Feature photo from Sidelines Archive by Hannah Carley
Story by Hannah Carley
MTSU selected six medical students for this year’s Middle Tennessee State University-Meharry College Medical School Early Acceptance Program (MSEAP) and offered those aspiring physicians a direct path from a bachelor’s degree to a doctorate.
Students Nikhil Nik Yelemali, Abigail Sajor, Faheem Mohammed, Jack Lane, Avantika Pillai and Rezan Saleem were selected for the program. These students are the sixth class of aspiring physicians curated since the program’s creation in 2019, according to MTSU News.
MTSU and Meharry College Medical School partnered to create a fast-paced educational pathway for medical students to provide better opportunities and expose students to areas in need of medical personnel.
The MTSU Board of Trustees recently approved new master’s degree programs, including a Legal Studies that involves eight hours of instruction from the Nashville School of Law. A year before MSEAP’s creation, MTSU failed to acquire Valparaiso University’s School of Law due to a Tennessee Higher Education Commission denial.
MSEAP received $1.2 million in its 2020-21 fiscal budget from the state, and doctors from the program will serve the unrepresented portions of Tennessee – which tend to be rural – according to the Tennessean. The med students are required to complete a three-year Residency in Primary Care in a rural or underserved area of Tennessee.
The seven-year medical acceptance program, given exclusively to freshmen, begins with acceptance into the program as an undergraduate at MTSU and ends once graduated from Meharry Medical College. The program requires the student to be a Tennessee resident, have scored a 28 or greater on the ACT or an SAT equivalent and have a high school GPA of 3.5 or higher to qualify, according to the MSEAP webpage.
The students will go through three years of a prescribed undergraduate premedical school curriculum and four years of medical school and must complete a three-year post-residency commitment.
MSEAP benefits include a conditional acceptance to MMCSOM upon completion and scholarship availability for MTSU and Meharry Medical College.
The application deadline for this program in the 2025-26 cohort is Dec. 1.
Hannah Carley is a reporter for MTSU Sidelines.
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