Building on the success of its inaugural prehealth scholarship, the Health Professional Student Association (HPSA) today announced the 2026 Student Doctor Network (SDN) Prehealth Scholarship. The program will award up to $10,000 to students from under-resourced backgrounds pursuing careers in healthcare. Students seeking admission to health professional schools in 2027 who graduated from high schools in medically underserved or healthcare shortage areas, or have received fee assistance, are encouraged to apply for the scholarship.
“Costs for the application process, and healthcare education in general, continue to be a burden on students,” said Laura Turner, Executive Director, HPSA. “With the new caps on federal student loans, money is top of mind for many students.”
“Students put on average between $166 and $1,181 on their credit cards to pay for the costs of the application process.”
Emil Chuck, PhD, Director of Advising Services
The scholarship is designed to help defray the expenses of a professional school application for the following health professional careers:
- Medicine (MD/DO)
- Dentistry (DMD/DDS)
- Optometry (OD)
- Pharmacy (PharmD)
- Podiatry (DPM)
- Psychology (PsyD/PhD)
- Veterinary Medicine (DVM)
- Rehabilitation Sciences
- Audiology/Speech Language Pathology (AuD/PhD)
- Occupational Therapy (OTD)
- Physical Therapy (DPT)
“Per our research in the 2025 Profile of the Admitted Applicant, students put on average between $166 and $1,181 on their credit cards to pay for the costs of the application process. These are expenses for things like test preparation and application fees, and are incurred before the student even receives an acceptance letter,” notes Emil Chuck, PhD, Director of Advising Services, HPSA.
HPSA encourages prehealth advisors, faculty mentors, and student organization leaders to share this opportunity with eligible students. For more information or to download shareable materials, visit the SDN website: https://www.studentdoctor.net/about-sdn/newsroom/2500-scholarship-for-pre-health-students-from-sdn/.
Eligible students can review requirements and submit applications at https://forms.gle/W8s7pBFTytbTDg7q7. The application deadline is January 30, 2026. Finalists will be notified in February 2026, with scholarship recipients announced in April 2026.