<p>Does anyone know the approximate percentage of everyone who applies and is accepted to med school (nationwide)? I know there are millions of people that try and I know that there are many many schools as well. So is it like if you'll try hard you should make it into at least one med school (like undergraduate college), i.e., a pretty good chance of going to med school? Or rather is it bleak for everyone unless your the top-top of your class.</p>
<p>Or in other words, if you go through your undergraduate education with the mentality that you will go to med school, and do ECs and get good grades and about average MCAT scores, are you basically a shoe-in to at least one med school? That is, should you not be too concerned about not getting in?</p>
<p>Obtaining admission to medical school in the United States (for non-URM applicants) would compare to gaining acceptance from secondary school to one of the Ivy's, the top 5 to 10 small liberal arts colleges or Stanford or MIT - in others words it's super-competitive</p>
<p>The difference being that pre-meds would need to take major coursework in chem, biology etc except a few programs like Brown which is also highly competitive</p>
<p>"Trying hard" is not sufficient - you have to score very high on the MCAT tests and will have to be near the top 5% of any average college and probably the top one-third at the very top colleges - with outstanding performance in pre-med courses</p>
<p>The overall acceptance rate is between 30 to 50% - but that is highly deceptive because these are for the most part (in general) the top graduating science major students in the country -with many others simply dropping out of pre-med or not (in the end) not applying to med school because of the extreme competition</p>
<p>Each year there are roughly 70000 administrations of the MCAT (not unique test takers as some people do take the test twice within the same year)</p>
<p>In 2005, There were 39,109 total applicants</p>
<p>In 2005 there were 17,370 total matriculants at 125 US Allopathic Medical schools.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that the attrition rate from freshman year when many people come in being pre-med to the time that people just apply to medical school is phenomenally high.</p>
<p>Avg. MCAT scores aren't going to cut it. The average MCAT score of all test takers is roughly 25. The average MCAT score of matriculants is roughly 30. More than 50% of applicants get rejected from every med school they apply to. But as BRM noted, the most important consideration is the attrition rate. A large percentage of premeds never even make it to applying. I would estimate that, at my school, 2/3-3/4 of freshmen who start off premed never apply to med school.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'd put it the attrition rate at about the same level just for applying. Taking it all the way to matriculation, and overall it's approaching 90% from start to finish.</p>
<p>My brother works for Northwestern med school, and there, 40% of freshmen declare themselves to be premed, but by just their sophomore year (when they haven't even taken the hardest course load yet!), 80% of them have changed their minds.</p>
<p>lol, I love that. First year I asked so many people, "so what are you taking?"</p>
<p>"I'm pre-med," they exclaim.</p>
<p>Second/end of first year; so what major are you doing for premed?</p>
<p>"I'm not actually sure what I want to do with my life..."</p>
<p>All I do is lol, inside, ofcourse.</p>
<p>In Canada, it's even worse, since you need at least a 3.7-3.8 GPA to be competitive anywhere, since we have so few med schools, and we have a higher proportion of the population in University (due to our more socialist political system).</p>
<p>
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but by just their sophomore year (when they haven't even taken the hardest course load yet!), 80% of them have changed their minds
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</p>
<p>The two most popular times to switch from being pre-med to something else at my undergrad were: after the first general chemistry exam (so basically middle of september), because they had studied soooo hard and still pulled a "D", or after the end of first semester for kids that took Bio 101, which had an incredibly horrible lab for an intro level class. The kicker about Bio 101 however was that it wasn't an absolute pre-req for any course (if it was a pre-req, you could have taken Bio 201 Cell Structure and Function and used that as the pre-req) and kids didn't have to take it, even if they were bio minors or majors. And those two combined to remove most students from pre-med...Organic was a greater % removed (of the remaining pool of pre-meds), but a much smaller number.</p>
<p>"Does anyone know the approximate percentage of everyone who applies and is accepted to med school (nationwide)?" </p>
<p>It is my understanding that, for senior undergrads applying to med school, overall there are about twice the number applying as there are actual slots available in the US. It is a much higher number accepted than the number of seniors in high school applying to an IVY compared to the number of IVY slots available. Yes, lots of thinning of numbers from Fresh to Senior year in college, but I think your chances, once you apply, is 40-50%. Some of these students are also applying simutaneously to DC, DO, OD programs, so I think that some 60% go on without a gap year to a professional school. There are probably 2-5% each year (of those accepted) that are accepted after a graduate degree in Bio, Chem, pubic health, parasitology, etc. Just because you don't get in the first round, does not mean you wil never get in. The percentages decrease, but it is NOT hopeless. THen there are the offshore programs and med schools abroad.</p>
<p>If you're rejected from your first rounds of MD programs, I personally would strongly endorse a DO program over a Caribbean MD. Your odds of passing your boards are better, your odds of being placed into a residency are better, etc.</p>
<p>There are so many med school applicants from medical families that this alone is unlikely to be much help.</p>
<p>If you get good grades and MCAT's, then medical school is not nearly such a gamble. The poor admissions numbers are due to lots of applicants who, on paper, do not have good prospects, but who apply anyway. Most elite colleges say that an MCAT of ~30 is a solid basis for applying. This is way above the national mean, and as noted, about the mean for accepted applicants. So... if you are doing well in your premed courses, and do well on standardized tests, then you will probably do well on the MCAT. If you present good grades and MCAT's, then with careful applying your chances are quite good.</p>
<p>Not everyone who bails out of premed does so because of poor grades. Some realize they don't want to be doctors. Some find science more interesting. Some find neither medicine nor science to their liking. A lot of freshmen say they are premed not because it is a firm career commitment, but because they do not know enough about the rest of the world to have considered other options.</p>