Any medical, dental, or pharmacy school you might want to go to has a web page. Click here to find them all. Students who are Kentucky residents nearly always go to schools in Kentucky. It is, in general, extremely difficult to get admitted to a medical, dental, or pharmacy school outside your state of official residence. For other types of schools such as osteopathic medicine, podiatry, or optometry, it is less difficult. You should look over the web pages of wherever you're interested in going. And don't wait until you're almost ready to apply! Sometimes they give advice about what you should do 2-3 years in advance of applying!
Undergraduate Premed/Dent/Pharm Prerequisite Courses:
Prerequisite undergraduate courses are essentially the same for all medical, dental, and pharmacy schools throughout the U.S. Some professional schools say these are "expected" or "typical;" other say "required." You should clearly understand what they are, and plan your curriculum so that you take them all as soon as you reasonably can. It is possible to complete them all by the end of your sophomore year, although that is unusual. You should definitely complete them all during your junior year. The ones below are set by American Association of Medical Colleges. Your grades in these courses are critical! Work like hell to get A's! For dentistry, pharmacy, or other types of schools, check the admissions requirements on their web pages.
Here they are:
A bachelor's degree (although occasionally applicants are admitted with only three years of college work) that includes these courses:
Inorganic chemistry (with lab): one year (two semesters). These must be CHE 111-112, not CHE 101-02 or CHE 105-06. Total of 9 hrs. Take these your freshman year.
Biology (with lab): one year (two semesters), which should include cellular biology. BIO 131 or 141; and BIO 211. Total of 8 hrs.
Math: one year of non-calculus college math, or one semester of calculus. MAT 107 and 109, or MAT 124 (calculus). Total 4-8 hrs.
Physics (with lab): one year (two semesters). PHY 201-02 (calculus needed) or PHY 131-132 (non-calculus). Total 10 hrs. If you're not comfortable with calculus, take 131-132!
Organic chemistry (with lab): one year (two semesters). CHE 361-62 and CHE 366-67. Total of 10 hrs.
Grand total: 41-45 hours. All these courses must have a letter grade; pass/fail is unacceptable. About 16 of these hours can count for general ed requirements. The medical, dental, and pharmacy school admissions exams (MCAT, DAT, and PAT) cover the content of these basic courses, plus essay writing and verbal skills; they do not cover the content of "advanced" chemistry and biology courses! So the prerequisites include only about 25-30 hours of coursework over and above to your general ed courses.
You may be surprised to note what science courses are not included in the prerequisites: anatomy, physiology, microbiology, genetics, physical chemistry, quantitative chemistry, histology, biochemistry . . . and lots of others.
The prerequisite 41-45 hours are compatible with a wide variety of majors: English, psychology, anthropology, history, philosophy, foreign languages, government, . . . any major that allows 20-30 hours of electives. You do NOT have to be a "premed/dent/pharm science" major to get into med/dent/pharm school. In fact the admission rate (surprise, surprise!) for non-science majors is usually higher than for science majors! This is because nonscience majors who apply tend to be very good students (like Honors Program students) who have mostly A's in those basic prerequisite courses, and who therefore do well on the MCAT/DAT/PAT exams.
See comparative MCAT scores for science and nonscience majors here.
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