle, though we strongly advise against waiting that long.  

This process is open to enrolled students and alumni who will have completed at least 30 credits at UB by the end of the spring semester in the year that they are applying. 

Applicants to PA and veterinary programs are welcome to use the self-assessment, but because those applications do not typically want letter packets submitted, you would not be using Prehealth to gather recommendations. Please reach out to a Prehealth Advisor for more information. 

The letter packet may only be used to apply to professional health schools as well as post-baccalaureate programs and specific health professions scholarship programs.