Next couple years easier to get into Med School?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>Hey guys,
my dad (a current doctor) was telling me the other day how in the next couple years it is going to get easier to get into Medical school for Pre med students. I don't know if this has anything to do with the economy, but he said medical schools are gradually increasing their enrollment after leaving their numbers relatively stagnant and level for the last couple years</p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

2

<p>Hmm while I think the number of people that the med school will accept is increasing, it will not necessarily be easier. There are many qualified people who don’t get in now.</p>

<p>In my college they have a list of the average gpa’s and MCAT scores of people who were accepted at various medical colleges. For this one med school the average gpa has gone up about 0.2 and the MCAT score has gone up by 3 points which is a lot considering the scale for the MCAT.</p>

3

<p>The AAMC is indeed seeking to increase medical school spots, but you’re certainly not going to see that happen within the “next couple years.”</p>

4

<p>Med Schools have been very slow to comply with the AAMC’s request to increase enrollment. Without making significant operational changes things like faculty/student ratios will change and with them USNWR’s ratings. Several schools that have answered the call have seen their ratings slip almost solely for that reason.</p>

5

<p>The AAMC’s suggestions are not a mandate but rather a guideline. With the economy in the toilet, don’t expect the # of med school applicants to drop significantly. I think you’ll see the difficulty of med school admissions remain largely the same or get slightly easier over the next few years. It’s certainly not going to get much harder like it did from 2002-2007.</p>

6

<p>There has been some increases, and IIRC the plan was an expansion by about 30% by 2015. I’m not sure that the 30% will be reached unless there are more new schools opened. I know my own school with our new amazing College of Medicine building that opened this fall only increased enrollment from 125 to 140 students in the short term despite the fact they had always blamed lack of space for not expanding previously.</p>

<p>While more spots seems like it would help things, there are a lot of qualified candidates currently who are turned away each year. You’re still going to have to be in that competitive category to get a spot.</p>

<p>There are already a lot of rumblings on the residency side of things that unless there is a concurrent expansion in residency spots, the Match is going to get a lot tougher. This year’s match had a very high fill rate, and the Scramble was apparently pretty ridiculous. Of course, resident salaries are paid by Medicare, so expansion of those spots is a much different problem.</p>

7

<p>If memory serves, the balanced budget act (1997?) capped Medicare’s funding for residency slots. There are considerably more residency spots than medical students (was 40% more about 15 years ago) and many of the spots are filled via third-world “brain drain,” in which the US imports physicians who are badly needed in their home countries.</p>

8

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<p>I suspect that the economic crash means that the nation is undergoing a systemic shift in which Wall Street jobs may never again pay as much as they did in the last few years. What that will mean is that many of the very best college students won’t be making the mad dash to the quick riches of investment banking anymore, but will look to other careers such as medicine, which may ultimately mean that the competition for spots may actually increase.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/business/economy/18grads.html?ref=business[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/business/economy/18grads.html?ref=business&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

9

<p>my guidance counselor says that it will be especially easy for me as a black male. I think that is true but I’m not too certain.</p>

10

<p>BDM…that does sound right, not sure where I heard that though…but I don’t know what that cap is and with the number of programs that add or drop spots from year to year, I have even less idea if that cap is coming into play.</p>

11

<p>I believe there are 18K med students per year, so an extra 40% would make 25K residency spots.</p>