MLS prerequisite checklist. The single most useful document for any Medical Laboratory Scientist applicant is a printable worksheet that maps every required course against your existing transcript — biology hours, chemistry hours, the chemistry specialization, the program-specific extras, and the accreditation and recency rules that decide whether each line counts. Download the free printable worksheet for applicants, fill it in once, and use it across every NAACLS-accredited program you apply to.
The MLS application process is not technically complicated. It just has a lot of moving parts. Sixteen biology hours, sixteen chemistry hours, a chemistry specialization course, program-specific extras like Microbiology and Anatomy & Physiology, regional accreditation rules, recency rules, lab requirements, and survey-course exclusions. Each of those is its own decision. None of them are difficult on their own. But applicants routinely lose application cycles because they treated the prerequisite stack as a vague pile rather than a checklist.
A good prerequisite checklist solves that problem. It collapses every requirement into a single printable worksheet you fill in once. You list each existing course on your transcript, you check it against the ASCP minimum, you flag the gaps, you note the recency, you confirm the accreditation, and you produce a single document that tells you exactly which courses to take next. Then you reuse that worksheet across every NAACLS-accredited program you target — because the ASCP eligibility baseline is the same everywhere, and the program-specific extras are easy to layer on top.
This article walks through every section of the printable checklist, explains what each line is asking, and shows you how to fill it in. The free PDF download is at the end — print it, fill it in, and apply with confidence.
The MLS Prerequisite Checklist is structured into seven sections, each of which corresponds to a real decision point in the application:
A complete checklist tells you, in one page, exactly where you stand and what to do next. An incomplete checklist is the most common reason applicants get an unwelcome surprise from a program admissions reviewer.
The first section sets up the worksheet so it stays useful across multiple applications. List your name, the application cycle you’re targeting, your application deadline, and your target programs (most applicants apply to 3–5 NAACLS-accredited MLS programs simultaneously).
The reason this matters: program-specific prerequisite requirements vary slightly. Once you list your target programs side by side, you can identify which extras are required by which program — and design your remaining coursework to satisfy the most demanding program in your list. That way, a single set of completed prerequisites covers all your applications.
The ASCP MLS eligibility specifies 16 semester hours of biology, completed at a regionally accredited institution. The checklist breaks this into rows for each major biology course on your transcript. For each row, fill in:
Add up the credit hours for all qualifying biology courses (majors-level, regionally accredited, with lab where applicable). If the total is at or above 16, you have biology covered. If it’s under 16, the gap is the number of biology credits you still need to add — and the checklist shows you which specific course to take to close it.
The chemistry section has the same structure as biology, with one critical addition: ASCP requires that the 16 chemistry hours include a chemistry specialization course — either Organic Chemistry I or Biochemistry I, taken as a standalone course (not as part of a survey or “GOB” course that combines general/organic/biochemistry into one semester).
For each chemistry row on the checklist, fill in the same columns as biology (course, institution, credits, year, lab, majors-level), plus one additional column: chemistry specialization (yes/no). Only Organic Chemistry I or Biochemistry I — taken as a standalone majors-level course — gets a “yes” in this column.
“GOB” courses (general/organic/biochemistry combined) are common at allied health programs and on transcripts of nursing-track students. They typically do not satisfy the ASCP chemistry specialization requirement, even when the words “organic” and “biochemistry” appear in the course title. Only a standalone semester of majors-level Organic Chemistry I or Biochemistry I qualifies. Flag any GOB course on your transcript and plan to add a real specialization course alongside it.
Most NAACLS-accredited MLS programs require additional coursework on top of the ASCP 16+16 minimum. The most commonly required extras are:
On the checklist, list each program-specific extra required by your target programs and check whether each one is on your transcript already. If a course is required by one of your three target programs but not the others, you still need to take it — your application is gated by the most demanding program in your list.
For every course on your checklist, confirm that the issuing institution holds regional accreditation through one of the seven regional accreditors recognized by CHEA and the US Department of Education: HLC, MSCHE, NECHE, NWCCU, SACSCOC, WSCUC, or NWCCU. Nationally accredited (DEAC) coursework is sometimes accepted but is far riskier — flag any DEAC course on your checklist and verify acceptance with your specific target programs before relying on it.
Most NAACLS-accredited MLS programs apply a recency rule to science prerequisites — typically 5 to 7 years. A 12-year-old General Chemistry I course may not be accepted, even if it was taken at a regionally accredited four-year university and met every other requirement. On the checklist, note the year each course was completed and flag any course that falls outside the recency window for your target program. Older courses are often retakeable as a single self-paced course, which is far less work than redoing the entire stack.
This is the section that costs more applicants their application cycle than any other. ASCP and NAACLS-accredited MLS programs require majors-level science coursework — courses designed for biology, pre-med, and pre-health science majors, not survey courses designed for non-science majors. The credit hours look the same on a transcript, but the course classification is different.
On the checklist, run each science course through the five-question diagnostic:
Two or more “yes” answers means the course is at risk for rejection. Three or more means plan on replacing it with a majors-level equivalent. Flag every at-risk course on the checklist with a red marker — these are the most common cause of unwelcome surprises during application review.
The final section of the checklist is the action plan. By this point, you’ve filled in every existing course, totaled your biology and chemistry credits, identified the chemistry specialization, listed the program-specific extras, checked accreditation and recency, and flagged any survey courses. The remaining work is to identify the gap and plan the courses needed to close it.
For each gap (a missing course, a course outside the recency window, or a survey-level course that needs replacement), the checklist asks for:
The most efficient way to close most gaps is through self-paced regionally accredited online coursework. PrereqCourses.com offers the full MLS prerequisite stack through Upper Iowa University (HLC accredited), with monthly start dates and 6–10 week completion windows per course. The course catalog at PrereqCourses.com/courses maps directly to the courses listed in this checklist.
The table below summarizes the full prerequisite stack at a glance. Use it to validate your checklist totals before you submit any application.
| Requirement | ASCP Minimum | Typical NAACLS Program Add-On |
| Biology | 16 semester hours, regionally accredited, majors-level | Microbiology with lab; A&P I and II; Genetics |
| Chemistry | 16 semester hours including a chemistry specialization (Organic I or Biochem I) | Sometimes Quantitative Analysis or Analytical Chemistry |
| Math/Stats | Not specified by ASCP | Statistics; College Algebra (most programs) |
| English/Communication | Not specified by ASCP | English Composition I and II (~50% of programs) |
| Other | Bachelor’s degree from regionally accredited institution | Medical Terminology; Immunology; Hematology (program-specific) |
Download the printable PDF version at PrereqCourses.com/mls-prerequisite-checklist. Print it, or fill it in digitally if you prefer. The PDF is one page front-and-back, formatted for US Letter.
Request official or unofficial transcripts from every regionally accredited institution you’ve attended. You’ll need the course names, course numbers, credit hours, and grades.
Don’t skip ahead. The checklist is sequenced so each section feeds into the next. Fill in the biology section completely before moving to chemistry. Fill in the program-specific extras before the accreditation check. Each section’s totals depend on the section before it.
Once the checklist is filled in, cross-reference it against the published prerequisite policy of each of your target NAACLS-accredited MLS programs. Find the programs through the NAACLS program directory. Note any program-specific add-ons in Section D and verify your accreditation/recency status meets each program’s rules.
The Section G action plan is your enrollment list. Bring it to the PrereqCourses.com Advisory Service for a final transcript review (free, monthly sessions starting on the 1st of each month), or enroll directly in the courses you’ve identified as gaps.
The ASCP 16+16 baseline is the same for every program. The program-specific extras (Section D) vary slightly. The checklist is designed to handle this — list the requirements of your most demanding target program in Section D, and your single completed checklist will satisfy every other program in your list.
Only if your target program enforces a strict recency rule and your specific course falls outside the window. Many programs apply recency rules only to certain science courses (typically chemistry and microbiology) and not to others (general biology, A&P, statistics). Check each program’s specific recency policy before assuming an older course is unusable. The checklist’s recency column is meant to flag the courses worth checking, not to automatically disqualify them.
Yes. The biology, chemistry, and chemistry-specialization sections apply identically to ASCP Route 2 applicants. The differences for Route 2 are around the experience requirement and the program-completion shortcut, which sit alongside the prerequisite checklist rather than replacing it. A separate Route 2 worksheet covers the experience-side requirements.
Yes. The download includes both a printable version (designed for handwriting) and a fillable PDF (form fields for each row). Use whichever fits your workflow. Both versions are formatted to fit on one page front-and-back, so you can keep your completed checklist as a single document across the application cycle.
Two options. First, check whether your target programs accept “in-progress” prerequisites — some programs let you apply with the final 1–2 prerequisites in progress, with the requirement that they be complete before the program start date. Second, if the gap is too large to close in time, target the next application cycle and use the freed time to take all your remaining courses through self-paced online providers in parallel. A 6–10 month gap-closing project is dramatically more achievable than 18 months of evening classes at a community college.
A printable MLS prerequisite checklist turns a vague pile of admission requirements into a single one-page document that tells you exactly where you stand and what to do next. Filled in once, it serves every NAACLS-accredited program you target. The structure forces you to confront the parts applicants miss most often: the chemistry specialization requirement, the survey-course / non-majors flag, the accreditation check, and the recency rule.
Most applicants who lose an application cycle do so because they didn’t catch one of these in time. The checklist exists to catch them — before a program admissions reviewer does.
The full checklist is available as a free printable PDF at PrereqCourses.com/mls-prerequisite-checklist. The download includes both the printable version and a fillable PDF, plus a brief 5-question intake form so the PrereqCourses Advisory Service can offer free transcript review on the 1st of each month if you want a second pair of eyes on your gap analysis.
Once your gaps are identified, browse the catalog to enroll in the courses you need at PrereqCourses.com/courses. All courses are self-paced, regionally accredited through Upper Iowa University (HLC), and start on the 1st of every month.
MLS Prerequisite Checklist: Printable Worksheet for Applicants
MLS prerequisite checklist. The single most useful document for any Medical Laboratory Scientist applicant is a printable worksheet that maps every required course against your existing transcript — biology hours, chemistry hours, the chemistry specialization, the program-specific extras, and the accreditation and recency rules that decide whether each line counts. Download the free printable PDF, fill it in once, and use it across every NAACLS-accredited program you apply to.
The MLS application process is not technically complicated. It just has a lot of moving parts. Sixteen biology hours, sixteen chemistry hours, a chemistry specialization course, program-specific extras like Microbiology and Anatomy & Physiology, regional accreditation rules, recency rules, lab requirements, and survey-course exclusions. Each of those is its own decision. None of them are difficult on their own. But applicants routinely lose application cycles because they treated the prerequisite stack as a vague pile rather than a checklist.
A good prerequisite checklist solves that problem. It collapses every requirement into a single printable worksheet you fill in once. You list each existing course on your transcript, you check it against the ASCP minimum, you flag the gaps, you note the recency, you confirm the accreditation, and you produce a single document that tells you exactly which courses to take next. Then you reuse that worksheet across every NAACLS-accredited program you target — because the ASCP eligibility baseline is the same everywhere, and the program-specific extras are easy to layer on top.
This article walks through every section of the printable checklist, explains what each line is asking, and shows you how to fill it in. The free PDF download is at the end — print it, fill it in, and apply with confidence.
The MLS Prerequisite Checklist is structured into seven sections, each of which corresponds to a real decision point in the application:
A complete checklist tells you, in one page, exactly where you stand and what to do next. An incomplete checklist is the most common reason applicants get an unwelcome surprise from a program admissions reviewer.
The first section sets up the worksheet so it stays useful across multiple applications. List your name, the application cycle you’re targeting, your application deadline, and your target programs (most applicants apply to 3–5 NAACLS-accredited MLS programs simultaneously).
The reason this matters: program-specific prerequisite requirements vary slightly. Once you list your target programs side by side, you can identify which extras are required by which program — and design your remaining coursework to satisfy the most demanding program in your list. That way, a single set of completed prerequisites covers all your applications.
The ASCP MLS eligibility specifies 16 semester hours of biology, completed at a regionally accredited institution. The checklist breaks this into rows for each major biology course on your transcript. For each row, fill in:
Add up the credit hours for all qualifying biology courses (majors-level, regionally accredited, with lab where applicable). If the total is at or above 16, you have biology covered. If it’s under 16, the gap is the number of biology credits you still need to add — and the checklist shows you which specific course to take to close it.
The chemistry section has the same structure as biology, with one critical addition: ASCP requires that the 16 chemistry hours include a chemistry specialization course — either Organic Chemistry I or Biochemistry I, taken as a standalone course (not as part of a survey or “GOB” course that combines general/organic/biochemistry into one semester).
For each chemistry row on the checklist, fill in the same columns as biology (course, institution, credits, year, lab, majors-level), plus one additional column: chemistry specialization (yes/no). Only Organic Chemistry I or Biochemistry I — taken as a standalone majors-level course — gets a “yes” in this column.
“GOB” courses (general/organic/biochemistry combined) are common at allied health programs and on transcripts of nursing-track students. They typically do not satisfy the ASCP chemistry specialization requirement, even when the words “organic” and “biochemistry” appear in the course title. Only a standalone semester of majors-level Organic Chemistry I or Biochemistry I qualifies. Flag any GOB course on your transcript and plan to add a real specialization course alongside it.
Most NAACLS-accredited MLS programs require additional coursework on top of the ASCP 16+16 minimum. The most commonly required extras are:
On the checklist, list each program-specific extra required by your target programs and check whether each one is on your transcript already. If a course is required by one of your three target programs but not the others, you still need to take it — your application is gated by the most demanding program in your list.
For every course on your checklist, confirm that the issuing institution holds regional accreditation through one of the seven regional accreditors recognized by CHEA and the US Department of Education: HLC, MSCHE, NECHE, NWCCU, SACSCOC, WSCUC, or NWCCU. Nationally accredited (DEAC) coursework is sometimes accepted but is far riskier — flag any DEAC course on your checklist and verify acceptance with your specific target programs before relying on it.
Most NAACLS-accredited MLS programs apply a recency rule to science prerequisites — typically 5 to 7 years. A 12-year-old General Chemistry I course may not be accepted, even if it was taken at a regionally accredited four-year university and met every other requirement. On the checklist, note the year each course was completed and flag any course that falls outside the recency window for your target program. Older courses are often retakeable as a single self-paced course, which is far less work than redoing the entire stack.
This is the section that costs more applicants their application cycle than any other. ASCP and NAACLS-accredited MLS programs require majors-level science coursework — courses designed for biology, pre-med, and pre-health science majors, not survey courses designed for non-science majors. The credit hours look the same on a transcript, but the course classification is different.
On the checklist, run each science course through the five-question diagnostic:
Two or more “yes” answers means the course is at risk for rejection. Three or more means plan on replacing it with a majors-level equivalent. Flag every at-risk course on the checklist with a red marker — these are the most common cause of unwelcome surprises during application review.
The final section of the checklist is the action plan. By this point, you’ve filled in every existing course, totaled your biology and chemistry credits, identified the chemistry specialization, listed the program-specific extras, checked accreditation and recency, and flagged any survey courses. The remaining work is to identify the gap and plan the courses needed to close it.
For each gap (a missing course, a course outside the recency window, or a survey-level course that needs replacement), the checklist asks for:
The most efficient way to close most gaps is through self-paced regionally accredited online coursework. PrereqCourses.com offers the full MLS prerequisite stack through Upper Iowa University (HLC accredited), with monthly start dates and 6–10 week completion windows per course. The course catalog at PrereqCourses.com/courses maps directly to the courses listed in this checklist.
The table below summarizes the full prerequisite stack at a glance. Use it to validate your checklist totals before you submit any application.
| Requirement | ASCP Minimum | Typical NAACLS Program Add-On |
| Biology | 16 semester hours, regionally accredited, majors-level | Microbiology with lab; A&P I and II; Genetics |
| Chemistry | 16 semester hours including a chemistry specialization (Organic I or Biochem I) | Sometimes Quantitative Analysis or Analytical Chemistry |
| Math/Stats | Not specified by ASCP | Statistics; College Algebra (most programs) |
| English/Communication | Not specified by ASCP | English Composition I and II (~50% of programs) |
| Other | Bachelor’s degree from regionally accredited institution | Medical Terminology; Immunology; Hematology (program-specific) |
Download the printable PDF version at PrereqCourses.com/mls-prerequisite-checklist. Print it, or fill it in digitally if you prefer. The PDF is one page front-and-back, formatted for US Letter.
Request official or unofficial transcripts from every regionally accredited institution you’ve attended. You’ll need the course names, course numbers, credit hours, and grades.
Don’t skip ahead. The checklist is sequenced so each section feeds into the next. Fill in the biology section completely before moving to chemistry. Fill in the program-specific extras before the accreditation check. Each section’s totals depend on the section before it.
Once the checklist is filled in, cross-reference it against the published prerequisite policy of each of your target NAACLS-accredited MLS programs. Find the programs through the NAACLS program directory. Note any program-specific add-ons in Section D and verify your accreditation/recency status meets each program’s rules.
The Section G action plan is your enrollment list. Bring it to the PrereqCourses.com Advisory Service for a final transcript review (free, monthly sessions starting on the 1st of each month), or enroll directly in the courses you’ve identified as gaps.
The ASCP 16+16 baseline is the same for every program. The program-specific extras (Section D) vary slightly. The checklist is designed to handle this — list the requirements of your most demanding target program in Section D, and your single completed checklist will satisfy every other program in your list.
Only if your target program enforces a strict recency rule and your specific course falls outside the window. Many programs apply recency rules only to certain science courses (typically chemistry and microbiology) and not to others (general biology, A&P, statistics). Check each program’s specific recency policy before assuming an older course is unusable. The checklist’s recency column is meant to flag the courses worth checking, not to automatically disqualify them.
Yes. The biology, chemistry, and chemistry-specialization sections apply identically to ASCP Route 2 applicants. The differences for Route 2 are around the experience requirement and the program-completion shortcut, which sit alongside the prerequisite checklist rather than replacing it. A separate Route 2 worksheet covers the experience-side requirements.
Yes. The download includes both a printable version (designed for handwriting) and a fillable PDF (form fields for each row). Use whichever fits your workflow. Both versions are formatted to fit on one page front-and-back, so you can keep your completed checklist as a single document across the application cycle.
Two options. First, check whether your target programs accept “in-progress” prerequisites — some programs let you apply with the final 1–2 prerequisites in progress, with the requirement that they be complete before the program start date. Second, if the gap is too large to close in time, target the next application cycle and use the freed time to take all your remaining courses through self-paced online providers in parallel. A 6–10 month gap-closing project is dramatically more achievable than 18 months of evening classes at a community college.
A printable MLS prerequisite checklist turns a vague pile of admission requirements into a single one-page document that tells you exactly where you stand and what to do next. Filled in once, it serves every NAACLS-accredited program you target. The structure forces you to confront the parts applicants miss most often: the chemistry specialization requirement, the survey-course / non-majors flag, the accreditation check, and the recency rule.
Most applicants who lose an application cycle do so because they didn’t catch one of these in time. The checklist exists to catch them — before a program admissions reviewer does.
The full checklist is available as a free printable PDF at PrereqCourses.com/mls-prerequisite-checklist. The download includes both the printable version and a fillable PDF, plus a brief 5-question intake form so the PrereqCourses Advisory Service can offer free transcript review on the 1st of each month if you want a second pair of eyes on your gap analysis.
Once your gaps are identified, browse the catalog to enroll in the courses you need at PrereqCourses.com/courses. All courses are self-paced, regionally accredited through Upper Iowa University (HLC), and start on the 1st of every month.
