Each year in April, pre-health students across the University of Nevada, Reno, campus come together to battle for ultimate bragging rights and the title of the smartest and “Most Well-Rounded” Pre-Health Student Organization on campus at Battle of the Brains. The third annual event put on by pre-professional advising is currently looking for more clubs to compete for a trophy, and a plaque on the University Advising Center’s wall.

Battle of the Brains is not only a fun way for students to test their knowledge compared to fellow students’, but it’s also a great way to prep for challenging graduate and medical school entrance tests.

“Many of the students are going to be expected to take very rigorous examinations, like the MCATs,” said pre-professional coordinator Grace Cardenas Leal at last year’s event. “We really want to make sure that there’s a way that students are prepping up, but also having fun in the process.”

The event is set to take place on Sunday, April 8, in the Pennington Student Achievement Center at 2:00 p.m. So far, the clubs and organizations competing are Phi Delta Epsilon, the two-time reigning champions, Alpha Epsilon Delta, the newest Pre-Health Honors Fraternity, the Pre-Physician Assistants Club, MEDLife, the American Medical Student Association and the Nevada Pre-Dental Society.

The registration deadline is Thursday, March 1, and the advising center is waiting to hear back from other pre-health organizations, including the pre-PT club and even the music therapy club.

The full list of 2018 categories has yet to be announced. However, past years have included categories like Bioethics, Global Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and even ‘Orgo Hacks – The Wonderful World of Organic Chemistry’. This year’s Battle of the Brains will feature re-defined categories, as the advising center wants to emphasize the need for future health care providers to be exposed to diverse populations, languages, lifestyles and even healing modalities.

“Teams need to really think about who they want to represent them in terms of these factors,” Leal said.

Each team can have up to six members compete; however, they only need a minimum of three members to register for the competition. The advising center encourages non-playing members from the pre-health clubs competing to come out to the event and cheer their team on. These members can “play from the sidelines” and individual prizes will be awarded to anyone on the sideline that scores higher than any other sideline player.

The game is designed like a game of Jeopardy, with 10 category topics that each contain 10 questions. The topics will be divided into two rounds. During each round, three members will be allowed to assist each other in answering the category questions, and at the end of each round, a preliminary score will be tabulated. At the end of the second round, each team’s cumulative score will be totaled and the team with the highest combined score will be the winner.

If your pre-health club wishes to participate, contact Grace C. Leal at gleal@unr.edu by March 1 to officially register your team and receive Battle notifications.

“Come see which team in not only book smart, but street smart,” the event’s poster advertises.

Emily Fisher can be reached at efisher@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.