The first stops after high school for Lauren Helm, now a second-year medical student at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons, were the covers of Vogue, Self, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour and Cosmopolitan, to name just a few.

But five years ago, after a modeling career that took her across the globe, Helm decided to trade in designer fashions for a polyester lab coat and pursue a career in medicine. Her next stop: the School of General Studies' postbaccalaureate premedical program, where she took the core biology, chemistry and physics she needed to apply to medical schools. She hopes to practice medicine overseas and work for organizations such as Doctors Without Borders to provide medical relief to those in areas of conflict.

Helm is just one of hundreds of students each year who begin lifelong dreams of becoming physicians. Since 1955, Columbia has offered a postbaccalaureate premedical program. Housed at the School of General Studies, the program is designed for students who graduated from college but did not take the science courses needed to apply to medical schools. Though most students take the courses to apply to medical school, they also fulfill the pre-health requirements needed to apply to dental and veterinary schools. Students who enter the program to pursue dental or veterinary careers receive advising specific to those fields. Students complete the coursework in two full-time years, then spend a year during which they apply to medical schools and work in research or other medicine-related fields.

The GS postbaccalaureate premed program has one of the best reputations in the country. Year after year, about 90 percent of Columbia's postbaccalaureate students get into medical school the first time they apply.

In recent years the number of people applying to medical schools nationwide has been declining—medical school applications are down six percent from last year, and then were down five percent from 1998. During that same period, applications to the postbaccalaureate program were down, though applications for the Spring 2001 term were up 35 percent over the Spring 2000 term.

Meanwhile, the quality of Columbia's postbaccalaureate students has skyrocketed. Their MCAT scores have been rising steadily and staying above the national average. In addition, the diversity of students in terms of the experiences they bring to the table continues to be unparalleled. In a program of 300, students include teachers, rabbis, ministers, lawyers and artists.

"Students from liberal arts backgrounds fare best in medical school," says Thea Volpe, the program's director. "They're used to assessing variables, not dealing with formulas."

The profiles of students who have returned to Columbia are outstanding. Take Matias Verna. Before enrolling in the postbac program, he dealt in formulas—that is, recipes. He had always wanted to be a doctor, but the intimidating workload kept him away. When he graduated from George Washington University in 1991 he became an apprentice chef at the famed Le Cirque. After holding various chef positions, he returned to his family's home in Tenafly, N.J., where he bought ovens and launched a small cooking business.

At holidays he sent flyers and postcards to friends and acquaintances, offering specials on pies and cakes. In one year, he managed to break even. "I was never confident in my ability to perform well in the sciences," he says. "But once I was able to learn the science and art of cooking, that gave me the little boost in confidence I needed to say I can do anything now." Verna completed the postbaccalaureate premed program in 1999 and is now in his second year of medical school at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Volpe counsels students who have given up lucrative careers as lawyers or stockbrokers. She coaches them through interviews, by understanding what students have sacrificed to take this step; she has stories about people not telling their employers they're taking a shot at medical school.

"The people who show up at our door are people who have thought about this secretly for years," says Volpe. "They come to our information sessions near tears, because it's taken them so much just to take the first step."

The fact that 90 percent of students get into medical school the first time they apply is partly thanks to Volpe who, along with Whitney Bennet-Morales, assistant director of the postbaccalaureate premed program, and Roosevelt Montas, senior premed advisor, writes more than 100 recommendation letters for students applying to medical school each year. These letters are usually at least six pages long, and are meticulously crafted based on information the advisors have gathered about students over time—not only through one-on-one interviews, but also through the informal relationships they forge with the students.

"The relationship between advisor and student is crucial," says Peter Awn, dean of GS. "Most of our students have little science education. They come to us having had success in other fields, and rely on us to provide guidance in the challenging field of medicine. In turn, we rely on them to learn more about how to bring people into the medical community."

Volpe says that many of the students she counsels have come to the program after years of schooling with little advising. Some come from lower-income backgrounds. Volpe also says she frequently advises students, particularly women, who were discouraged from studying science because they were told they are not "science people." As the number of participants in the postbac program has dropped, the percentage of women in recent years has risen. This year there are 209 women and 99 men in the program.

"Medical schools increasingly look for diversity in selecting students," says Awn. "The quality of our students' scores is on the rise—but there's something else that's on the upswing too. More and more, medical schools are not only giving weight to numbers—they want a diversity of students who are deeply committed to the helping field. Our students display all of this—and have the solid scores on top of that."

Volpe keeps in regular contact with admissions directors at the 125 U.S. medical schools. Sometimes there are students, who on paper might not impress an admissions director, but who Volpe knows will make outstanding doctors.

"We have a record of recommending people who turn out to be excellent medical students, so admissions directors take our recommendations very seriously," says Volpe.

The School of General Studies also has a close relationship with certain medical schools through its linkage program, which allows highly qualified students to apply for admission in the spring of the second year, avoiding their third year, or "lag year," in which they would typically apply to medical school.

The schools with which Columbia has a linkage program are among the top in the country, including Brown University School of Medicine; Jefferson Medical College; MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine at Allegheny University; SUNY Brooklyn School of Medicine; SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine; Temple University School of Medicine, and Trinity College (Dublin) Medical School.