Health Professions Recommendations Committee

• Completion of Intent to Participate AND Academic Honesty Disclosure forms by Friday, Oct. 23, 2026 by 5 p.m. (the end of the eighth week of the Fall semester), submitted to  Dr. Jim Fackenthal (closed for 2025-2026 cycle).
• Minimum cumulative GPA 3.3 from ALL post-secondary institutions
• Minimum BCPM (Bio, Chem, Physics, Math) course GPA 3.1 from ALL post-secondary institutions
• Minimum 30 credit hours of classes completed at Benedictine University by the end of the academic year in which a letter is sought.
• Minimum 12 credit hours in BCPM courses completed at Benedictine by the end of the academic year in which a letter is sought, including at least one lab course.
• Interest in one of the following professions:
  • Medicine (MD and DO)
  • Dentistry
  • Pharmacy
  • Optometry
  • Physician Assistant
  • Veterinary
  • Physical Therapy
  • Occupational Therapy
  • Nursing
  • Podiatry
  • Chiropractic

A completed application packet for the student includes all of the following:

• HPRC Application Form
• Personal statement (not a form; write this separately as a .docx or .pdf file)
• A recent professional photo (not a form; submit this separately as a .jpg or .jpeg file)
• FERPA Waiver

• Final deadline: End of the first week of the Spring Semester (Sunday, Jan. 15, 2027 by 5 p.m. Central Time)
  • The final deadline is strict! Any incomplete applications after that date will result in the student not being allowed to interview with the HPRC in the 2026-2027 academic year.

Students are required to obtain commitments from individual letters of recommendation (iLOR) letter writers before submitting the final application. Letters from iLOR letter writers will be due before Spring Break 2027.

There should be a minimum of three (3), but no more than six (6), iLORs. Those three letters must come from a combination of two (2) science faculty and one (1) additional resource (not necessarily faculty) that can speak to the student’s non-academic qualities. This could be a clinician who supervised a shadowing experience, a direct supervisor of a clinical work experience, a Scholar’s advisor, a research mentor, a supervisor for a volunteering experience, etc.

If additional letters beyond the required three are submitted, they may come from other faculty, clinicians the student has worked or shadowed with, volunteer coordinators, etc.

**It is expected that you will ask those whom you are requesting iLOR’s from in advance if it is okay that they provide a letter for you.  If it is discovered that you did not do this, the HPRC may penalize your recommendation by one level.

For transfer students with < 30 credit hours of Benedictine coursework (in their first year at Benedictine at the time of submitting the “Intent to Participate” form), there is a slightly different iLOR requirement:

• At least one (1) letter from a science faculty member at Benedictine or at a prior institution and a letter from an additional resource that can speak to the student’s non-academic qualities should be submitted as part of the application process.
• By the end of Spring semester of the year the student applies, the student must ensure that at least two (2) letters from science faculty, including at least one Benedictine science faculty member, are included in their portfolio. These combined letters then must satisfy the requirements met by all Benedictine students (two from science faculty, one from an additional resource)

• All finalized applications will be available to all members of the HPRC. For each applicant, two (2) members of the committee will be assigned for primary review of the student’s application.
• These primary reviewers, along with the Pre-Health Advisor, will conduct personal interviews of the applicant during the spring semester. Applicants should check their Benedictine e-mail address provided to the committee for who they need to schedule interviews with and when.
• All members of the HPRC will review each student’s application file and primary reviewers’ assessments, and they will provide their own insights and collective committee decision at the committee’s meetings.
• The HPRC Chair will prepare a summary of feedback to each applicant after the committee’s review of the applicant is complete. This will be done via the Benedictine e-mail address provided by the applicant, with an invitation for a meeting to discuss further should one be desired by the applicant.

This is an open-ended statement where applicants tell us something unique about their background and about why they want to go into the profession of their choosing.  The statement should be about two pages, double-spaced, but no more than 4600 characters for most applications.

This is a chance to be creative and help a student stand out from other applicants.  We recommend that applicants share one or two interesting stories that helped confirm they are going into the right profession:  something that took place when they were younger, and/or something that they experienced through shadowing or working in your field.

Try to avoid clichés like “I like science” or “I want to help people”, as these won’t help a personal statement stand out from other applicants.

This is typically the most difficult part of the application for many students, so we encourage all applicants to start working on this early so you have time to prepare and review drafts.

**Need some help getting started and/or someone to help review a draft?  Make an appointment with Ms. Susan Roach, Literacy Learning Specialist, in the Academic Support Center by e-mail ([email protected]) or via Bookings at https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/[email protected]/bookings/.

Interviews will be scheduled in a minimum of three blocks during the spring semester.

Depending on committee members’ preferences, some informal, preparatory interviews may start taking place in the fall semester for non-priority students, but the vast majority of interviews will take place in the spring semester.

Students will be asked to take part in three (3) interviews:

• A one-on-one interview with the Pre-Health Advisor
• Two interviews with two randomly-selected faculty members of the HPRC
• Faculty and the Pre-Health Advisor are free to choose the format for the interviews that they wish.
  • Some of the interviews will be conducted in-person while others will be conducted virtually via Zoom. Please check with your interviewer for the format of your interview.
• Although these interviews are meant to be mock interviews, the purpose of the interviews are to gather information about the student to help form a recommendation. Students’ interview performances will thus NOT be used in any way to influence their overall committee recommendations. However, students are expected to dress and act professionally in interviews with faculty as practice for formal professional school interviews.
  • Students are not required to dress formally for the interview with the Pre-Health Advisor.
  • However, students are required to dress in business attire for the interviews with the two faculty members.
  • Students are encouraged to ask their interviewer for constructive criticism after your interview has ended.
• Students should be aware that being a “no-show” to any interview with no attempt to contact the interviewer(s) may result in their recommendation level penalized one level.

Interview Guidelines for Faculty Interviews

Think about what you would wear if you were going for a business interview.  This should help you plan your outfit appropriately.

For virtual interviews:

• Your webcam is expected to be on for the full interview.  If you are having technical issues with your webcam, please let your interviewer know so you can reschedule if needed.
• Please be aware of your background, both in terms of appearance and noise.
• Clean up clutter, do not have any ceiling fans on (or anything that makes a constant motion), and minimize background noise from anyone else living with you.
• Do not use a “cute” filter that doesn’t look professional.

• After the interviews are complete, the Pre-Health Advisor and two faculty interviewers will complete a preliminary review and recommendation. The other voting faculty members on the HPRC will read through the application and personal statement and complete a preliminary review and recommendation based on their reading and experiences with the applicant.
• The full HPRC will then be convened, where the committee will discuss their findings and assess the student for a recommendation level (Outstanding, Strongly Recommend, Recommend, Recommend with Reservation, Do Not Recommend).
• Once the HPRC has made a recommendation, the HPRC Chair will contact the student for a short debrief via e-mail to go over the recommendation level and suggestions for improvement.
• The student is then asked whether they wish to receive a letter from the HPRC. If they confirm they do, the student will then be asked to identify where they would like the letter submitted and to submit a formal request to the HPRC Chair.
• Students must give a minimum of 3 weeks’ notice for where and when the letter must be submitted by. Requests for letters on any shorter timeframe cannot be guaranteed.
• To request a letter, students must complete and submit the Request a Letter and Release of Rights forms, sending them to the HPRC Chair.

Final approval of committee letters will occur once all of a student’s application packet and iLORs are submitted, ant the HPRC has met to discuss the recommendation.

Letters will be primarily written by the faculty who interviewed the student as part of the process, though the Pre-Health Advisor and Chair will also participate. As letters are finished, they will be circulated among the entire HPRC for review and editing. The HPRC Chair then confirms that all iLORs have been submitted, at which point the letter is given final approval.

Once final approval is confirmed, the letter is sent to the designated place(s) the student identified and the letter is then archived should the student need an updated letter. In most cases, the committee letter will be sent as a packet along with the iLORs the student included, unless the student requests otherwise.

If you have previously interviewed with the HPRC over a year ago and would like a new or updated HPRC letter, you may request one without having to interview again in most cases.

Simply do the following:

• Complete and submit the Request a Letter and Release of Rights forms, sending them to the HPRC Chair.
• E-mail the HPRC Chair with any updates to your clinical, volunteering, academic, and/or other relevant experiences.
  • In most cases, this e-mail will be sufficient for what we need to write your letter.
  • If it has been a significant length of time since you originally interviewed with the HPRC and/or you have significant changes to your background and experiences, you may be asked to complete a follow-up interview with the Pre-Health Advisor and/or the HPRC Chair or submit a new application as a new applicant. The HPRC Chair will advise students in this case how to proceed.
  • If we feel that your updates may affect your recommendation level, your information will be shared with the HPRC members to see if anyone would want to change their recommendation levels. If so, the HPRC Chair will let you know of the changes via e-mail.
• If your individual letters of recommendation are more than 12 months old, you may be asked to request updated or new letters.
• You must give a minimum 3 weeks’ notice for all letter requests. Any requests on a shorter time line cannot be guaranteed.