Most of the med school applicants applies to both MD and DO programs, if their stats are on the borderline. DO schools are normally a safety for them. Unless you are out of the MD school range, like 3.4 GPA and/or Under 500 in Mcat, you won’t applies to DO schools only. Of course there are DO school enthusiasts, they WANT get into OMM and practice OMM, so they applies to DO schools only, but most applicants won’t.
I have a number of friends and family members who try to avoid seeing DOs because they think, quite simply, DOs are are inferior physicians. The merger of the residency programs in a few years may help but the poor training at many osteopath programs will need to be ramped up for the merger to be successful!
I think it really depends on the students individual experience. My bil graduated from PCOM and he has a very successful practice in infectious disease. He does weekly health segments for the local news station as well. He is very fulfilled in his position and is now the director of the dept at the hospital. He also teaches part time at a DO school.
I think a significanf number of these kids are just backwards rationalizing the fact that they know they won’t get into allopathic schools.
Or they don’t understand the direction that modern medicine is heading. Allopathy - especially primary care - has stolen a lot of the holistic, “patient as a whole being” that used to be more unique to osteopathy.