This is an application only program. 

Students selected will know prior to freshman Orientation if they have been accepted and how they will enroll in the course. 

Health Sciences LEAP is a four-year pipeline program for students from underrepresented communities (first generation or academically, socially, or economically disadvantaged) seeking careers in health or medicine.  Students take one course each semester in the program, for eight successive fall and spring semesters.

In the first year, they take a three-credit-hour course in the fall on the literature of minority communities encountering the healthcare system, and a three-credit-hour course in the spring on bioethics.  These two courses fulfill both the humanities requirements for graduation, as well as the diversity requirement. 

In the second year, students take two two-credit-hour courses.   In the fall semester course, they do 20 hours of shadowing with an appropriate healthcare provider.  This experience is accompanied by a seminar in which they hear from experts about current issues facing the American healthcare system and write short papers chronicling their experience in the field.  In the second semester, students are introduced to qualitative and quantitative research techniques, which prepares them to choose an area of research for their third year.

In their third and fourth years, students take one-credit-hour seminars both semesters.  Third-year seminars focus on scientific writing and the presentation of research findings.  Simultaneously, students are engaged in ten hours/week of paid research in a University lab.  Their two-semester experience fulfills the requirements for the University Research Scholar designation.

In their fourth year, students engage in a two-semester community service project, on which they report in five stages: researching the issue, timeline and budget for the project, evaluation instruments, analysis of the process, and analysis of the product.

Students are coached by a peer mentor in their first year and have the same classmates in all four years.  They also have the same Professor for seven of the eight classes, which together give them 14 hours of credit toward graduation.  The Health Sciences LEAP curriculum was designed by the University Of Utah School Of Medicine and launched in 2001.

First Year Applications are now available.

** admittance by application only

Requirements for the Program can be found on this website.