AMCAS statistics up to 9/18/08

amp3r5and · Sep 18, 2008

From the premed health office at my undergrad:

For those who are interested - here are the statistics on the current applications submitted to AMCAS for this application cycle:

The AMCAS application opened on Wednesday, June 4th for applicant submission. As of September 12th, we have 29,289 submitted applications
up by less than a percent from last year on this date. 24,613 applications have been verified and made available to the medical schools. There are 4,676 applications awaiting verification and our
current processing time is 12 business days, which can significantly change week by week. The average medical school designations by applicants are currently 15.

pianola · Sep 18, 2008

amp3r5and said:
The average medical school designations by applicants are currently 15.

Wow. But the average must be skewed by some outliers at the top, right? (people who apply to 30, 40, 50 schools)? I wonder what the median is...

Thanks for the post, amp3r5and 🙂

genswim24 · Sep 18, 2008

Thanks for the info. Not much of an increase at all especially considering there are several new medical schools opening this year.

joponoda · Sep 18, 2008

So, since there were 40832 applicants last year only about 60% of applicants this year have been verrified, and 72% have submitted their applications to AMCAS.

I thought these numbers would be higher from all the talk on here about how late the people are who submitted their apps over the last few weeks.🙄

Lukkie · Sep 18, 2008

with the recent news about the incoming great depression, expect an influx of 2 million apps in the next month

ChubbyChaser · Sep 18, 2008

pianola said:
Wow. But the average must be skewed by some outliers at the top, right? (people who apply to 30, 40, 50 schools)? I wonder what the median is...

Thanks for the post, amp3r5and 🙂

Also remember, a decent number of ppl only apply to 1, EDP.

choolMed · Sep 18, 2008

This one percent increase seems very low since there has been made awareness of md shortages across america. maybe it's the high tuition rate and accumpliation of debt that is a great test in deciding if this career is REALLY for you. B/c it doesnt seem too inticing compared to my friends making 100k+ after three years outside of college. But a piece of me would be missing not entering some sort of health care field and i love to learn as much detail as possible so i truly understand and medical school seems to give me that as well.

30,000 people that want to become medical doctors in America (more accurately, want to attend a US medical school) but we can assume to become doctors. According to the Census there are 14,375,764 college students in America. So 14,375,764 / 30,000 = 479 : 1 ratio describing number of students that are not planing to go to medical school in america to students applying to amcas. Out of a 480 person random group of college aged students there is 1 trying to make medical school. It doesnt mean that you will be accepted or attend a medical school it just says that you have tried by submitting an application and hopefully means you did all the steps in order to become a student (prereq science classes, lor, personal statement, let's not forget mcat study ha) .

Do you think this is correct? Is this what you guys thought? Is this surprising? Will anyone even read this and care? I guess that's the most pertinent question I should ask before I began haha.

flip26 · Sep 18, 2008

choolMed said:
This one percent increase seems very low since there has been made awareness of md shortages across america. maybe it's the high tuition rate and accumpliation of debt that is a great test in deciding if this career is REALLY for you. B/c it doesnt seem too inticing compared to my friends making 100k+ after three years outside of college. But a piece of me would be missing not entering some sort of health care field and i love to learn as much detail as possible so i truly understand and medical school seems to give me that as well.

30,000 people that want to become medical doctors in America (more accurately, want to attend a US medical school) but we can assume to become doctors. In 20062007, according to data compiled by the Institute of International Education there are approx 582,984 students in college. That number is probably more or less the same today. So 582,984 / 30,000 = 19.4 : 1 ratio describing number of students that are not planing to go to medical school in america to students applying to amcas. Out of a 20 person random group of college aged students there is 1 trying to make medical school. It doesnt mean that you will be accepted or attend a medical school it just says that you have tried by submitting an application and hopefully means you did all the steps in order to become a student (prereq science classes, lor, personal statement, let's not forget mcat study ha) .

Do you think this is correct? Is this what you guys thought? Is this surprising? Will anyone even read this and care? I guess that's the most pertinent question I should ask before I began haha.

Not even close on the number of college students...read the link more closely...those are "international" students attending US colleges, not all students in college...

choolMed · Sep 18, 2008

Oh yah. Thanks for finding that! I looked at the site again and i was like 'mmm i should have researched more through. I found some new data and updated the numbers to reflect. What do you think of this? Pretty crazy!

It had me at 20 to 1 (my initial numbers) ... and i believed that! I was WAY off! hanging around too many premeds that means i think the world is like that. haha.

chad5871 · Sep 18, 2008

Don't forget that you are only including applications submitted so far. Although there is not much time left to submit the AMCAS application this cycle, there will be some additional applications coming in at the last minute.

joponoda · Sep 18, 2008

chad5871 said:
Don't forget that you are only including applications submitted so far. Although there is not much time left to submit the AMCAS application this cycle, there will be some additional applications coming in at the last minute.

There will be more than some additional. There will be around 10,000 more.

http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2007/2007slr2.htm

This page says there was 42,315 applicant last year (which I think includes applicants that did not use AMCAS), on UofMinnesota's website it say there was 40,832 AMCAS application last year. So I think it is safe to say that many more people are still going to submitt - after all not everyone is on SDN or has an advisor that stresses the importance of an early application.

joponoda · Sep 18, 2008

choolMed said:
This one percent increase seems very low since there has been made awareness of md shortages across america. maybe it's the high tuition rate and accumpliation of debt that is a great test in deciding if this career is REALLY for you. B/c it doesnt seem too inticing compared to my friends making 100k+ after three years outside of college. But a piece of me would be missing not entering some sort of health care field and i love to learn as much detail as possible so i truly understand and medical school seems to give me that as well.

30,000 people that want to become medical doctors in America (more accurately, want to attend a US medical school) but we can assume to become doctors. According to the Census there are 14,375,764 college students in America. So 14,375,764 / 30,000 = 479 : 1 ratio describing number of students that are not planing to go to medical school in america to students applying to amcas. Out of a 480 person random group of college aged students there is 1 trying to make medical school. It doesnt mean that you will be accepted or attend a medical school it just says that you have tried by submitting an application and hopefully means you did all the steps in order to become a student (prereq science classes, lor, personal statement, let's not forget mcat study ha) .

Do you think this is correct? Is this what you guys thought? Is this surprising? Will anyone even read this and care? I guess that's the most pertinent question I should ask before I began haha.

Wrong. First, that is the total number of undergrads, there are many more graduate students that apply to med school also.
Second, you are comparing the total number of college students to the number of application so far this year. So that 30,000 number does not include the 10,000 or so applicants that have not sumbitted yet, nor does it take into the number of people wishing to go into medicine but are still taking prereqs and won't apply this year.

I am not sure how the ratio will come out will all this is factored in, but my experience is that there are many more first year premeds than third year and so the actual ratio of total undergrad studnets to premed undergrad is probably around the 200:1 mark. So for a school with 40,000 undergrads they would be 200 premeds at various stages or ar a school with 10,000 undergrads there would be only 50 premeds at various stages. From information on SDN and from my experinece at my university I would say this is fairly conservative. Maybe the real ratio is 100:1. I don't really know, but one thing is for sure - anyone wanting to go to medical school has competition.

Wow, this turned into a long post...discuss.

flip26 · Sep 18, 2008

joponoda said:
Wrong. First, that is the total number of undergrads, there are many more graduate students that apply to med school also.
Second, you are comparing the total number of college students to the number of application so far this year. So that 30,000 number does not include the 10,000 or so applicants that have not sumbitted yet, nor does it take into the number of people wishing to go into medicine but are still taking prereqs and won't apply this year.

I am not sure how the ratio will come out will all this is factored in, but my experience is that there are many more first year premeds than third year and so the actual ratio of total undergrad studnets to premed undergrad is probably around the 200:1 mark. So for a school with 40,000 undergrads they would be 200 premeds at various stages or ar a school with 10,000 undergrads there would be only 50 premeds at various stages. From information on SDN and from my experinece at my university I would say this is fairly conservative. Maybe the real ratio is 100:1. I don't really know, but one thing is for sure - anyone wanting to go to medical school has competition.

Wow, this turned into a long post...discuss.

There are far more pre-meds at a school than the actual number who go through the application process, as you pointed out...there is a winnowing out process year to year as pre-meds "decide" that they are not cut out for the sciences, or they move on to other interests, etc...but even for pre-meds who make it to the junior year, there is attrition - bad MCAT scores probably account for a large percentage of pre-meds punting in junior and senior year...

Not sure what anyone thinks the significance of this ratio is anyway...

joponoda · Sep 18, 2008

flip26 said:
Not sure what anyone thinks the significance of this ratio is anyway...

I am not sure either, but I like how a tread starts with updated AMCAS stats turns into one about the ratio between all college students and premeds 🙄

AMCAS statistics up to 9/18/08

amp3r5and

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