Agnes Scott College

SUMMIT and Pre-Health

Agnes Scott College, as an inclusive women’s college and national liberal arts institution, holds intellectual curiosity as our highest standard. Our goal is to guide our students to be reflective, intelligent, compassionate global citizens, and fearless leaders within your four years of study. Our Scotties (as Agnes Scott students are called) focus on strength, honor, and inclusion as their guiding principles throughout their academic and social lives.

If you are interested in the health and medicine fields, you will be in good company at Agnes Scott. Throughout history, Agnes Scott students have taken more advanced math and science courses and moved forward into more advanced degrees than women at co-educational institutions. That carries forward into today, when over one-third of our Scotties come to Agnes Scott intending to major in the STEM field.

Our faculty feature proportionately more women scientists–role models for our ambitious students–and our graduates include extraordinary scientists, physicians, and technologists. Our graduates work on environmental issues, study the human genome, focus on AIDS cures, design software and explore the cosmos. They play a leadership role in health care, in agriculture, in technology, in medical ethics issues, and in public health.

Health & Medicine fields at Agnes Scott
Students interested in health and medicine have numerous pathways at Agnes Scott. One of our most popular majors is public health, for those who want to move more into the policy side of health. If you’re interested in medical research, any number of STEM majors will be ready for you. If you’re interested in being a part of our pre-health or pre-medicine pre-professional tracks, you are able to choose any major as well as the track to prepare you for medical, veterinary, dentistry, pharmacy, or any other medical or graduate school. All students interested in pre-health or pre-medicine will have a dedicated advisor to work with them to make sure they are on track for their goals.

Nursing
For students interested in nursing, we have a dual degree program with Emory University’s School of Nursing. This program allows students to enjoy the benefits of a liberal arts education with small class sizes and Agnes Scott’s SUMMIT experience while also taking part in a nationally recognized nursing program in the Atlanta area.

Public Health
Public Health is a multidisciplinary field with a diverse range of job opportunities. Public Health experts work for hospitals, large government organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state health departments, large and small non-profits and community organizations, city governments, private companies and foundations, and global health and development organizations, among others. Public Health is one of the largest and fastest growing majors at Agnes Scott. Our graduates are prepared for careers at non-profit organizations, government agencies and research institutions, as well as for success in Masters of Public Health programs.

The SUMMIT difference
Our SUMMIT experience—which earned the College the designation as the #1 “Most Innovative Liberal Arts College” in the country by U.S. News & World Report—reinvents a liberal arts education for the 21st century and is exclusively available at Agnes Scott. SUMMIT allows every student to dive into a core curriculum focused on global learning, and leadership development and professional success that integrates coursework with experiences in Atlanta and around the world. This ensures all our students, regardless of major, are prepared to become leaders in our global society.

Under SUMMIT, the College has been recognized as the #1 First Year Experience in the country for five consecutive years. Here, you’ll read and learn as widely as possible and then discuss and debate new ideas, guided by professors who will expect a lot and push you to be your best.

In addition, successful leaders are prepared by strong mentors and broad social networks. That’s why all Agnes Scott students receive customized advising from day one, including peer advising, major advising and close work with a SUMMIT Advisor and career advisors. Your personalized advising experience will help you adjust to college and design an educational plan that will prepare you for postgraduate success.

Your first year will include foundational courses in global learning and leadership development in addition to an immersive leadership retreat during orientation. You’ll take a first semester seminar on how the liberal arts inform good leadership and your own leadership goals, with courses like Nature and Public Health- A Nexus for Leadership Development and Psychoanalysis and the Arts. 

In the spring of the first year, you’ll take a course focused on global citizenship and then experience a week-long travel opportunity with that course. Upcoming courses include How Race, Nature and Medicine Intersect in Cuba and Decolonizing Conservation in Alaska. The cost of this travel experience is included in Agnes Scott’s tuition, making it a possibility for all our students. You’ll then have further opportunities to study abroad, with 78% of our students choosing to complete an independent study abroad experience or guided global study tour with an Agnes Scott professor after the first year.

In your sophomore year, you’ll have the opportunity to see leadership in practice through SCALE, the Sophomore Class Atlanta Leadership Experience. This week-long externship allows you to choose a location and project in the Atlanta area to focus your skills and learning. Recent STEM-related SCALE placements include The Atlanta Women’s Foundation, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Morehouse School of Medicine, Semaine Health and The Task Force for Global Health.

Your professional success
To be truly successful in their fields, our Scotties are challenged to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to real-world situations. 80% of students complete an internship or mentored research project, and many do both. You’ll find opportunities to polish your writing, research and speaking skills by presenting at academic conferences, either one in your field or at our Spring Annual Research Conference (SpARC).

Post-graduation, our alums follow their passions all the way to the top, whether that means summiting the highest peaks on each of the seven continents; leading a Fortune 500 company; serving as a chief justice; winning a Pulitzer Prize, Oscar, Grammy, or Tony; or starting a mobile bookstore. With 96% of our students in graduate school or a job placement a year out from graduation, our graduates are ready to take on the world as soon as they walk across the stage. There is no limit to what an Agnes Scott graduate can accomplish.

That is very true for our Health & Medicine graduates. Recent employers for graduates include: Aetna, Baylor School of Medicine, CVS Health, Deloitte Consulting, Morehouse School of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Piedmont Immediate Care, and Presbyterian Hospital. Recent graduates have also moved forward to graduate or medical school at Duke University, Emory School of Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, Morehouse School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Georgia School of Veterinary Medicine, and Vanderbilt School of Medicine.

If you’ve read this far, why not plan a campus visit? We’d love to meet you, and you deserve a chance to see campus for yourself! Schedule your campus tour today at agnesscott.edu/visit. Can’t make it to campus? Take our virtual campus tour instead at agnesscott.edu/virtualtour.