For students applying in 2025 for matriculation in 2026
The application to request a Penn LPS Pre-Health Committee Letter is completed online. Follow the APPLY NOW button below to submit your request and supporting documents for the committee letter if you are applying to medical or dental school for the first time with a Penn LPS Pre-Health Committee Letter.
Individualized committee letters are provided by the Penn LPS Pre-Health Programs Evaluation Committee for students applying to medical and dental schools. The individualized committee letter becomes part of a letter recommendation packet assembled by the Pre-Health Programs, which also includes your individual letters of recommendation.
See the FAQ section for more information about our program’s committee letter process.
To be committee letter eligible, all students must meet the eligibility criteria as outlined below and observe all internal deadline dates. The deadline for all Pre-Health Committee Letter requests is March 1. Requests submitted after the March 1 deadline will not be considered.
Eligibility criteria
- All applicants for committee letters must achieve a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.20 for coursework in the Pre-Health curriculum at Penn. Any two semesters with a GPA below 3.20 may disqualify a student from committee letter eligibility.
- Core Studies students must complete 12 course units (c.u.) of approved Pre-Health course work at Penn. A minimum of 11 c.u. must be completed by the end of the spring term. It is acceptable for a Core Studies student to enroll and complete the final 1 c.u. during the summer term of their professional school application cycle to achieve the full complement of required course credit.
- Specialized Studies students must complete 8 c.u. of approved Pre-Health course work at Penn. A minimum of 6 c.u. must be completed by the end of the spring term of their professional school application cycle. It is acceptable for a Specialized Studies student to enroll and complete the final 2 c.u. during the summer term of their professional school application cycle to achieve the full complement of required course credit.
- Only course work completed as part of Penn’s Pre-Health Program applies to committee letter eligibility.
- Students finishing their remaining course unit requirements in the summer semester must have final grades posted before committee letters are released.
Effective summer 2022 semester and onward:
- For Pre-Health students that need to complete general/inorganic chemistry and/or introductory physics courses as part of their Pre-Health curriculum at Penn, they must have successfully completed the online Math On-Ramp (MOR) assessment course to be eligible for the Penn LPS Pre-Health Committee Letter.
- More information is available on the Core Studies page.
Once completed the Penn LPS Pre-Health Committee Letter is only valid for the desired application cycle that it was written for. By submitting a request and going through the Penn LPS Pre-Health Programs internal committee letter review process with our program, students acknowledge and agree that they waive any rights to access of review the committee letter, which is a confidential evaluation document, as part of the medical and dental school application process.
If you are reapplying or postponing to apply to medical or dental school and previously received a finalized Penn LPS Pre-Health Committee Letter, you will go through the addendum process. The Addendum Committee Letter process for 2025-2026 application cycle will be available in February. Please contact a member of the Pre-Health Programs advising team for more information via lps@sas.upenn.edu with the subject line “Pre-Health Addendum Letter Request 25-26 cycle."
The Pre-Health Programs advising team and evaluation committee members are:
- Jackie McLaughlin, MS, RD, Director and Chair
- Danielle Lever, MS, Senior Advisor
- Sukalpa Basu, PhD, Physics and Math Lecturer
- Simon Tong, PhD, Organic Chemistry Lecturer
- John Zimmerman, PhD, Biology Senior Lecturer
- M. Ruth Elliot, MS, Biochemistry Lecturer
If you have questions or concerns, we encourage you to schedule an advising appointment to see a member of our advising team prior to submitting your committee letter request to make sure you are on track for applying to medical or dental school for fall 2026 matriculation year (2025-2026 application cycle). The application cycle refers to the summer an applicant applies to health professions school for the following fall semester matriculation year. Application cycle can also be referred to as admission cycle.
