As of June 1, applicants to four of MUSC's colleges will follow a newly adopted, two-stage admission application process designed to simplify and standardize the way prospective students seek entrance to the colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, Graduate Studies, and Health Professions.

Applicants for admission to these colleges are now able first to file a newly designed, simplified two-page all university general application as early:as June 1 of any year, which might be as long as 15 months ahead of matriculation.

Initial self-reported demographic information, such as state of legal residence, program of interest, grade point averages, and test scores in the all-university general application, guides the university in making a substantive initial response to applicants. By having such information available much earlier to MUSC's admission officers in the four colleges, these officers are able to get a preliminary look at their applicant pool.

Applicants to the colleges of Dental Medicine and Medicine were excluded from this process as they already apply first to a general national admission service and then are invited to complete a supplemental MUSC application.

The all-university general application is supplemented in the months following June 1 with a more comprehensive program-specific application, made available only to those who have already filed (or are simultaneously filing) the all-university general application. At this second stage, letters of reference, personal statements, and official copies of test scores and transcripts are submitted. Eligibility for interview and admission will be determined in the winter and spring by faculty at the program level during this later second phase.

This two-step process, somewhat similar to what is already practiced in MUSC's colleges of Medicine and Dental Medicine, is also employed in other heath professions admission programs at universities such as UNC Chapel Hill, University of Iowa, University of Washington, University of Florida, University of California at San Francisco, and the Medical College of Virginia (all of which are considered to be peers of MUSC). It also anticipates a plan being discussed in Columbia to make available state-wide a standardized and electronic application for admission designed to satisfy the general requirements of any of the South Carolina public colleges and universities.

The all-university general application will be available via the Web (PDF formatted) at <www.musc.edu/es/>, by disk or by request from Enrollment Services, please call (843) 792-5396 to request a copy of the General University Application.