Information For:

Applicants

Jump to:

- Letters of Recommendation
- Google Classroom
- Applicant Resources
- Applicant Forms


The decision to apply to medical or other health career programs is the culmination of your self-reflection, academic preparation, and engagement with activities that infom your career choice (clinical, service, leadership, research, and other activities).

Throughout your time at Brown and beyond, focus on exploring your interests with depth and continuity so you find fulfilment in your studies and co-curricular activities and develop a strong record for your application.

The links on the left outline many aspects of the application process to medical school or other health profession training programs. To learn about and prepare for the application process, students and recent alumni are encouraged to tune in to our applicant seminars throughout the 2022-23 academic year. For an overview of how our office works with prospective applicants, see the presentation slides from Applicant Seminar #1: Preparing to Apply.

Current students and graduates within five years of graduation are eligible to receive the letter packet. For example, if you graduated during or after May 2018, you would be able to apply with our office’s letter packet through the summer of 2023.

Letters of Recommendation

Health Careers Advising staff collects all letters of recommendation for each applicant and bundles them into a packet along with a standardized cover letter that explains Brown’s practices (S/NC, concentrations, course sequence, etc.) We upload this packet into the central application portals (AMCAS, TMDSAS, AACOMAS, etc.).

Requirements of individual programs may vary, but in general applicants to any health professions program should secure three to four letters of recommendation:

  • Two letters from Brown faculty/instructors who have taught or supervised you in teaching, research or another capacity
  • At least one of these should be from a professor who has taught you in a STEM class (BIOL, CHEM, PHYS). It is the applicant’s responsibility to check requirements for the schools to which they are planning to apply. 
  • A third letter from another individual (can be a supervisor, coach, mentor but not a relative or peer)
  • Optional and encouraged: A fourth letter from another individual

For MD/PhD applicants:

  • You may provide up to five letters in total. A minimum of two should be from research mentors
  • If you are applying to both MD and MD/PhD programs - ensure your letters indicate what degree(s) they support you for, and the Health Careers Advising staff will create two separate packets

Potential applications are encouraged to begin to identifying and connecting with potential recommenders between October 2022 and January 2023.

Letters of recommendation are due to our office by May 26, 2023. Recommenders will upload their letters directly into Brown's UFunds portal, a secure and confidential online collection system. The UFunds portal will launch on April 3, 2023.

See the Instructions for Recommenders document linked below for guidance to share with recommenders. Applicants may choose to fill out the last section of the form to provide recommenders with personalized information to enable them to write recommendation letters that are individualized, specific, and helpful for medical school admissions decision.

Google Classroom

Our Google Classroom page includes advising resources, forms to be collected, and additional information for applicants. If you are considering applying to medical or other health professions schools in summer 2023 for admission in fall 2024, it's important that you follow these instructions to access the Google Classroom. If you join after May 2023, please email [email protected] before proceeding.

  • Visit this link and click “join class.”
    (Note: the email address you select or sign in with at this stage will be the address associated with your Google Classroom identity, and the way we communicate with you your application. We recommend using your brown.edu or alumni.brown.edu account - but if you don’t check those regularly, you can choose to use another Gmail-based account as long as it displays your name. Please only sign up with one email account.)

  • On the Classwork tab, you’ll see a few sections:

Applicant Resources

Applicant Forms