Pathway Premedical and Preveterinary

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Bicycles fill the racks on either side of Old Dorm Block's sallyport. A student can be seen through the sallyport sitting on the Great Lawn.

What You’ll Study in the Premedical and Preveterinary Pathway

Obtain a liberal arts education at Reed College while preparing for a career in healthcare. Reed graduates have a 70% acceptance rate to medical school, where the breadth in educational programs offered by liberal arts colleges like Reed are valued. Your coursework at Reed College in the humanities and social sciences, as well as your nonacademic pursuits, are important considerations for admission.

Roadmap to the Premedical and Preveterinary Pathway at Reed

Earn your bachelor's degree at Reed in a program of interest to you. Gain the knowledge and skills, from problem-solving to research, that prepare you for medical school. Reed’s pre-health faculty, along with the Center for Life Beyond Reed, will help you plan your course selection, timeline, and application process, as well as provide you with interview and personal statement support.

Year One

Begin Your Reed Journey

In your first year, lay a strong foundation for your future studies. Take Topics in Biology I and II as your introductory biology courses. In addition, take mathematics classes, such as Calculus and Introduction to Probability and Statistics, that equip you for advanced research and data analysis.

Expand your horizons with Humanities 110, a cornerstone Reed course that studies how past and present human cultures shape our world. This interdisciplinary journey hones your critical thinking and writing skills while encouraging you to think beyond conventional academic boundaries.

Explore Humanities 110

Why Pursue the Premedical and Preveterinary Pathway at Reed

Broad Intellectual Exploration

At Reed, the path to health and medicine begins with broad intellectual exploration.

  • A Reed education provides you with the opportunity to explore different modalities—different ways of looking at the world—which allows you to build the compassion and empathy valued by the fields of health and medicine.
  • In small, conference-style classes and labs, you will make new discoveries for yourself, experience new challenges, and begin to form an understanding of why you want to go into health and medicine—and what you will bring to the profession. Reed supports the intellectual risk-taking necessary to find answers.
  • Whether you major in biology, neuroscience, English, or history, you will gain genuine research experience, culminating in the senior thesis, that will prepare you for the rigors of medical school and other health programs. You will have the opportunity to be an integral part of the writing and presenting that are central to these fields, including being a coauthor on an abstract or paper.

Academic Guidance and Volunteer Opportunities

Reed’s pre-health faculty help you plan your course selection, timeline, and application process. Information sessions and panel discussions with alumni in the field help you understand what medical schools are looking for and give you a broader understanding of career options.

Oregon Health & Science University, a medical school and teaching hospital located just across the river, provides a range of volunteer and research opportunities. It’s also the number one employer of alumni in Portland.

Charting a Path to Medical School

Because of her dream of becoming a neurosurgeon, Nanati joined the pre-med track at Reed. She connected with a pre-med adviser who helped her enroll in the correct courses and access resources to keep her on the road to medical school.

Meet neuroscience major Nanati Safawo