How to Succeed as an NYU Premed

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All you need to know about being a premed student at NYU, including NYU premed requirements, majors, extracurriculars, and the NYU premed acceptance rate.

A group of NYU School of Medicine students wearing blue scrubs and listening attentively to a lecture at their desks

Everything you need to know to get into med school as an nyu premed

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Part 1: Introduction

NYU has long been reputed as one of the top schools in the country, securing its elite status this year (2024) with the #30 position among national universities in the U.S. News & World Report college rankings list. Spread across New York City’s bustling Manhattan and Brooklyn boroughs, its main campus offers a distinctly more fast-paced, urban lifestyle than the traditional campus atmosphere of many similarly ranked schools. Renowned as a center of innovation and progress, the school has yielded six Nobel laureates since 1967 (along with several Pulitzer, Academy, Grammy, Tony, and Emmy Award winners).

Many premeds who dream of making a substantial impact in the world of medicine imagine NYU to be an ideal undergraduate institution for these reasons. Furthermore, its two accompanying medical schools, the Grossman School of Medicine and the Long Island School of Medicine (LISOM) are both known for their contributions to dramatic improvements in people’s lives. Prior to US New’s updates to the ranking system in August 2024, Grossman was ranked #10 in the nation for research and LISOM houses a unique Diabetes and Obesity Research Center which employs teams of multidisciplinary researchers engaged in studying all aspects of the condition.

While completing a bachelor’s degree at NYU in no way guarantees an eventual acceptance from Grossman or LISOM (or any other medical school), spending four years as an undergraduate with access to robust research, clinical, and career-building opportunities can certainly bolster an application anywhere in the country.

It almost goes without saying that such a vibrant, opportunity-rich university is sure to catch the eye of thousands of applicants each year—close to 120,000 in the 2023-24 application cycle, to be exact. Of those, NYU extended offers of admission to roughly 8 percent, indicating that acceptance is quite challenging.

The challenge doesn’t end with getting into this increasingly competitive undergraduate program. Curriculum requirements are rigorous, and if you’re aiming to attend medical school in the future, you’ll need to make intentional, calculated decisions about how to plan your schedule, maintain a strong GPA, build close bonds with professors and mentors, and rack up an impressive list of shadowing, research, and clinical experiences. Each of these elements will prove vital to your medical school application, and you’ll want to start developing a strategy well before even stepping foot on campus.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to succeed as an NYU premed, mapping out a plan from your first day as a freshman all the way through the medical school application process. With a clear vision for your trajectory and well-articulated short- and long-term goals in place, you’ll be set to reap all the benefits of life as an NYU premed and boost your chances of acceptance to the medical school of your dreams.

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Part 2: NYU premed requirements

As an NYU premed, you’ll be working your way through the Robert and Ellen Salant Prehealth Program, which provides a broad range of flexible course options and support, ensuring that you’ll graduate fully-equipped with the foundational knowledge for admission to medical school.

By choosing prehealth as a course path, you’ll be able to properly plan your journey toward admission by ticking off each prerequisite you need along the way.

Premed course planning at NYU

You won’t have to declare a major at NYU right away; you’ll technically have until the end of sophomore year. However, you’ll want to begin planning out your course schedule as soon as possible. NYU premed students don’t follow a prescribed timeline for which courses to take when, and with the exception of the Expository Writing and General Chemistry courses designed for freshmen, all other required courses may be taken at any point in your time as an undergraduate.

However, a significant amount of planning will still be necessary to ensure that you’re able to complete every course by the end of your senior year. You’ll want to pay particularly close attention to courses that have prerequisites and those that are only offered during one semester each year. For example, Biochemistry II—which is strongly recommended but not required—is offered only in the spring, but you’ll need to take Biochemistry I before you can register for it.

Also, don’t make the mistake of piling on all of your most challenging courses at once. A single semester, if poorly planned, can bog down your cumulative GPA for years and suck up all the time and energy you could be investing into extracurriculars and MCAT studies.

While specific coursework requirements vary from one medical school to the next, generally speaking, most medical schools have similar requirements. We’ve outlined those requirements and how you can meet them with courses at NYU in the table below.

NYU Premed Requirements
Medical school requirement
Required courses
Optional courses
Biology: Two courses with lab BIOL-UA 11
BIOL-UA 12
Associated lab (not required for Biology majors):
BIOL-UA 123
General Chemistry: Two semesters with lab
 Courses include the lab:
CHEM-UA 125
CHEM-UA 126
Organic Chemistry: Two semesters with lab
 Courses include the lab:
CHEM-UA 225
CHEM-UA 226
Biochemistry: One semester
 CHEM-UA 881
OR
BIOL-GA 1045
Calculus: One semester * MATH-UA 121
Statistics: One semester One of the following:
PSYCH-UA 10
UGPH-GU 20
BIOL-UA 42
ECON-UA 18 or 20
POL-UA 850
SOC-UA 302
MATH-UA 235
Physics: Two semesters with lab PHYS-UA 11
PHYS-UA 12
Physics majors are required to take the following:
PHYS-UA 91
PHYS-UA 93
PHYS-UA 95
Plus these corresponding labs:
PHYS-UA 71
PHYS-UA 72
PHYS-UA 73
College-level English/writing: Two semesters EXPOS-UA 1
ENGL-UA/EXPOS-UA
Psychology: One semester PSYCH-UA 1
Sociology: One semester Choose one of the following:
SOC-UA 1
SOC-UA 414
UGPH-GU 10
* If your major requires an equivalent course to Calculus I, you have the option to take that course instead of taking Calculus I.

Since you can take these courses at any time as long as you’ve met the prerequisites, you won’t need to follow a strictly prescribed scheduling guideline. Still, it’s a good idea to map things out ahead of time to ensure you can fit all the courses you need to take into your four years. Here’s just one example of what a well-balanced premed course schedule might look like for your freshman and sophomore year.

Sample NYU Two-Year Course Plan
Semester
Courses
Freshman Fall BIOL-UA 11 (and BIOL-UA 123)
CHEM-UA 125
MATH-UA 121
Freshman Spring BIOL-UA 12 (and BIOL-UA 123)
CHEM-UA 126
MATH-UA 235
Sophomore Fall CHEM-UA 225
CHEM-UA 881
EXPOS-UA 1
Sophomore Spring CHEM-UA 226
ENGL-UA/EXPOS-UA

In addition to these courses, you’ll also need to ensure you’re fulfilling your major-specific course requirements, some of which might overlap with your premed courses as well as a selection of electives suited to your interests. NYU has compiled a very helpful list of electives commonly taken by premed students, including Health and Disease in Human Evolution, Ethics and Disability, Sociology of Medicine, and Life and Death.

AP credits at NYU

While you’ll likely be able to count several of your AP classes toward your degree, many medical schools won’t accept credits from AP science classes. As a result, the Preprofessional Health Advising Center strongly suggests that premed students take all biology, chemistry, and physics coursework at NYU, even if their AP score would allow them to skip the foundational classes.

Study abroad at NYU

In addition to its degree-granting campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai, NYU hosts more international students and sends more students to study abroad than any other school in the country. Several courses in the premed curriculum are offered at NYU locations around the world including London, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, and Tel Aviv. In addition, Tandon School of Engineering’s Prehealth Committee coordinates overseas service learning opportunities during summer breaks that provide students with hands-on clinical experience while they serve communities in need.

What’s the best premed major at NYU?

As an NYU premed, you’re free to pursue whatever captures your interest. If you’re wondering whether medical schools favor students with a particular kind of undergraduate degree, it’s great that you’re already planning for the long-term, but there’s no data to suggest that any one major will give you an advantage over other medical school applicants.

(Suggested reading: The Best Premed Majors to Get Into Medical School)

Most students usually settle on a major in the sciences, which may cut down on the number of courses you need to fulfill both your degree requirements and your premed requirements for medical school applications. However, NYU’s flexible curriculum allows you to find your personal niche by combining your passion for medicine and healthcare with even a seemingly unrelated interest, like marketing, literature, or environmental science.

Medical schools are always on the lookout for promising candidates who can demonstrate aptitude in the social sciences and humanities as well as the hard sciences. Even the MCAT evaluates critical analysis and reasoning skills, in addition to knowledge about the psychological and social foundations of behavior.

If you’re still feeling stuck as you select a major, try asking yourself the following questions:

  • What are some common threads between my high school extracurriculars and the classes I enjoyed the most?

  • Which major will allow me to complete my degree and my premed program without taking on too many additional courses?

  • Which major will challenge me while also allowing me to maintain a high GPA and find the time to engage in extensive resume-building extracurricular experiences?

  • What areas of specialization within the medical field am I interested in exploring?

Medical school admissions committees do prefer to see that you’ve identified a clear area of interest, passion, or specialization during your undergraduate years, both in your course selections and your extracurriculars. That’s not to say you can’t experiment and try a few things on for size before making up your mind, but if you’re still struggling to calibrate your compass by junior year, you may want to reevaluate your priorities and revise your strategy.

Prehealth Advisors from the Preprofessional Advising Center are especially well-equipped to support students in this predicament but don’t wait until you’re already miles off the path to send out your S.O.S. Make it a priority to visit the Preprofessional Advising Center during your first weeks on campus and keep in close contact with the advising team throughout your four years as an undergraduate. Through one-on-one mentoring, workshops, and other programming, they’ll offer crucial insights and guidance to help you get the most out of your prehealth experience.

How to maintain a high GPA as an NYU premed

NYU’s rigorous coursework will demand your best efforts, and as a premed student, you’ll need to make sure you’re maintaining a competitive cumulative GPA to remain a strong candidate from a medical school admissions standpoint. Keep in mind, the average undergraduate GPA for US MD program matriculants is 3.75. (For NYU Grossman, it’s 3.92!)

As mentioned above, carefully planning your schedule so as not to overwhelm yourself with too many challenging courses in a single semester is one way to avoid the risk of deteriorating your GPA. But a few other GPA-preserving tactics include the following:

  • Attend office hours with your professors. NYU’s 8:1 student-to-professor ratio ensures that the majority of classes will remain pretty small. Still, you’ll likely have at least a few lecture-based classes with dozens—or even a couple hundred—of other students, where it’s difficult to engage with your professor and grasp the course material in-depth. No matter your class size, taking the time to stop by and introduce yourself to your professors, ask them questions about the course material, and build some rapport with them could yield the personalized support you need in order to excel.

  • Choose your professors wisely. Do your research ahead of time by reading reviews and speaking to other students who have taken classes with the same professor. Look into their areas of academic and professional specialization, too. If they run a lab you think you’d enjoy working in as an undergraduate researcher, then it could be beneficial for you to register for their class!

  • Utilize the assistance of your TAs, tutors, and study groups. NYU’s University Learning Center (ULC) organizes Group Sessions and Study Slams to bring students together to review course materials and prepare for exams, in addition to Learning Groups and Bits, where students can collaborate to solve practice problems based on recent in-class lecture material.

  • Start building sustainable study habits for the long-term. Intensive, well-structured study plans are an integral part of the premed and medical school experience, and NYU’s ULC offers several essential resources and services aimed at helping students succeed, including their Academic Skills Workshop and Study Smart Series.

When should you take the MCAT?

There’s no universal best time to take the MCAT, so don’t worry about comparing yourself to your peers on this point. You should plan to take the MCAT when you have completed the classes that will equip you with the foundational knowledge you need to perform well on the exam, and when you have plenty of time to devote to an MCAT study plan.

If you don’t plan on taking a gap year to work and study for the MCAT, we typically recommend taking the exam in the fall of junior year. This allows sufficient time to complete the necessary classes and to study over the summer, while also leaving open a window for retaking the exam in case things don’t go as planned the first time around.

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Part 3: NYU premed extracurriculars

While incredibly important, an impressive GPA and MCAT score alone are not enough to win over medical school admissions committees. That’s why you must be proactive about getting involved in meaningful extracurriculars during your time as an undergraduate. Whereas you may have cast a wide net when seeking out high school extracurricular activities, you’ll need to be strategic about the number and nature of extracurriculars you take on as a premed.

Your time and energy are precious, and there will only be so many hours in the day to fulfill all of your responsibilities both inside and outside of class. So aim for extracurricular opportunities that are specific to your personal and professional interests and values. This will allow you lots of hands-on experience, growth, and leadership opportunities and will put you in contact with peers and mentors who can support you on your journey throughout undergrad and into medical school.

Thankfully, NYU offers an abundance of opportunities for premed students to expand their resumes with meaningful extracurriculars. They can best be divided into the three following categories.

NYU premed shadowing

Shadowing is a great way to explore the medical field even before diving into in-depth research and clinical experience. By observing healthcare professionals in various fields as they go about their daily responsibilities and interact with patients, you’ll begin to gain a clearer understanding of what your own journey toward a career in medicine will look like, and what areas of specialization you’d most like to pursue.

Several of NYU’s premed student organizations (such as the American Medical Students Association, Biological Society, and Phi Delta Epsilon) connect students to professional networks through which they can secure shadowing opportunities. NYU also provides a list of Manhattan-area hospitals that facilitate volunteering and shadowing. Due to the passive, observational nature of shadowing, these opportunities are rarely part of an official program. You won’t need to apply to shadow a doctor; instead, you’ll need to ask the doctor directly via email or phone.

(Suggested reading: How to Ask to Shadow a Doctor)

NYU premed research

Research experience can be conducted in a variety of contexts either on or off campus, depending on your preferences and areas of interest. Here are just a few resources an NYU premed may find beneficial:

NYU premed clinical and community volunteering

All medical school applicants must have extensive clinical experience to include in their applications as well as to discuss in interviews and essays. In a clinical setting such as a hospital, nursing home, or family clinic, you’ll get to apply what you’ve learned in your classes and research experiences to a real-world healthcare setting, as you work directly with patients and healthcare professionals, gaining firsthand knowledge of what it takes to be a good doctor.

A few of NYU’s most coveted and well-developed clinical opportunities include:

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Be sure to fully examine the databases listed above for the complete range of available extracurricular opportunities, and don’t forget to utilize your own personal connections (or a handy-dandy search engine) to supplement your search for off-campus opportunities. Consider joining the Prehealth Advisory Board to get plugged into the prehealth community and help develop monthly career-oriented programming for your fellow students.

That said, don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you spread yourself too thinly and aim to take on four years worth of extracurricular activities within your first year alone, you may end up dividing your limited time and energy in so many directions that you fail to make significant contributions in any of your roles.

(Suggested reading: How to Choose the Right Extracurricular Activities for Medical School)

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Part 4: Getting Into Medical School as an NYU Premed

As you draw nearer to graduation, you’ll be ready to start gearing up for yet another rigorous application process. Assuming you won’t be taking any time off between undergrad and medical school, you should begin gathering the following components early in Junior year, with the goal of submitting them by the spring.

Whether you’ve got your sights set on Grossman, LISOM, or any other medical school, here’s what you’ll need to prepare:

  • An application submitted through the AMCAS, AACOMAS, or TMDSAS portals, depending on the schools to which you’re applying

  • Prerequisite coursework as prescribed by NYU’s prehealth curriculum— but also be sure to check the specific requirements dictated by the medical schools you’ve decided to apply to; they can vary.

  • Strong GPA and MCAT scores. Again, this can vary from school to school, but the higher the better. Before deciding which medical schools to apply to, check to make sure you’re aware of any cutoffs they may have for minimum GPA or exam scores.

  • Extensive extracurricular experience documented in your AMCAS application's Work and Activities section

  • Secondary applications, which (depending on the medical school) may be required of all applicants, or only of those who pass the primary round of application review. For this, you’ll need to submit letters of recommendation and secondary essays.

  • Letter(s) of recommendation. Much like for your undergraduate applications, you will also need to supply letter(s) of recommendation (called “letters of evaluation” at NYU) written by professors with whom you worked closely. Your recommenders should be able to articulate detailed information about who you are as an individual, a student, and a future doctor. NYU, like many schools, also provides students with an institutional Committee Letter, wherein a prehealth advisor will write a letter contextualizing all the components of your application and recommending you for admission to medical school. The most compelling letters always come from advisors who have had the opportunity to really get to know a student not only for their work ethic and professional aspirations but also for their personality and values.

(Suggested reading: (The Ideal Medical School Application Timeline)

NYU premed acceptance rate and admissions statistics

So what are your chances of getting into medical school as an NYU graduate? There’s a limited amount of publicly-available data on the number of NYU undergraduates who matriculate into medical school, but AAMC data shows that 277 NYU students applied to medical school in 2024. With a national average matriculation rate of 36%, we can very roughly approximate that about 99 of those applicants successfully matriculated into medical schools around the country.

Getting into NYU Grossman School of Medicine or LISOM as an NYU premed

Getting into Grossman or LISOM may not be every NYU premed’s goal, but it’s likely the idea has at least crossed your mind. Despite the fact that the < 3% acceptance rates will shut out thousands of well-qualified applicants each year, as an NYU premed, you have the unique opportunity to develop a convincing case to Grossman or LISOM admissions committees about your own qualifications. Four years as an undergraduate will allow you to develop a deep understanding of NYU’s unique mission and values, on top of connecting and working closely with professors and graduate researchers with ties to the medical schools.

But in addition to those strong extracurriculars, you’ll also need an extremely high GPA and MCAT score in order to have a fair shot at acceptance. Grossman’s median GPA and MCAT scores currently sit at an impressive 3.97 and 523.

If you manage to pass the hurdle of the primary and secondary application and receive an interview invitation to either of these schools, you’ll need to prepare for the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI), where you’ll be evaluated on your skills in teamwork, communication, self-awareness, maturity, empathy, and critical thinking through a series of short interviews and role-playing scenarios. It may sound intimidating, but it’s actually a great way to demonstrate your strongest interpersonal skills and give evaluators a glimpse at what kind of doctor you might someday be.

(Suggested reading: How to Get Into NYU Medical School)

Final Thoughts

NYU’s uniquely flexible prehealth program provides students with the space they need to explore and crystallize their personal career plans in the medical field, while also supporting them every step of the way through extensive prehealth career advising services and well-connected extracurricular opportunities. By following the tried-and-true advice we’ve laid out here, you can step forward into your time as an NYU premed knowing that you have all the tools and insights you need to set yourself on a trajectory toward medical school acceptance.

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian headshot

About the Author

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on medical school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school using his exclusive approach.

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3 students cheer after receiving their MCAT scores