10 Medical Schools with the Lowest Acceptance Rates

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1
  1. Mayo Clinic — 2.1 percent acceptance rate
  2. Stanford (Calif.) University School of Medicine — 2.3 percent
  3. Florida State University School of Medicine (Tallahassee) — 2.6 percent
  4. Wake Forest School of Medicine (Winston-Salem, N.C.) — 2.8 percent
  5. George Washington University School of Medicine (Washington, D.C.) — 2.9 percent
  6. Georgetown University School of Medicine (Washington, D.C.) — 2.9 percent
  7. UC Davis School of Medicine (Sacramento, Calif.) — 2.9 percent
  8. David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (Los Angeles) — 3.2 percent
  9. The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University (Providence, R.I.) — 3.2 percent
  10. UC San Diego School of Medicine (La Jolla, Calif.) — 3.2 percent

The national average is 7%.

https://www.doximity.com/doc_news/v2/entries/11760714

Stanford just recorded it’s lowest ever undergrad acceptance rate at 4.3%

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/4/9/admissions-rates-record-lows-across-ivies-stanford-mit/

2

@iwannabe_Brown Thanks. I read few days back in US News. Not surprisingly 4 out of 10 is from CA, not an exciting news for CA residents!

Can you shed light why it is hard to get stat / data on the acceptance offers extended by medical school. Neither MSAR or individual schools publish that data. From student perspective, is that not a one of the data s/he want to look at when trying to decide to which school to apply?

3

Cynical answer is so they can maximize secondary apps which generate money

4

Georgetown and George Washington actually have fairly mediocre/lenient MCAT accepted score ranges. Thus, everybody and their brother with mediocre MCAT scores puts in an application to these schools. Applicants with higher MCATs apply to other schools that the mediocre MCAT score applicants don’t even think of applying to. Since there are lots more mediocre MCAT applicants than stellar applicants, Georgetown and George Washington hoover them all up, accounting for the large applicant pool. Neither of these two apppear in the top 20 med school rankings. Similarly, Brown and Wake Forest and Florida State also do not appear.

5

What data specifically are you looking for?

Average GPA and MCAT stats are available thru MSAR and USNews. Instate vs OOS data (GPA averages, MCAT averages, number of interviews granted, number of student accepted) is available from USNews. Total number of applications for each school from the previous year–USNews. Number of students accepted from BA/MD, early assurance and post-bacc linkages–I think most/all of those are in MSAR. If not, they are often on the med school admission website.

Also low yield schools tend to be in middle range stats-wise and are in popular locales (Washington DC, Boston, CA)

One of the reasons why Brown is low yield is it has a small class size and take a large number of its entering class through its BA/MD program, leaving less room for outside applicants.

Many medical schools (even competitive programs) typically offer 2x as many acceptances as they have slots. The reason for this is that not all accepted students will enroll. The Admissions Dean is familiar with the school’s historical yield and makes an informed decision about how many acceptances to to extend in hopes of filling a class. Under-enrolling is not a problem; over-enrolling is.

Medical schools that have a high historical yields accept fewer students (usually close 1-to-1 for the number of seats) and use ranked waitlists to select replacements for students who choose to enroll elsewhere.

[Medical Schools with the Highest Yields](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/the-short-list-grad-school/articles/2016-12-06/10-medical-schools-where-accepted-students-are-most-likely-to-enroll)

University of Washington (84%)
University of New Mexico (83%)
University of Oklahoma (81%)
University of Kansas Medical Center (80%)
Florida State University (80%)
University of Arkansas (79%)
Cal Northstate (77%)
University of North Carolina (77%)
Oklahoma State University (77%)
University of Utah (76%)

With the exception of Cal Northstate–the common denominator for high yield schools? Low cost of attendance.

And I’ll toss this in for good measure-- Med schools with COA of over $90K/year

These medical schools have a COA between $90K and $130K/year:

Case Western $91,054
Central Michigan University** $95,666
Colorado** $90,739
Columbia $98,565
Connecticut** $99,909
Florida International University** $101,875
George Washington $92,582
Georgetown $91.265
Michigan State** $118,000
OHSU** tuition & fees $78,000 + living expenses
Northeast Ohio** $98,094
Stony Brook** $89,837 + health insurance
Hawaii** $99,145
Illinois–Chicago campus $127,315
Nebraska $109, 305
South Carolina** tuition & fees $88,940 + health insurance, living expenses <–highest OOS tuition
South Dakota** $97,710
SUNY Downstate** $100,861
Tufts $94,774

Tulane $98,565
USC/Keck $97,911

Ohio State** MS1-2 $71,584 MS3-4 $104,219

**Out of state tuition

6

@WayOutWestMom Thanks as always.

This is what I was looking for data, but specific to individual college (and not overall across all schools).

  1. Total number of applicants (as indicated in the Primary app for a particular college)
  2. Number invited for Secondary
  3. Number invited for Interview
  4. Number offered acceptance
  5. Number matriculated (let us assume it is almost the same data as number of seats).

Let us take Baylor as an example.
There is a data called ‘Verified applications’. Not sure if this number is for item 1 or 2 in the above list. Should I assume it is item 1 (since the data is from MSAR). 7620
Item 3 Interviews available as 829
Item 5 available 185.

So the data related to item 4 and item 2 not readily available. May be to protect the yield, the data is not made available. But as you mentioned we can assume add 50 to 100% of seats as additional acceptance offers.

It is interesting to note ‘Wait list’ aspect. Noticed for Baylor it has 500-550 applicants in the wait list and offered acceptance from that list just 15, after April 30th. Where as in Einstein that is 275 and 75.

7

If a student opted to apply 10 colleges as indicated in the primary.

  1. In case if did not get any secondary app invite, can he add more colleges?
  2. Do colleges indicate if they are not planning to invite for secondary?
  3. Is there any cut off date when a student can add more colleges to the AMCAS Primary app?
8

@GoldenRock I think students apply because stats are close to averages (MSAR), and/or because they think they have special ECs, LoRs, PSs, and/or because of parental pressure, and/or because they only want to go to the best schools, and/or because it’s in CA, and/or just apply everywhere hoping for one. I guess I’m just a little dense, but I don’t see why as an applicant answers (post # 5) would help me decide to apply/not apply. Just like hs kids applying to Ivies, Stanford, etc, kids/parents think their kids are getting in. There’s an active thread in parent forum where lots of people are venting about being shut out of UCs.

Post 6: #1,3 don’t schools publish deadlines for primary apps (although applying late is problematic). @WayOutWestMom do you know if AMCAS will block a student’s primary app if after the school’s deadline.

9

@Jugulator20 Post 6: Looks like I did not phrase my question clearly. Assume student has applied Primary on June 5th and indicated which schools s/he interested, let us say 12 medical schools. Later in Aug or Sep if s/he has not received any secondary app invite or have just 1 or 2, can s/he update the Primary app to add more medical colleges? Is that allowed and if so is there any deadline?

Agree, from reverse engg can arrive at some date if they allow to add more colleges after primary was submitted and verified by AMCAS.

10

@GoldenRock, applying these days to only 12 med schools would be risky. To add more later in the application process would signal the added schools that the applicant was having issues with getting interview invites. I have no evidence of this, JMHO from a parent who went through the process.

11

@GoldenRock:I believe you can add more schools as long as AMCAS gets money. After submitting you can make limited changes to primary:
https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school/faq/amcas-faq/
(scroll down to after submission)

To clarify my concern: As example on UCLA website, it states latest date was October 16, 2017; USC deadline for primary was November 1, 2017, GWU was November 15, 2017. I was wondering if AMCAS would automatically block submission of primary with any added schools past a school’s posted deadline, or would one be simply out the money.

12

@CottonTales and @Jugulator20 Thanks for your responses. I am not asking for myself. I was posting general questions for other students / parents benefit. It may benefit my D in case if she plans to apply out ( BA/MD student).

Post 5: But I was curious since noticed the acceptance number was kept guard based on my search. Though there are so many factors, and we all know MD admission is so competitive, unpredictable, and hence it is a substantial challenge and critical to identify which colleges to apply. Thought if 2 colleges with similar total applicants, and total seats, but if they give acceptances more, it makes sense to short list the school which offers more acceptances.

13

@GoldenRock

Where can you find this information–

1, #3, and #5 can be found at US News Graduate Compass--which is a subscription-only database. (Annual cost $30) You can calculate the annual acceptance rate from #2 and #5-- so you can find the prior year acceptance rate for each medical school. (NOTE: there are some med schools that do not share data with USNews-- Tulane doesn't, but I can't think off hand of any others.)

RE: #2 For most med schools, receiving a secondary is automatic. Only a few med schools (Wake Forest, Mayo and several of the UCs) pre-screen secondaries. IIRC, in the past, some applicants have gotten secondaries even before the official transmittal date for primaries. (Which means the med schools are sending out secondaries without ever seeing the primary application.)

I don’t think you’re going to find #4 anywhere since that information is proprietary and changes from year to year. (U Michigan has the most transparent process I’ve seen. UMich annually runs a yearly admissions blog that updates applicants on how long its taking to process applications, how many applications have been received, informs all applicants when interviews offers are sent out, how many are being offered and how many interview slots are still available. But even UMIch doesn’t share how many acceptances it gives out.)

An applicant can send add more schools to their primary list at any time during the process. Once the fee has been paid, the primary will transmitted to additional schools within 48 business hours.

See my answer above about automatic secondaries. If the med school pre-screen secondaries and if you don’t get a email link to the secondary within about 2 weeks of the school receiving your primary, you can pretty safely assume you’ve been screened out and you won’t be getting a secondary.

Yes. Every medical school has a date when they stop accepting secondaries. This will be on their admissions webpage. The date ranges from Oct 15 to October 30 for most schools.

14

This thread is really helping me see the value of the guaranteed entrance program DS18 was accepted to at Louisville. I realize Louisville is not a top tier school, but it still has an acceptance rate below 10%. It will certainly decrease the stress of the application process in a few years.

15

All of the schools with the highest acceptance rates have a strong in state bias. OOS students know this and don’t apply.

16

High yield is not the same thing as a high acceptance rate.

Yield is the number of accepted students who matriculate at a given school.

Acceptance rate is the raw number of acceptances given out to the total number of applicants.

High yield medical school know their students will matriculate so they actually accept fewer students than similarly ranked schools with yield rates.

For example, UNM’s overall acceptance rate is 8%, but 83% of those 8% accepted enroll.