By Aaron Searle
After nearly 30 years of using a committee to review pre-medical and pre-dental students'' performance, BYU is officially disbanding the committee in favor of other programs for pre-health students.
The change will begin as of winter semester 2007, which means the class entering healthcare professional schools in 2008 will be the first to have been be affected by the change.
'The committee worked for a lot of years and helped a lot of students,' said David Kaiser, health professions advisor for the Preprofessional Advisement Center. 'But as we continue to grow and grow in terms of our pre-medical and pre-dental students it was time for a change. The committee isn''t a terrible thing, it just isn''t meeting the needs of all the students anymore.'
The pre-health committee is a panel of faculty and senior students who review and interview pre-health profession students who meet certain academic cut-offs. The committee writes a letter to the schools where the students are applying, recommending them and justifying any weaknesses they may have. It also ranks the students based upon their performance.
Kaiser said the center now sees itself less as an assessor of students'' qualifications to go to medical or dental school, which is what the committee does, and more of an advisor to students.
'The committee has had a significant aspect of assessment; but we really see our role primarily as being an advocate, a facilitator and an advisor for every single student,' Kaiser said. 'If you set yourself up as an assessor as well as an advisor, it becomes hard because you''re trying to serve two masters.'
He also said many professional schools don''t like the committee process because they feel they should be the ones assessing a students'' ability to attend their school, not a committee from the students'' undergraduate college.
Kaiser said the decision was made for practicality and fairness.
'Frankly, we''ve outgrown the use of a committee,' he said. 'It takes a lot of time and investment of resources to do the committee, and with the number of students we have looking at entering health professions, there just isn''t the opportunity and availability to provide that service to every single student.'
He said the center decided if the service could not be offered to every student, the resources could be better used in being an improved advocate for a greater number of students.
In place of the committee, a new three-tiered system of classes will be offered to students, providing information about careers and giving on-hand experience with healthcare providers
'In place of the committee, we want to have significantly increased opportunities for students to have access into healthcare facilities to do observations and even get even more involved than just observing,' Kaiser said.
Kaiser also said this type of opportunity will be much more beneficial to students than a committee letter when applying to professional schools.
A new class to help students prepare their applications will also be offered starting in winter semester 2007.
According to Dan Chan, a senior majoring in electrical engineering and a pre-med student, the biggest concern with this change is not getting the letter of recommendation from the committee.
'If you don''t have the committee letter, it makes the application process a little more difficult because the schools don''t have any way to predetermine your rank,' he said. 'The letter kind of served as filter, and for top applicants, no letter might hurt them as they are now put onto a level playing ground with all other students.'
But he also said in the end top applicants don''t have anything to worry about because in the long run they will still come out on top, regardless of the lack of a committee ranking.