By Heather Bowser, Daily News-Record
All five of EMU’s pre-med students were accepted into medical school for fall 2007. The 100 percent acceptance rate, an EMU release says, is “rare for any school” especially because the national acceptance rate last year was 46 percent.
Typically, EMU sends four to nine students each year to med school. The students are part of the biology department’s pre-professional health sciences (PPHS) program.
For the last 20 years, EMU’s acceptance rate has averaged 85 percent, while the national average during that same time hovered around 40 percent, said Roman Miller, EMU pre-professional health sciences adviser.
Last year, EMU’s rate was 80 percent, Miller said.
“Our goal is to double the national average,” Miller said.
Miller says EMU gives intensive counseling to all students to encourage students “who don’t have a prayer” to seek other options.
“We try to make sure students are really well prepared,” he said. “Our goal is to help the marginal students find something that fits their abilities rather than giving them some kind of a pipe dream that they can get into medical school.”
Counseling Works
Miller’s students say his philosophy works.
“Roman Miller is an incredible adviser and inspiration to us,” said EMU grad Aaron Trimble, 21, of Eagle River, Ala. “His classes whipped me into shape.”
Trimble, who will attend the University of Virginia School of Medicine, said EMU prepares its pre-med students by giving them a “well-rounded world view.”
“The program is diverse and gets us out there, which is very much what medical schools were looking for,” he said during a phone interview from Budapest, Hungary.
EMU grad Greg Lamb of Harrisonburg, agrees and said the school’s biggest asset is its professors.
Lamb – who interviewed by e-mail from Honduras – will attend Pennsylvania State University School of Medicine in Hershey, Pa., or Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.
Other Grads
Besides Trimble and Lamb, the following EMU students were recently accepted to medical school:
- Nicholas Buckwalter of Keezletown will attend the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
- Andrew Foderaro of Harleysville, Pa., will attend Drexel University School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
- Jared Stoltzfus of Harrisonburg will attend West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg, W.Va.