Pre-Health Paths


Student in lab with petri dish

Explore Your Path

Follow your PreHealth Path or explore all of them to understand what might be best for you! Within each PreHealth path, you will find information on advising, program admission, career preparation, KU resources and involvement, workshops, and more.



Common Academic Questions

***Denotation: KU offers preparation and application assistance for admission for all programs listed; however, those in Itatalics cannot be completed entirely at KU. Students must apply to and complete those graduate programs at a different university.

Bachelor programs: All bachelor level programs listed can be completed at KU. Typically, students complete the first two years of coursework at the Lawrence or Edwards Campus and complete their professional degree coursework at KU Medical Center.

KU Medical Center programs: Students pursuing occupational therapy, physical therapy or medicine complete an undergraduate degree at the Lawrence of Edwards Campus, and if, admitted, may complete their graduate degree at the KU Medical Center.

Pharmacy: Pharmacy students complete the full degree at the Lawrence campus.

  • Bachelor Programs: Nursing, Respiratory Care, Clinical Lab Sciences, Health Information Management 

     
  • Master Programs: Physician Assistant  

     
  • Doctoral Programs: Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Medicine, Dentistry, Optometry, Veterinary, Pharmacy



     

If you are a current KU student who needs to add or update your academic interest code to represent a specific health career code, make sure do so.This lets your advising home know that you are pursuing a Health Path and can connect you to powerful resources such as newsletters. Update your interest code by emailing collegeadvising@ku.edu.

If you are an international student interested in health professions, please review the information provided by the KU Medical Center to help you get started.

A major is your main academic area of study. Majors are found in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences or in the many Professional Schools that KU has. Different majors have different degree types that they pair with.

***Example: If you are PreNursing, once admitted to a Nursing Program, your major IS Nursing. Your degree will be a BS in Nursing.

A track is not a major – it is a set of required courses that go towards of field of study that you have elected to complete in addition to your major and degree pairing.

***Example: Pre-Medicine -  if you are PreMed you are not getting a PreMedicine degree. You take the courses that are required for the Pre-Medicine track while you are also completing a full major at KU. Courses for a track can either overlap with, or be added to a major of your choice. Your major is the Bachelor degree you choose.

You would have a "degree type, in a major, with a chosen track."

***Example: BS in Microbiology, with a PreMedicine track

View the KU Academic Catalog to browse all schools and programs.

The three most common types of KU degrees are the Bachelor of Arts (BA), the Bachelor of Science (BS), and the Bachelor of General Studies (BGS). The School of the Arts in the College also offers Bachelor of Fine Art and a Bachelor of Art Education degrees. All degrees are made up of three components: Your KU Core requirements, your degree requirements, and your major specific requirements. To graduate from KU, you need typically 120 credit hours. The 3 components of a degree are what get you to 120 hours! Think of choosing your degree type as choosing what components you would like to use to reach 120 hours.

Bachelor of Art, BA - degree requires fourth level proficiency in a foreign language. This can also be done by achieving 3rd level proficiency in one language, and 1 level in another (3+1). Be sure to chat with your advisor about how to reach your 4th level proficiency! Often times if you have previous knowledge in a language you can place into a level higher than beginner by taking a language placement exam. These exams vary by department. If you feel like you can place into a higher level of a language chat with your advisor! AP scores and credits can also be used towards language proficiency. A BA degree also requires an additional math course beyond MATH 101, and a science lab that matches the lecture class.

Bachelor of Science, BS - degree tends to be more math and science heavy. Rather than taking a language you might take a higher level major course or an additional math course. Credit hour requirements for a Bachelor of Science degree might also include extra course requirements specific to the major. For example, in a Biology BS degree you take more upper level Biology courses than you do in the BA.

Bachelor of General Studies, BGS - degree requires a major and a minor. You may see the minor show as your "second area of study". There are so many way you can combine different academic areas. Chat with us about how to combine your interests.