From Classrooms to Medical School: Mount Marty’s Holistic Pre-Med Experience

Mount Marty University does pre-med differently. Through small classes, professor support and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) prep, the university prepares students for the future in a truly unique way. 

Mount Marty has a 90% acceptance rate into medical school for its pre-med students who have filed the medical school applications. "I feel like it [Mount Marty] prepared me well for applying to medical school and understood the requirements of me to get accepted and pushed for those," said Chris Wixon '21. "They provided me with a lot of research opportunities, which boosted my application strength tremendously. Also, they understood the importance of the MCAT over volunteering or work hours, so they prioritized MCAT studying in your second semester junior year."

Wixon knew he wanted to journey the pre-med track since high school and chose Mount Marty because "I felt as though the university would care more about my education than a larger college" due to the class sizes. In his last year of medical school and interviewing for a pathology residency, Wixon reflected on how grateful he is to Mount Marty for preparing him for medical school, as some programs don't have the same opportunities or exposures. "The chemistry, biochemistry and organic chemistry provided by Mount Marty gave me an extreme advantage on the MCAT and made the transition to medical school learning easier." Wixon also mentioned that Chun Wu, Ph.D., professor of chemistry, was "instrumental in providing me an excellent education, research opportunities, and instilled a level of confidence in myself that I would have only received at Mount Marty.”

Mount Marty prepares its students for medical school by having qualified faculty, increasing awareness of the competitive nature of admission, and advising students from their first year on how to be accepted into medical school. This advising is intensive and personalized to each student. The pre-med advisor provides individual meetings to discuss the student’s strengths, weaknesses and progress towards their career aspirations. One of the ways Mount Marty stays ahead of the game is with curriculum mapping. Wu said, "We regularly engage in curriculum mapping and assessment to ensure our coursework meets and exceeds the prerequisites of professional schools. This alignment process also involves comparisons with peer pre-professional studies programs and integration of MCAT topics. Through this systematic review and adjustment, we aim to maintain the relevance and efficacy of our curriculum, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of our students for professional school admission and their future careers in the medical field." Mount Marty also launched the PPS 300 MCAT preparation course, which uses the Princeton review textbook and is offered by six instructors collaboratively from five programs, including chemistry, biology, physics, psychology and sociology, in the spring of a pre-med student's junior year.

Undergraduate research opportunities are also influential and filled with vital experience for Mount Marty's pre-med majors. Wu said, "100% of pre-med students have engaged in summer research projects under the South Dakota Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (SD-BRIN) through its Undergraduate Research Fellows Program. … Mount Marty's enduring 20-year collaboration with SD-BRIN has been instrumental in enabling numerous BRIN undergraduate fellows to utilize their research experiences and education at Mount Marty to gain entry into prestigious graduate and professional schools." Caycee Schneider '25 had the opportunity to research with SD-BRIN. "It allowed me to get research opportunities that I would not have been able to find otherwise." She was astonished and grateful for the numerous skills she learned through the program beyond the lab. "Yes, the main point was to obtain research and lab skills, but it also taught me about collaboration and gave me an opportunity to refine my presentation skills. It also gives a very good idea of what a professional researcher does, which is good for deciding if you want to pursue more academic medicine compared to practicing medicine."

Schneider took PPS 300 and felt "it was a very good review tool that revisited all of what I needed to review for my MCAT" and "was a very good jumping-off point." She has since taken the MCAT and has been accepted into the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine. Schneider said Kathleen Gibson, Ph.D., associate professor of biology, and Wu were realistic about what medical schools desire from their applicants and helped her when applying. 

Another way these students stand out in medical school is their belief in the Mount Marty core values that they take with them long after their time at Mount Marty. Wixon reflected on the impact of the Mount Marty core values on his patient care experiences. "Mount Marty University's core values of community and hospitality really showed me how to treat your peers, and thus my patients. They helped me realize the brevity of my own actions, and now I am able to recognize how I impact patient care more easily." He also mentioned that "Lifelong learning is an instrumental part of medicine, as treatment options, guidelines and clinical trials are constantly changing" and that seeking out those learning opportunities and education is essential. 

Schneider said, "It [the core values] has definitely allowed me to view patients in a way that I would not have if I didn't have the experience with the four core Mount Marty values. It has made me more empathetic and a better listener when it comes to patient care because of the focus we have on community and hospitality." She hopes to one day be a family physician with a focus on rural medicine, and "that means also being involved in the community that I practice in. So, through the core values, I want to be a trustworthy, kind physician that my patients feel they can confide in."

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About Mount Marty University

Founded in 1936 by the Sisters of Sacred Heart Monastery, Mount Marty University is South Dakota's only Catholic, Benedictine institution of higher education. Located along the bluffs of the Missouri River in Yankton, with additional locations in Watertown and Sioux Falls, Mount Marty offers undergraduate and graduate degrees focusing on student and alumni success in high-demand fields such as health sciences, education, criminal justice, business, accounting, recreation management, and more. A community of learners in the Benedictine tradition, Mount Marty emphasizes academic excellence and develops well-rounded students with intellectual competence, professional and personal skills and moral, spiritual and social values. To learn more, visit mountmarty.edu.