History of the Program

The Tufts Postbac Premed Program began in 1988 in response to a growing need for supportive academic programs designed for college graduates looking to complete the prerequisites to apply to health professions graduate programs. From the beginning, we were uniquely positioned to offer an immersive academic experience, enrolling our students in our rigorous daytime classes, that prepare them for a variety of health professions. While premed students are always our largest population, we have been sending students on to dental, veterinary, optometry, advanced practice nursing, and physician assistant schools from the beginning. Our structured program offers a great deal of support while also providing the flexibility that comes with three different start dates and a self-determined completion date.

Over the decades our program has grown in reputation and in the variety of supports and services we offer our students. After a few short years we began including postbacs in our Health Professions Recommendation Committee process, giving them a valued composite committee letter of recommendation when they apply to graduate health professions schools. In 2000, we moved into Academic Advising and Undergraduate Studies unit becoming fully integrated into the academic division and thereby ensuring our students receive all the robust services that Tufts undergraduates receive. A few years later we began hiring a couple of veteran postbacs to offer special study groups. By 2010, we added a program coordinator who responds to prospective students and also manages all the programming and support services we provide. Those services include the Lahey Clinical Research Preceptorship program, which started in 2012. Despite the growth in our offerings, we have not grown much in size. Our small program size allows us to offer students personalized attention and maintain our excellent success rate. We typically have 35-40 students in the Tufts Postbac Program at any one time.