Back in Winter 2015, DePaul University and
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (RFU) instituted the
Early Opportunity Program (EOP) for
Pathways Honors students. In the Early Opportunity Program, students may apply to one of six health professions programs at RFU. Upon receiving approval from DePaul’s
Pre-Health Advising Committee, a student is interviewed by the relevant program admissions committee at Rosalind Franklin University. This committee then decides whether or not to offer the student conditional acceptance into their professional program once he or she completes their degree requirements at DePaul. Conditional acceptance means that a student has a place at Rosalind Franklin when they leave DePaul so long as he or she maintains good academic progress with minimum grades in selected prerequisite courses, remains involved in professional development activities, and has no disciplinary actions on record. EOP students need not take national entrance exams like the MCAT as part of their application to Rosalind Franklin.
In its first year of operation, five Pathways Honors students applied to Rosalind Franklin through the Early Opportunities Program and all five were accepted. Just this past year, a total of eleven students applied and ten of those were accepted by RFU. The first EOP student matriculated into the Physician Assistant Studies program at Rosalind Franklin in June, 2016, other students in the first cohort joined the Chicago Medical School and the College of Pharmacy at RFU in August 2016.