If your youngster is considering a career in healthcare, attending a Doctors Academy might give them an extra leg up.

The “school-within-a-school” academic program helps prepare students with academic classes, mentors, projects, and summer programs that give them insight into medicine and preparation for the rigorous post-secondary education they’ll need for a career in healthcare.

The UCSF Fresno Doctors Academy will begin accepting applications for the 2024-25 school year for programs at Sunnyside and Caruthers high schools starting Sunday, Oct. 1.

Informational meetings for eighth-graders and their parents will be from 6 to 7 p.m. Oct. 9 at the Caruthers High School Media Center, 2580 W. Tahoe Ave., Caruthers, and from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 10 at the Sunnyside High School library, 1019 S. Peach Ave., Fresno.

Eighth-grade students interested in applying to the Caruthers Doctors Academy program who live outside the Caruthers Unified School District will need to obtain an inter-district transfer approval. Only Fresno Unified eighth-graders are eligible to apply to the Sunnyside program and must submit a transfer to the district’s transfer office by Dec. 1, which is also the deadline for all students to submit an application to UCSF Fresno.

To learn more about or apply to the program, go to https://doctorsacademy.ucsf.edu.

Prepared for College

The program was established in 1999 at Sunnyside High and in 2007 was expanded to Caruthers High. More than 1,000 students have completed the program since its founding, and 100% of students who applied for admission to four-year colleges and universities have been accepted, UCSF Fresno reports.

For more information about the Caruthers program, contact Karina Reyes Banuelos at Karina.ReyesFuentes@ucsf.edu. To learn more about the Sunnyside program, email Paula Peterson at Paula.Peterson@ucsf.edu.