University of Florida College of Medicine

Lectures are split between mornings and afternoons, many recorded, alongside required labs where classmates work through case questions with faculty on hand. Weekly Collaborative Learning Groups spend three hours on wellness and ethics, interviewing practice, write-up feedback, and clinical cases.

Anatomy runs through both preclinical years, moving from prosected specimens to student dissection and then aligning with each organ-system block. Weekend quizzes keep everyone on pace.

According to the UF student interviewed, students work with standardized patients from the start, and from the second semester of first year they see real patients under their small-group leader's supervision, giving oral presentations and write-ups.

The student lists UF's strengths as pass/fail grading, a new medical school building, shared resources, a responsive administration, and research opportunities.

Clinical facilities sit close together in Gainesville: UF Health Shands Hospital plus a children's hospital, VA, cancer hospital, and neuromedicine and cardiovascular hospitals. UF has also opened a Jacksonville Regional Medical Campus with UF Health Jacksonville.

UF requires an MCAT of at least 500 from a single sitting and has no minimum GPA; recent successful applicants have scored above 509.

Gainesville is a college town of about 130,000 with trails, nature parks, and museums nearby, and Jacksonville, Tampa, and Orlando within two hours.

Football game days transform campus, and class traditions like the White Coat Company play, the Grad Cup intramural competition, and MedProm build camaraderie.