How to Get Into Eastern Virginia Medical School: Requirements and Strategies
/Learn the Eastern Virginia Medical School ranking and admissions strategies, plus a sample EVMS secondary essay
eastern virginia medical school is located in norfolk, virginia
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Part 1: Introduction
If you’re approaching med school and looking for an immersive experience in a local community, then Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) may be on your list. The school’s stated vision is to be “recognized as the most community-oriented school of medicine and health professions in the nation.”
With this goal in mind, Eastern Virginia Medical School draws talent from across the country to Hampton Roads, Virginia, where students train at several medical centers and hospitals that serve a dynamic regional population. An integral piece of the school’s mission is to improve healthcare in Southeastern Virginia.
Here, we’ll discuss Eastern Virginia Medical School’s culture and community-oriented approach to education, and also offer strategies for getting in, including sample secondary essays.
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Part 2: Eastern Virginia Medical School MD programs
Prospective applicants can pursue a few different tracks to receive an MD degree from Eastern Virginia Medical School:
A dual degree MD/MPH program with Old Dominion University
A dual degree MD/MBA program with the College of William and Mary
This post will focus on how to get into the four-year MD program.
(Suggested reading: Medical Schools in Virginia: How to Get In)
Eastern Virginia Medical School tuition
As a public institution for higher education, Eastern Virginia Medical School differentiates in-state tuition from out-of-state tuition:
2023–2024 in-state tuition: $35,131
2023–2024 out-of-state tuition: $57,510
Including other costs such as fees, books, travel, housing, and more, Eastern Virginia Medical School’s total first-year cost of attendance (including loan fees) is $67,142 for in-state students and $90,468 for out-of-state students. The school's tuition and fees website provides additional information about tuition costs and financial aid packages.
To qualify for in-state tuition, accepted students must have been permanent residents of Virginia for at least one year before submitting their initial application for the MD program. For more information, view the guidelines for in-state residency determined by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
(Suggested reading: Picking Your State of Residency for Medical School)
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Part 3: How hard is it to get into Eastern Virginia Medical School?
Eastern Virginia Medical School admissions statistics
Don’t let EVMS’s regional focus or #87 ranking from U.S. News & World Report cloud your vision—this is no small-time school. It’s highly competitive. In recent years, EVMS has consistently received over 6,000 applications to fill roughly 151 spots yearly. Their current acceptance rate is just 3.4%.
Let’s take a look at the average GPA and MCAT scores for recent matriculants:
Average GPA: 3.5
Average MCAT score: 513
(Suggested reading: Average GPA and MCAT Score for Every Medical School)
Eastern Virginia Medical School admissions requirements
EVMS requires applicants in the 2023–2024 cycle to submit MCAT scores taken between January 2022 and September 2024. Prospective EVMS students must also complete a minimum of 100 semester hours, including the following courses:
Biology: One year with labs
General chemistry: One year with labs
Organic chemistry: One year with labs
Physics: One year with labs
The admissions office also strongly recommends taking biochemistry.
The school only considers U.S. citizens and permanent residents for its MD programs.
(Suggested reading: Medical School Requirements: The Definitive Guide)
Eastern Virginia Medical School application timeline
Applicants to Eastern Virginia Medical School must apply using the AMCAS application. Below is a timeline of important dates and deadlines that you can use to apply to EVMS:
May 2, 2024: AMCAS application opens
May 30, 2024: AMCAS application can be submitted
June 1, 2024: AMCAS applications transmitted to EVMS
August 1, 2024: AMCAS application deadline for Early Decision
October 1, 2024: Early Decision applicants notified by this date
October 15, 2024: Regular Decision applicants begin to be notified on a rolling basis
November 1, 2024: AMCAS application deadline
(Suggested reading: The Ideal Medical School Application Timeline)
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Part 4: Eastern Virginia Medical School secondary application essays (examples included)
After you submit your application through AMCAS, Eastern Virginia Medical School’s admissions office may ask you via email to write secondary essays. In addition to your medical school personal statement, these essays are another opportunity to share your story and make a case for why you’d be a good fit for EVMS.
The school’s secondary essay prompts for the most recent admissions cycle are below. We’ve offered insight into how to answer each one, plus sample responses that work.
Note that the maximum length for each essay is no more than 2000 characters—roughly 300 words.
Question #1: Briefly describe your exposure to medicine.
Prior to responding to this prompt, make sure the personal statement you send to EVMS in your AMCAS application doesn’t mention every exposure you’ve had to medicine. Save at least one personal anecdote or perspective on medicine for this essay.
Here’s an example:
Growing up in Philadelphia, I was never far away from a hospital. Some of my earliest childhood memories were visiting my aunt at her job as a nurse at Temple University Hospital, where she worked for thirty years. There was also the time when I had to visit Wills Eye Hospital for prescription glasses. Like many elementary school kids, I was both anxious and shy, but the fact that I’d been to the hospital before—with my mother and grandmother—made the space feel familiar and practically homelike, especially since my grandmother had been received with open arms by the hospital during her bout with glaucoma. The sheer number of medical centers in my hometown let me take the presence of healthcare for granted. It’s my belief that all hospitals and local communities should be this integrated.
This mindset influenced my decision to be a high school intern at a suburban hospital for two consecutive summers before I enrolled at the University of Virginia as a premed student. Since then, I’ve completed additional internships at medical centers in my hometown and I’ve worked abroad as a patient representative at a public health clinic in Mexico City. In addition to shadowing physicians, I’ve learned about the patient side of medical care. I want to keep exposing myself to dynamic medical environments and enroll in an MD program that doesn’t draw a line between where the real world ends and specific medical centers begin.
Why it works:
This essay contextualizes information that appears elsewhere in the student’s application while also directly responding to the prompt.
The essay also successfully threads together several strands of experience in medicine—personal interactions with the hospital system as well as professional experiences.
Question #2: What do you think you will like best about being a physician?
Question #3: What do you think you will like least about being a physician?
Question #4: Describe yourself and your medical career as you see it ten years from now.
Question #5: Please indicate your reasons for applying to EVMS.
Gain instant access to med school secondary essay examples for every single prompt required by every medical school in the United States and Canada. Subscribe today to lock in the current investments, which will be increasing after May 31 for new subscribers.
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Part 5: Eastern Virginia Medical School interview
Eastern Virginia Medical School offers interviews to applicants they believe will be a good fit for the MD program. In past years, 650–850 candidates were offered interviews each cycle.
All interviews will be held virtually using Zoom. Applicants are interviewed individually in a traditional format by a panel of a basic scientist, clinician, and medical student, with at least one attendee representing the MD admissions committee. Prospective students are asked questions scripted by the admissions committee that are tailored for applicants who wish to join the EVMS community.
During our experience helping students get into EVMS, we’ve noted a few interview questions that come up repeatedly for applicants. Among these questions are:
What would you do if a doctor won't prescribe a medicine for personal reasons?
What is one health topic that you would like to see state or federal support for?
Why do you want to pursue being a physician besides any other healthcare position?
What is your most meaningful patient interaction?
What about the curriculum most resonates with an activity you've done?
You have a couple as patients. One is HIV+ and does not want you to tell their partner. How would you handle this?
Statistics show that some physicians prescribe less prescription pain medication to patients of specific ethnic backgrounds compared to others. Why do you think this is?
Do you share our school values?
Tell me about when a physician you shadowed had a difficult patient.
Why do you want to work in medicine instead of other healthcare areas?
What is one positive and one negative trait your friends have used to describe you?
As we can see from these questions, EVMS tries to get to know you through your answers to ethical scenarios. While you should still have ready responses to questions such as “Why EVMS?” or “Do you share our values?” you can go a long way toward impressing your interviewer by preparing your reasoning for complicated situations such as “What would you do if a doctor won’t prescribe a medicine due to personal reasons?” It signals to them you’ve thought deeply about your desire to become a physician and all of the difficult decisions the profession entails.
Interviewees can also interface virtually with administrators, admissions and financial aid officers, and current students in a separate information session. By engaging with different members of the EVMS community, you can better determine if EVMS is right for you.
(Suggested reading: How to Ace Your Med School Interviews)
Final thoughts
Eastern Virginia Medical School has a clear philosophy. That’s why it’s important for applicants to tell a story of how they’ll thrive in Hampton Roads. Take the time to customize your application and learn about the particularities of this exciting program to maximize your chances of an EVMS acceptance.
About the Author
Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on medical school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school using his exclusive approach.