Earlham Graduates “Perfect” for
Post-Graduate Health Programs

For Immediate Release:
August 4, 2005

RICHMOND, Ind. — Thirteen may be an unlucky number for some, but not, it seems, for the baker’s dozen of recent Earlham College graduates expected to take their first steps this fall toward professional careers in the health sciences.

Seven of those graduates will matriculate at a number of this country’s most prestigious medical schools, including The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Indiana University School of Medicine. Additionally, two will pursue specialties in optometry at The Ohio State University School of Optometry, while another will enter a prominent program in public health, also at Johns Hopkins, and two more will begin their studies in veterinary care at two of that discipline’s preeminent institutions: the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin Schools of Veterinary Medicine.

All told, the group represents a 100 percent placement rate for Earlham alumni applying for post-graduate positions in the health sciences in 2005, says Bill Harvey, the College’s long-time chief health advisor and chair of its Health Services Advisory Committee (HSAC).

Each year, Harvey says, between 45,000 and 55,000 applications are submitted by students seeking to fill one of approximately 17,000 first-year seats available at the fewer than 150 accredited M.D.- or D.O.-granting medical schools in the United States. In Harvey’s view, that every Earlham graduate who applied for medical school this year was accepted (including one accepted at every school to which she applied — Harvard, Yale, Duke, Johns Hopkins and the University of Michigan) is remarkable and “a real testimony” to the College’s commitment to preparing both academically well-qualified and morally sensitive leaders.

“Twenty or 30 years ago it was just a numbers game,” says Harvey of the medical school application and acceptance process, which used to focus heavily on the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT. “It’s not the same today. We live in a much more complicated world, and medical schools now are looking for flexibility and adaptability. They’re looking more at the total applicant, individuals with a range of experiences, with demonstrated enthusiasm for the profession and — when you get right down to it — a certain basic humanity.

“We do something pretty wonderful for our students and for Earlham in fostering a commitment to public service,” Harvey continues, “and to my mind, there’s no greater service focus than public health.”

While most of the Earlham alumni accepted into post-graduate health programs this fall were science majors at the College, Bill Harvey (above, right, with students) believes recent changes in admissions criteria at many schools of medicine and public health will make more opportunities available to non-science majors in the future.

While describing the number of Earlham graduates applying to health sciences programs in 2004-05 as about average for the College during the last several years, Harvey says the HSAC already is at work putting together recommendation packets for “a very large” group of students — more than 20 — expected to matriculate in the fall of 2006. (After more than 30 years as chair of the HSAC, Harvey this summer is stepping down in favor of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Michael Deibel, though he will continue to serve on the panel alongside Deibel, Assistant Professor of Biology Peter Blair, Professor of German Barbara Jurasek and men’s basketball coach Jeff Justus, D.O.)

At least in part, Harvey attributes the expected growth in alumni applying to medical schools and other post-graduate health sciences programs — to levels more commonly seen at the College during the politically and socially conscious years of the 1960s and early ‘70s — to a general “re-awakening of interest” in the health-related professions following 9/11.

“Our world has changed and I think, increasingly, college students overall see their involvement in areas of public health as a way to be part of the solution to many of the world’s problems, to help make the world a better place,” says Harvey, adding that with its particular emphasis on and broad opportunities for international study, Earlham likely provides some of its students with an extra measure of motivation toward medical and public health careers.

“Part of the interest at Earlham is globalization,” Harvey says. “Earlham students tend to be citizens of the world and they see many of these problems with emerging diseases, overwhelmed health delivery systems or ineffective health care policies as they travel, and they want to become part of the answer.”

At the same time, says Harvey, many Earlham students who spend time abroad often enjoy a certain advantage if or when they ultimately decide to apply to medical school, “because the person reviewing the application can say, ‘Oh, I see you did some relief work in East Africa.’ Or the student can say he or she worked in a public health clinic in the Caribbean. Believe me, it does make a difference.”

Although nearly all of the 13 alumni entering post-graduate health programs this year majored in science while at Earlham, one was an economics major, says Harvey. A member of the National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions and the College’s long-serving liaison to Association of Schools of Public Health, his experience suggests that in the future more opportunities to attend medical school or enroll in other post-graduate health will be available to more non-science majors.

“It used to be they [medical schools and other health programs] tested almost exclusively in hard science,” Harvey says. “But, today there’s more emphasis on good reading and writing, comprehension and communication skills. There’s more interest in non-cognition skills, too, namely as involve issues like compassion, sensitivity, and a sense of ethics. These are all things that will be tested for and assessed in the years ahead.

“So, without question, I think the traditional liberal arts education like the one students receive at Earlham is still the best preparation for getting into medical school or a challenging program in public health and for being successful once you’re there.”

— EC —

Contact:
Bill Harvey, professor emeritus of biology
765/983-1240 — E-Mail Bill

Kevin Burke, director of media relations
765/983-1323 — E-Mail Kevin

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This page last updated: August 4, 2005