UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SCHOOL
University of Massachusetts Medical School mission is to advance the health and wellness of our diverse communities throughout Massachusetts and across the world by leading and innovating in education, research, health care delivery and public service.
A state-supported public medical school for Massachusetts was established by the commonwealth in July of 1962; the founding dean, Lamar Soutter, was appointed in December of 1963 and began the execution of a vision for an extraordinary medical school. “I think that if you're starting a medical school from scratch,” he said at the time, “you can say alright, let's get this science of medicine very firmly rooted in the students' minds—but then let's take them back to the bedside and make them much better practitioners and much more interested in taking care of human beings even though they are making full use of laboratory procedures and scientific advances.
Although the location in Worcester as a campus of the University of Massachusetts wasn’t selected until 1965, preliminary accreditation and the recruitment of core faculty during the construction process meant that the first class of 16 students entered in the fall of 1970, beginning their studies in a former warehouse at the corner of Lake Avenue and Belmont Street (a building still used today by University of Massachusetts Medical School). By the time the first class graduated in 1974, the new medical science building was in use, followed by the teaching hospital, which opened in 1976. The growth of the school and its clinical system coincided neatly with support for basic science research and while the school remained true to its mission of training primary care physicians, by 1979 it had established a PhD program in the biomedical sciences, which became a school in its own right, followed by the Graduate School of Nursing, which opened in 1986.
A period of expansion began in 1990 with the appointment of Aaron Lazare, MD, as dean and, subsequently, chancellor, who would go on to become one of the longest-serving leaders of a medical school in the United States by the time he stepped down in 2007. With the acquisition of the former Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research and the Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories and the spinoff of hospital operations into a new clinical system, the campus entered a period of unprecedented growth. A new research building opened in 2001 and the original medical school and hospital buildings were extensively renovated and expanded to include new meeting, educational, emergency and surgical spaces. Research funding grew for a time at a rate faster than any other academic health sciences center in the country, fueled by recruitment of basic science faculty drawn to the institution's prominence in several fields, including gene function and expression, gene development, biochemistry, and molecular medicine. In 2006, UMMS professor Craig C.
Mello, PhD, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, shared with Stanford researcher Andrew Fire, PhD, for their discovery of the mechanism of gene silencing by double-stranded RNA, which they termed ‘RNA interference.’
The Nobel Prize drew attention and support to University of Massachusetts Medical School throughout the commonwealth; the University of Massachusetts created a Life Sciences Task Force that proposed a series of strategic investments in biomedical sciences education, research and infrastructure across the five campuses; many of these recommendations were mirrored in the commonwealth’s own Life Sciences Initiative, a ten-year, billion-dollar plan for investment. The Life Sciences Task Force was chaired by Michael F. Collins, MD, at the time interim chancellor at University of Massachusetts Medical School and senior vice president for the health sciences at the University. Along with Terence R. Flotte, MD, a prominent figure in the field of gene therapy, who became the eighth dean of the School of Medicine in 2007, Collins has overseen the latest phase in campus development and investment, including the expansion of the medical school class size to its current cohort of 125; investment in educational technology and infrastructure, and expansion in clinical and translational science, which began with the establishment of a PhD program in Clinical and Population Health in 2005; the creation of the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences in 2009; and the receipt of an NIH Clinical and Translational Award in 2010. Two major facilities investments on the University of Massachusetts Medical School campus have laid the groundwork for the next generation of life sciences education and research: the 278,000 square-foot Ambulatory Care Center, home to Centers of Excellence in Diabetes, Cardiovascular Medicine, Orthopedics and Cancer, which opened in 2010; and the 500,000 square foot Albert Sherman Center, which opened in 2013 and houses state of the art facilities for medical education, including homes for the learning communities; the standardized patient program; dedicated seminar and conference space; and six floors of wet and dry laboratory space for new research initiatives in population health, RNA biology, gene therapy and neurodegenerative disease.
Applications for admission to the University Of Massachusetts Medical School Of Medicine must be submitted online through the American Medical College Application Service. Please review application submission deadlines for the MD and MD/PhD programs.
AMCAS requires 4 to 6 weeks to verify applications. Submission of applications to AMCAS by the MD and MD/PhD program deadlines does not guarantee that the application will reach us in time for applicants to complete secondary forms by the posted deadlines. Extensions will not be granted for late applications. Verified AMCAS applicationUse of third parties, companies or professional services for writing personal statements is strongly discouraged and considered a breach of ethical conduct. Contracting with such services would not be considered compatible with ethical standards in the practice of medicine.
Letters of RecommendationLetters of recommendation are an important part of your application. Individuals who you select to write letters of recommendation for you should know you well and should be knowledgeable of the challenges of medical school. Each recommender should write about you in a personal and specific way that highlights attributes or competencies expected of students entering medical school. The UMass Medical School Admissions Committee will accept 3 to 6 letters.
A composite premed committee letter is expected when a committee letter is available to you from your undergraduate institution. Applicants who do not submit a committee letter should explain in our secondary application why a committee letter was not provided. Additional letters (see below) can be submitted.
If a pre-med committee letter is not available at your institution, please submit letters from:
Letters from family members and friends are not recommended.
If you are enrolled in or have completed a post baccalaureate or graduate program in biomedical sciences, a letter from the program director is expected in lieu of the undergraduate letter requirements.
If you are applying to our MD/PhD program, please provide letters from a minimum of two most recent research supervisors for a maximum of five letters. Applicants may exceed the six letter maximum if the additional letters are from research supervisors.
Applicants should send all letters of recommendation directly to the AMCAS Letter Service, which will forward the letters to the Admissions Office electronically. AMCAS will accept letters from users of VirtualEvals, Interfolio, and via the US Postal System. If you have a question about whether or not your advising office uses VirtualEvals, please contact your undergraduate advising office.
When we have received all letters from all letter writers listed on the AMCAS application we will mark the letters portion of the online checklist as complete.
Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) exam resultsMApplications will not be considered complete until scores from the last expected MCAT date on the AMCAS application are received. UMMS will accept scores for tests taken up to three years prior to the time of application. We will accept and consider MCAT scores from Jan. 1, 2017 to Sept., 2020 for 2021 matriculation.
UMMS Secondary Application FormsUpon receipt of the AMCAS verified application, applicants are sent an email with directions for completing the online secondary form:
MD program applicants must submit a non-refundable $100 application fee. Payment must be submitted online (through the Oracle portal) or via personal or bank check or money order mailed to the Office of Admissions. Please write your AMCAS ID# on your check. This fee is waived for MD/PhD program applicants. We will waive our $100 application fee if you are granted an AMCAS fee waiver.
Completed ApplicationsCompleted applications are reviewed by the Admissions Committee, which is comprised of faculty representing various disciplines from the basic and clinical sciences and four medical students. The University adheres strictly to all applicable state and federal regulations relating to nondiscrimination and equal opportunity.
We employ a rolling admissions process whereby applicants are reviewed by the Admissions Committee throughout the admissions cycle and are notified as soon as a decision has been made.
InterviewsInterviews are by invitation only and are typically held between September and March. Applicants (MD and MD/PhD) will experience the multiple mini interviews (MMI) in Worcester. PURCH Track applicants will also be required to visit the UMMS-Baystate campus in Springfield, MA for a separate round of interviews.
The Learning Contract of $5,568 is available to all medical students for four years of study. Students enrolled for school courses for credit are assessed the full tuition for each semester of enrollment. Students who register late and/or who are delinquent in the valid repayment of bills will be assessed a late registration fee of $50 and/or a late payment fee of $50.
| Class of 2023 | MA Resident | Non-MA Resident |
|---|---|---|
| Tuition | $36030 | $61960 |
| Fees | $2316 | $2316 |
| Med Soc dues | $103 | $103 |
| Food | $5,000 | $5,000 |
| Miscellaneous | $5,400 | $5,400 |
| Transportation | $3,400 | $3,400 |
| Books/Supplies | $2,125 | $2,125 |
| Instruments | $720 | $720 |
| Rent | $9,000 | $9,000 |
| Total | $69,564 | $95,494 |
Applicants must have graduated from a Massachusetts high school and currently enrolled at an UMass undergraduate campus (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, or Lowell). The BaccMD program is eligible to students who are from racial or ethnic groups under-represented in medicine nationally and/or in Massachusetts, who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, or are first generation college graduates. Students apply to become Medical Scholars during the first phase of the program, at the end of the fall semester of their sophomore year.
The following groups should be designated as under-represented in medicine for MassachusettsThe hospital and clinical components of UMMS are part of UMass Memorial Health Care (UMMHC). UMass Memorial is a multibillion-dollar health-care system consisting of acute-care hospitals, ambulatory clinics and a network of primary care physicians and specialists throughout central Massachusetts.
With approximately 13,000 employees (including 1,500 physicians), UMMHC is the largest health-care provider in central and western Massachusetts.[26] Its flagship hospital (UMass Memorial Medical Center) straddles two campuses along Route 9 in Worcester, Massachusetts and is designated by the American College of Surgeons as a Level I Trauma Center.
Its largest publicly funded affiliate in the field of cancer research is the Quality Assurance Review Center (QARC), located in Lincoln, Rhode Island. Supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), QARC receives radiotherapy data from around 1,000 hospitals in the United States.
UMMHC also maintains four community hospitalsThe University of Massachusetts Medical School enters a new era of biomedical research, medical education and campus collaboration with the opening of the $400 million Albert Sherman Center. The Sherman Center was unveiled to the public on January 30, 2013 a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Gov. Deval Patrick.
Lamar Soutter LibraryNamed in honor of Lamar Soutter (founding dean of the School of Medicine), the Lamar Soutter Library at University of Massachusetts Medical School contains more than 288,000 volumes and is the state's leading source of biomedical information for inter library loan. The only public medical library in the state, it is the regional medical library for New England and one of eight regional libraries comprising the National Library of Medicine.
Aaron Lazare Medical Research BuildingTo support the more than 260 investigators working on advancements in the treatment of disease and injury, the Aaron Lazare Medical Research Building (a 360,000-square-foot (33,000 m2) research facility) opened in October 2001. The 10-story structure, named for the chancellor emeritus, expanded upon the medical school's existing 600,000 square feet (60,000 m2) of campus buildings and 83,000 square feet (7,700 m2) in the adjacent Massachusetts Biotechnology Research Park.
The University of Massachusetts Medical School extended campus includes the Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, labs and offices in the Massachusetts Biotechnology Research Park in Worcester; sites in Shrewsbury and Auburn; the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center in Waltham and the New England Newborn Screening Program and Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories in Jamaica Plain and Mattapan.
The Office of Admissions does not arrange tours except for applicants who have been invited for an interview by the Admissions Committee. University of Massachusetts Medical School is a public institution and at all times our priority is patient rights and confidentiality. You are welcome to take a self-guided tour.
University of Massachusetts Medical School strongly urges you to meet with your premedical advisor for counseling. Applicants are advised to apply to several medical schools and premedical advisors are the best source for guidance in applying to medical schools.
It is our policy that no member of the school, whether administration or faculty, shall counsel any applicant about his/her application during the time that it is under active consideration by the Admissions Committee. This policy insures complete fairness and equality to all applicants. Again, we emphasize the knowledge and experience that college premedical advisors have had with a variety of medical schools to which their students apply and urge students to continue consulting with them.
Applicants enrolled in a degree granting program are responsible for completing that program by the time they expect to matriculate at UMMS. The admissions committee considers withdrawal from a degree program for the purpose of matriculating to medical school as unacceptable behavior.
Tianjin University is a fine university with standard syllabus, homely environment and friendly and talented teachers. The teaching process is based on practical knowledge. Assignments, projects and seminars are frequently assigned to enhance student’s knowledge. I thanks to RMC for all your help.
POOJA SINGHAL (AGRA, UP), STUDENT CHINA
