Prospective Students
Choosing your next Step
Washington State University is an excellent choice if you are interested in a career as a health professional. With more than 90 undergraduate majors to choose from, you can follow your heart’s desire while preparing for professional school. You’ll have opportunities to learn from and work with world-class researchers and round out your education with a strong liberal arts curriculum.
Whether you come to Pullman for a campus tour or are just exploring on your own, the Health Professions Student Center (HPSC) should be on your schedule.
The Health Professions Student Center (HPSC) at WSU serves thousands of students across all majors who are preparing for careers in healthcare. We welcome prospective students and their supporters to schedule a 30-minute visit to learn about the ways we help students get ready to apply to their professional schools of choice. Visits are available Monday – Friday from 11:30am to 12pm. Please use this HPSC Prospective Student Visit link to self-schedule your visit to the HPSC.
If you’re unable to visit Pullman, we offer Virtual Prospective Student Information Sessions on the third Wednesday of each month from 4–5 p.m. (PT). Please use this HPSC Virtual Prospective Student Information Session (Zoom) link to attend the virtual pre-health information session.
Please note, your visit to the HPSC will provide a broad introduction to services that are available to all of WSU’s pre-health (pre-nursing, -medicine, -veterinary medicine, -physical therapy, etc.) students and alumni. Personalized academic advising becomes available once a student has enrolled at WSU and completed New Coug Orientation.
Still in high school?
Congratulations on starting your research early! WSU offers a broad range of degree options and has a strong commitment to fostering the next generation of healthcare professionals.
All pre-professional healthcare students will need to continue to study math and science at college. To prepare, our best advice is that you continue to take demanding math and science classes throughout high school.
Placement into chemistry classes is highly dependent on math skills. Good algebra skills are essential for chemistry, and chemistry is the basis for biology. Our experience shows that you should focus on taking classes that lead to or include calculus. These classes might be algebra I and II, trigonometry, math analysis, pre-calculus, and calculus. Unless you have already completed a calculus class, we do not recommend taking statistics during your senior year of high school.
Health Professions Student Center professionals have found that students who take statistics in lieu of calculus or trigonometry in high school often find they have forgotten essentials of their advanced algebra and have to repeat it at WSU so they can start the college chemistry sequence when they desire.
We encourage you to take challenging science classes throughout high school. While there is no “best” science course to take in high school, rigorous chemistry courses will give you the best preparation for the courses you will encounter in your health professionals curriculum at college.
However, you can also take any science course that both interests and challenges you, whether it is biology, geology, chemistry, or any other science. The important concept is that you are gaining the study skills and basic information that will help you be successful in your college career.
Yes! Students applying to most professional schools will need English, psychology, and other social science courses to be considered qualified.
It’s always a good idea to take honors and AP courses, or complete an IB, because of the outstanding college preparation they provide. However, not all professional schools accept high school AP courses to meet prerequisite requirements for admission to their school.
Professional schools consider the “whole person” in their decision process for admissions. Although grades and test scores are important, so are many other factors. Continue your school activities, consider shadowing a health-care professional, take advantage of opportunities to learn about diverse cultures, engage in community service. All of these will provide you with a diversity of experience that will make you a better-qualified health-care practitioner.
Students entering WSU with College Credits
Students may earn credits for certain college requirements in a variety of ways, including:
It is important to be informed that when applying for professional health programs, ALL credits will be reported regardless of whether you choose to apply those credits to your WSU undergraduate endeavors.
Your WSU GPA, as reported on your student portal and official transcript, will not reflect grades received from coursework taken at other institutions; however, when applying to professional health programs, all grades must be reported from any credit-granting institution (including credit by exam). All coursework (from WSU & other institutions) will be taken into consideration on your application.