Students interested in law or medical school can now access pre-health and pre-law advising services on the Mount Vernon Campus.

Officials added the specialized advising services to the Vern earlier this semester, enabling Vern residents to meet with advisers on their own campus instead of traveling to the Foggy Bottom Campus, said Gilda Mossadegh, the director of undergraduate and pre-professional academic advising. She said these advising services were expanded to “meet the increased needs of our students and alumni” based on student feedback gathered over the past couple of years.

“For nearly two years, we collected post-appointment feedback from students via a survey link sent to students by our online scheduler after they met with a pre-health or pre-law adviser,” she said in an email.

Mossadegh said advising staff will hold information sessions and programming on both campuses. Foggy Bottom students can still meet with pre-law and pre-health advisers by phone and in-person during their Foggy Bottom office hours, which are posted on the pre-law and pre-health websites, she said.

She added that members of the dean’s office in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences worked with the provost’s office to identify available space on the Vern for the offices. The offices are located in the Vern’s Academic Building in Suite 119, and appointments can be made online, the websites state.

Pre-law and pre-health student leaders said the move will benefit Vern residents and support further efforts to bolster advising services on both campuses.

Junior Gaurav Gawankar, the president of the Pre-Law Student Association, said he supported the move, adding that freshmen – who constitute the majority of the Vern’s residents – may find it a useful service.

“It’s very important to give Vern students at least some semblance of being fully integrated,” he said.

Senior Jack Conlon, the president of the Pre-Health Association, said adding advising resources on the Vern will provide an “important resource” to more students, adding that he finds pre-health advising services helpful.

He said the move will create stronger bonds between the two campuses because more students from Foggy Bottom may voluntarily travel to the Vern to take advantage of the services.

“It is important to get another person to look at your experiences that contribute to your chances of getting accepted into medical school, and the pre-health advising office is very experienced with that,” Conlon said. “They do a great job of targeting weak spots in applications and helping students work on improving those areas.”