September 2026 Preview –
What’s Coming This Month 

📅 Mark Your Calendars – Upcoming September and October Dates
🔬 Rising Researchers – Beyond the Classroom: Explore Fall & Winter Research Camps
🎓 Rising Seniors – How Much Does Your Intended Major Matter in College Admissions?
🎓 Underclassmen –Your Summer Research Search Starts Now: 50 STEM & Medical Programs to Explore 
⚕️ Med School Applicants – Your Interview Story Bank: 8 Experiences to Prepare Now
📷 In the News – Moon Prep Featured Articles
📊 University Updates – What You Need to Know
🎙 White Coat Club Podcast – Letters of Recommendation Unpacked: Common App, Colleges, and Everything in Between

Mark Your Calendar!

✅ September 12: SAT Exam – Good luck to all students taking this exam!

✅ September 15: Breakthrough Junior Challenge [STEM]

✅ September 15: Scholastic Journalism Week Poster Contest [Journalism]

✅ September 18: Registration Deadline for October SAT

✅ September 19: ACT Exam – Good luck to all students taking this exam!

✅ September 25: September SAT Score Release

✅ September 30: Coca-Cola Scholars Program Application Deadline

✅ October 1: Target launch date for the 2027-2028 FAFSA application

✅ October 3: SAT Exam – Good luck to all students sitting for this exam!

✅ October 11: Fall Research Camp starts – Topics in Neuroscience – register here

✅ October 15:  First Major Application Deadline – Some Colleges, Scholarships, Honors Programs, and BSMD Programs use this deadline – Each school has its own deadlines and required materials, so stay vigilant and keep track of each one carefully!

✅ October 15:  National Merit Scholarship Application Deadline – Open to National Merit Semifinalists; Invitations are shared with high schools in late August or early September

✅ November 17: Winter Research Camp starts – Neural Plasticity – register here

Beyond the Classroom: Explore Fall & Winter Research Camps

Fall and Winter Research Camps are officially open! These structured programs give students the chance to step beyond the classroom and experience research firsthand—building practical skills, exploring areas of scientific interest, and learning what the research process looks like in action.

Whether students are hoping to strengthen their research experience, discover a potential academic or career interest, or prepare for future STEM, pre-health, and college opportunities, these camps can be a valuable addition to their academic journey.

Each camp is a small cohort with limited space. Register early to secure your spot. And save $200 with the Early Bird Discount!

Fall Camp: Exploring Topics in Neuroscience + Research Methodologies, Led by Shvetali T.

 Schedule: Every Sunday (10/11/26 – 12/13/26) from  7:00p – 8:30p ET/ 4:00p – 5:30p PT

View the syllabus 

Why You Will Love This Camp:

In this camp, students will explore one of neuroscience’s most exciting concepts: neuroplasticity, the brain’s remarkable ability to learn, adapt, and change throughout life.

You’ll explore how neuroplasticity allows the brain to adapt, form new connections, and strengthen or weaken existing ones as you learn new things. Discover how brain cells (neurons) communicate, how synapses and neural circuits change over time, and how these changes shape learning, memory, and brain development.

Throughout the camp, students will build valuable research and critical thinking skills by reading scientific literature, designing a research study, and presenting their findings in front of their peers in a research poster presentation.

This course is tailored to accommodate various skill levels and is suitable for beginners.
 

Winter Camp: Neural Plasticity – How the Brain Learns, Changes, and Adapts  Led by Anahit S.

 Schedule: Every Tuesday and Friday (11/17/26 – 12/18/26 ) from 7:00p – 8:30p ET/ 4:00p – 5:30p PT

View the syllabus

Why You Will Love This Camp:

In this camp, students will explore one of neuroscience’s most exciting concepts: neuroplasticity, the brain’s remarkable ability to learn, adapt, and change throughout life.

You’ll explore how neuroplasticity allows the brain to adapt, form new connections, and strengthen or weaken existing ones as you learn new things. Discover how brain cells (neurons) communicate, how synapses and neural circuits change over time, and how these changes shape learning, memory, and brain development.

Throughout the camp, students will build valuable research and critical thinking skills by reading scientific literature, designing a research study, and presenting their findings in front of their peers in a research poster presentation.

This course is tailored to accommodate various skill levels and is suitable for beginners.

 Camp Investment: $3500, Early Bird Discount – $200 | Valid through 10/1/2026

Sign up for these camps now

Rising Seniors:  How Much Does Your Intended Major Matter in College Admissions?

Underclassmen – Your Summer Research Search Starts Now: 50 STEM & Medical Programs to Explore

Your Interview Story Bank:
8 Experiences to Prepare Now

One of the biggest mistakes applicants make when preparing for medical school interviews is trying to predict every question they might be asked.

There are simply too many.

Instead, prepare a story bank: a collection of experiences you know well enough to adapt to different questions. Most interview questions are ultimately asking you to demonstrate a handful of qualities medical schools value—how you lead, work with others, respond to difficulty, make decisions, serve others, and interact with patients.

Before interview season gets busy, identify these eight stories from your experiences.

1. Leadership
Choose a time when you influenced a group, solved a problem, initiated change, or helped others succeed.

Importantly, leadership does not require a title. Some of the strongest examples involve recognizing what needed to happen and taking responsibility for making it happen.

Be ready to explain: What did you specifically do? How did others respond? What was the outcome? What did the experience teach you about leadership?

2. Teamwork
Medicine is intensely collaborative, so expect schools to explore how you function on a team.

Choose an experience in which your contribution mattered but you were not necessarily the person in charge. Strong examples show that you can listen, communicate, compromise, recognize others’ strengths, and put the team’s goal ahead of your own recognition.

The interviewer isn’t just evaluating whether your team succeeded. They’re evaluating what kind of teammate you were.

3. Conflict
“Tell me about a conflict” can be surprisingly difficult if you haven’t prepared for it.

Look for a genuine disagreement—with a coworker, classmate, teammate, supervisor, volunteer, or organization member—where you had to navigate competing perspectives.

Avoid stories where the takeaway is essentially, I was right and the other person eventually realized it.

The strongest conflict stories demonstrate listening, perspective-taking, communication, compromise, and maturity.

4. Failure
Yes, you need an actual failure.

Applicants sometimes choose a disguised success: “I set an incredibly ambitious goal and only achieved 95% of it.” Interviewers can usually recognize this immediately.

Instead, identify something that genuinely didn’t go as planned. Maybe you performed poorly, made a mistake, failed to accomplish a goal, or realized your original approach wasn’t working.

Spend less time defending what happened and more time explaining what you learned and what you changed afterward.

5. Resilience
Failure and resilience are related, but they aren’t identical.

For resilience, think about a period when something remained difficult for an extended time and you had to adapt, persist, seek support, or change your approach.

The strongest stories aren’t simply about enduring something hard. They demonstrate how you responded to difficulty and what you learned about yourself in the process.

6. Ethical Reasoning
You don’t necessarily need a dramatic medical ethics dilemma.

Think about a time when you faced competing responsibilities, values, or interests. Perhaps you had to protect someone’s privacy, address inappropriate behavior, decide whether to speak up, balance fairness with compassion, or navigate a situation without an obvious answer.

Be prepared to explain not only what you did, but how you decided what to do.

That reasoning process is particularly valuable preparation for MMI interviews.

7. Advocacy or Service
Choose an experience that demonstrates how you’ve responded to the needs of someone beyond yourself.

The strongest examples go deeper than describing volunteer hours. What did you notice? What did the people you served actually need? How did you respond? Did the experience challenge an assumption you previously held?

Be careful about positioning yourself as the person who “saved” a community. Strong service stories demonstrate humility, listening, partnership, and an understanding of your own role.

8. Meaningful Patient Interaction
If you’ve had clinical exposure, identify at least one patient encounter that has stayed with you.

You don’t need the most medically dramatic case you’ve witnessed. Often, the best stories involve a small interaction that changed how you understood communication, trust, vulnerability, caregiving, or the physician-patient relationship.

Most importantly, remember appropriate patient confidentiality. Focus on what you observed, what you did, and what you learned rather than unnecessary identifying details.

The Secret: You Don’t Actually Need Eight Completely Different Stories

Here’s where this exercise becomes especially useful.

One experience might demonstrate leadership and conflict. Another could illustrate teamwork, resilience, and failure. A clinical encounter might help you discuss advocacy, ethical reasoning, and patient communication.

That means your goal isn’t to memorize eight perfectly polished answers.

Instead, create a bank of perhaps 5–8 strong experiences and know each one from several angles.

For every story, make sure you can quickly identify:
Situation → Your role → Your actions → Outcome → Reflection

That final piece—reflection—is often what separates an adequate interview answer from a memorable one.

Medical schools already have your activity list. They don’t need you to recite it back to them.

The interview gives them something your written application can’t: the opportunity to understand how you think about the experiences you’ve had and how those experiences have shaped the person—and future physician—you are becoming.

Check out our latest articles:
6 STEM Research Conferences for Students
10 Science Fairs and Competitions for Teen Innovators

University Updates and Numbers You Need to Know

📊 Beginning in Fall 2027, first-year students in the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) will have their first-semester grades reported as Pass/No Credit rather than traditional letter grades on their transcripts, and those grades will not factor into their GPA. Students will still receive letter grades and faculty feedback internally, but the pilot is designed to ease the transition to college, encourage academic exploration, and reduce pressure during that critical first semester.

📊 BS/MD Update: Brooklyn College has confirmed that its Coordinated B.A.–M.D. The Program with the CUNY School of Medicine will not accept new applicants for the 2027–28 school year, so current seniors should remove the program from their BS/MD lists. Importantly, Brooklyn College has not announced that the program is permanently discontinued, so for now it should be considered paused for this application cycle rather than eliminated.

📊 The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix announced a new medical-education campus in partnership with the Gila River Indian Community. The campus is expected to open in July 2027 and will become the first U.S. medical school campus to grant M.D. degrees within a tribal nation. It is planned for only about 10 students per year, with students spending the first portion of training in Phoenix.

White Coat Club Episode: Letters of Rec Unpacked: Common App, Colleges, and Everything in Between

Letters of recommendation can feel like one of the most confusing parts of the college application process. Who should you ask? When should you ask? What should you give your recommender? And once the letter is written, how do you actually get it to each college?

In this episode, we’re breaking down everything students need to know about letters of recommendation, from choosing the right recommenders to making sure their letters successfully reach colleges.

We’ll cover:

• Who to ask and what makes a strong recommender

• When and how to ask for a letter

• What information and materials you should provide your recommender

• Teacher vs. counselor vs. outside recommenders

• How many letters different colleges and programs require

• Where to find each college’s recommendation requirements

• How to add and manage recommenders in the Common App

• How the process differs for Coalition, UC, ApplyTexas, school-specific applications, and application portals

• Whether you can choose which letters are sent to each college

• What recommenders see and how they know when their letter is needed

• What happens when your school uses a third-party letter service

• Whether BS/MD programs have different recommendation requirements

• How to make the process as easy and convenient as possible for your recommender

• How to confirm that your letters have been received

• What to do when a college allows or requests letters outside the application platform

• And, of course, how many letters is too many?

We’ll also answer the questions we’re hearing most often from students—and share practical tips to help you avoid common mistakes.

Bottom line: Your letters of recommendation should be one less thing to stress about during senior year. We’ll show you how to approach the process thoughtfully, strategically, and respectfully—from “Will you write me a letter?” all the way to “Your letter has been received.”

Learn more or Listen here.