The pre-med/pre-law entrapment

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I apologize for the tone in my previous reply, and thank you for not replying in the same vein.</p>

<p>Back to the numbers, keep in mind that the 1 in 54 (which is less than the true rate, as I’ll explain in a moment) applies only to the chances of getting into this particular school. Med school applicants apply to multiple schools, and the better applicants get more than 1 acceptance. We don’t know from the published data you gave how many acceptances they had to award in order to fill their seats, but its pretty sure they didn’t have a 100% yield. If they accepted 1/2 of those they interviewed, the chances were about 1 out of 20. And looking at the big picture, across the country in 2008 42,231 people applied to med school, vying for 18,036 spots. More than 4 out of 10 applicants ended up getting in.</p>

<p>So knowing nothing more about a person than the info they applied to med school in 2008, their chances of getting in were 4/10. And this is a decline from the 1/2 that were getting in somewhere from 2003 to 2006 when Wall Street careers beckoned. So the odds haven’t really been so poor for applicants. Furthermore, many schools break down apply/accept ratios into a grid based on GPA and MCAT score. Given the pair, you can see how others have done with similar scores. Rates in the 80’s and 90’s are typical for the stronger applicants. A sample chart is at <a href=“http://www.career.cornell.edu/downloads/Health/AaChart2008.pdf[/url]”>http://www.career.cornell.edu/downloads/Health/AaChart2008.pdf&lt;/a&gt; Amherst has a chart at [Amherst</a> Premed Guide – Chances](<a href=“Amherst College Guide for Premedical Students”>Amherst College Guide for Premedical Students)</p>