Liz Mickalich

Introductory Statistics

February 16, 2006

Is it more Challenging to Get into Medical School today
than it has in Previous Years?

Introduction

I am currently applying for medical school.  It has been continually rumored that medical school acceptance rates have been declining over the ten years due to numerous factors (such as: increases in the number of applications, medical schools reducing their class sizes for more personal attention, and limited medical school resources).  Because of my anxiety associated with this issue, I wanted to see if there was any truth to this rumor.  Are medical school acceptance rates actually declining?  In addition to this, I wanted to explore if more females were entering the medical field as time progresses.

Analysis

Part 1: The data for the number of students who applied to medical school and the number who were accepted was found on the Association of American Medical Colleges website.

Graph 1: The lower plot represents the total number of accepted students into medical school for that year and the upper plot represents the number of students who applied for medical school during that year.

It is apparent the number of acceptances into medical has remained fairly stable (range: 666 students) over the last ten years. In contrast, the number of applicants each year has fluctuated quite a bit (range: 13340 students). Therefore, the acceptance rate into medical school depends more on the number of students in the applicant pool and less on the number of students that the medical schools are accepting each year.

Graph 2: This graph displays the percentage of applicants that were accepted into medical school over the past ten years.

The years where more there were more applicants had lower acceptance rates into medical school. 

Part 2: When a student accepts their position in a medical school class, they are considered to be a matriculant.  To explore evolution of the number of women entering the medical profession, I looked at the number of female matriculants over the last ten years.

Graph 3: This graph shows the evolution of women attending medical school over the last ten years.

The graph clearly illustrates that the while number of women entering the medical field has grown from 1994 to 2003, it leveled off for the last two years on the graph.  The growth is especially apparent when we take into account conclusions from Part 1 that the number of accepted students really hasn’t changed much over the years.

Conclusions

• Medical school acceptance rates rise or decline on the primarily based on the size of the applicant pool.
• The number of students medical schools are accepting has not changed much over the years. 
• More women are entering the medical profession now than have in the last ten years.

References

Association of American Medical Colleges. 9 February 2006 <http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2005/2005summary.htm>