25% acceptance rate to MD/PhD programs!?

[PathOne]

Interesting. I thought MD/PhD programs were madly competitive, but apparently, almost 25% of applicants matriculate at a program (500/2046) according to a Harvard study.

http://www.aamc.org/research/dbr/mdphd/appsurvey.pdf

Obviously, there's a fair amount of self-selection in the applicant pool, since most programs report high GPA/MCAT scores, but still, it seems that the acceptance rate is fairly high, especially since many programs are fully funded.
Perhaps premeds are turned off by the length of the study?? Still, it would seem to be an attractive proposition if you're inclined to do research in addition to clinical work...

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[PsychStudent]

25% is the amount of people who get in *somewhere*, not the overall acceptance rate. I'm sure percentage of applicants who are accepted at a particular school is much, much lower.

 

[blazerfan33]

Interesting. I thought MD/PhD programs were madly competitive, but apparently, almost 25% of applicants matriculate at a program (500/2046) according to a Harvard study.

http://www.aamc.org/research/dbr/mdphd/appsurvey.pdf

Obviously, there's a fair amount of self-selection in the applicant pool, since most programs report high GPA/MCAT scores, but still, it seems that the acceptance rate is fairly high, especially since many programs are fully funded.
Perhaps premeds are turned off by the length of the study?? Still, it would seem to be an attractive proposition if you're inclined to do research in addition to clinical work...

This is interesting in that these are only 57 schools and those who apply to MSTP or MD/PhD, thus many of the same applicants who failed to gain acceptance in these 57 are likely getting into one of the programs that did not participate in the survey. The overall acceptance rate could thus be much higher than the 25% found in this survey.

 

[Reimat]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd say a 25% acceptance rate is pretty "madly competitive" when you look at the pre-reqs to getting accepted into a program. I mean, most applicants put in serious time to research and pre-med requirements in order to be considered.

Seeing as how I'm applying next cycle for a program, I guess I for one find it pretty intimidating.

 

[mark-ER]

Oh, by the way... this year around 50% of first time 'regular' allopathic med school applicants get in 'somewhere' this year and even during the most competitive times, that number never went down below 33%.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd say a 25% acceptance rate is pretty "madly competitive" when you look at the pre-reqs to getting accepted into a program. I mean, most applicants put in serious time to research and pre-med requirements in order to be considered.

Seeing as how I'm applying next cycle for a program, I guess I for one find it pretty intimidating.

 

[PathOne]

Oh, by the way... this year around 50% of first time 'regular' allopathic med school applicants get in 'somewhere' this year and even during the most competitive times, that number never went down below 33%.

Very true (although I didn't know the numbers). I'm not implying that it's easier to get into a MD/PhD program than a regular MD program.
However, the study is a nice example of the distorted figures one gets if one looks solely on "number of applicants" vs. "acceptances", as people obviously apply to several schools (and the best qualified gets several offers). So in reality, it's not as difficult as some could assume. Even the (regular MD)numbers for HMS or similar should be taken with a grain of salt, because a lot of those accepted choose to go somewhere else where they are offered a full scholarship or other nice package.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

This is interesting in that these are only 57 schools and those who apply to MSTP or MD/PhD, thus many of the same applicants who failed to gain acceptance in these 57 are likely getting into one of the programs that did not participate in the survey. The overall acceptance rate could thus be much higher than the 25% found in this survey.

But not much higher, considering that without federal funding, only so many positions can be allotted. I estimate that with 1-4 students per year in the ~60 or so other programs, another ~200 students may matriculate into non-survey institutions, making a total of ~700/2000 total applicants. Even the number of applicants may increase if some didn't apply to any of the institutions included in the survey.

 

[freddytn]

Another to keep in mind is that it is only 57 programs that were polled on this survey out of 118 in this country (barely half of the programs represented). Granted they might represent more like 60-70 percent of the total applicant pool since I think most of the larger programs are accepted.

 

[b&ierstiefel]

I don't know what the application numbers are like these days but the 25% statistic doesn't surprise me as much. The MD/PhD applicant pool is a very self-selected group of people. Hence, I thought that back when I applied that MSTP was truly the back-door way into med school. I was waitlisted by all MD programs but once MD/PhD programs accepted me, the MD programs had to let me in.

The year I applied to MSTP, my school had received a little over 200 applications. 50 of these people were interviewed. Acceptances were made to about 15-20 people and 7 people were in my class including myself. So when you apply MSTP, this equates to 25% of applicants being interviewed and less accepted. However, that is at one particular institution! The fact of the matter was that back in 1997, many programs end up interviewing the same people. I imagine that the top applicants are getting interviews everywhere and programs are really trying to recruit you hard.

Now contrast to MD programs. At my school, over 8000 people applied my year. They interviewed several hundred and 170-180 people matriculated. You apply MSTP and the odds are in your favor (granted that you DO want to become a physician-scientist).

If you're in the top group of applicants, you're gonna get into somewhere...100% guarantee.

 

[tofurious]

Also, when you get to the interview stage, the pool is even smaller. You see pretty much the same people everywhere.

You'll see them yet again: at the Aspen meetings, at your special society meetings, at residency interviews, IN residencies... 25% is a pretty decent number. I've heard many more people with no realistic chances wanting to apply so the applicant pool must have a bimodal distribution (people with really good chances and people with no chances at all). That would be something interesting to look at.

Any idea what the completion rate of regular med school is? I know the attrition rate of combined programs is about 25% also (we discussed this in another thread on this board). Granted, attrition in combined programs is not the same as attrition in MD programs, but I'm just curious.

 

[noy]

I would say even tri-modal. This is all my personal guess, as I have not been on an adcom....

Group A) Hot-shots, get in to some amazing schools (you know the 6 or 8 I am talking about), high scores, good research, they run into each other at interviews, revisits, conferences, and on. While they dont get accepted to every program, they probably have choices amongst great places.

This might be only 30-50 kids/year. Acceptance rate to any school VERY VERY high.

Group B) Solid applicants but maybe the Tier-1 schools (whatever that may be) don't like them, get into one or maybe a few MSTP's (still very competitive). No breakthrough applications but solid research background...

This is still a small number of students, maybe 200-300. But that's how many MSTP slots there are! High acceptance rate here.

Group C) MD or MD-wannabe's who say 'hey, this research thing is cool, let me try it' - their apps are not taken seriously by most of the MSTP's, but may get in somewhere...


This is the rest of the apps (300 or more?) Acceptance rate here 'not so good'.

 

[tr]

I would say even tri-modal.

Not to be a nit-picker, but what you've described is not a trimodal distribution, since you suggest that the sizes of the groups differ significantly.

Group A) Hot-shots, get in to some amazing schools (you know the 6 or 8 I am talking about), high scores, good research, they run into each other at interviews, revisits, conferences, and on. While they dont get accepted to every program, they probably have choices amongst great places. This might be only 30-50 kids/year. Acceptance rate to any school VERY VERY high.

I think there are more than 50 kids in this group. Out of the ten or so big-name programs (I guess JHU, UCSF, UPenn, WashU, UMich, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, Duke, maybe a couple more), they probably enroll an average of 12-15 kids per year. If 2/3 of those are shoo-ins, that's already ~100 total.

But anyway, I think this whole process is way more stochastic than you suggest. There are a whole lot of random effects that come into play (your research vs. the school's strengths, the pull of your research mentor, what the admissions committee had for breakfast that morning...)

Group C) MD or MD-wannabe's who say 'hey, this research thing is cool, let me try it' - their apps are not taken seriously by most of the MSTP's, but may get in somewhere...

Does this group really exist? Who says, 'hey, I think I'll throw away 3-5 more years of my life on a whim?' I've never met anyone like this. Most of the regular premeds I know hated research and only did it for resume filler, if at all. The people I know who applied MSTP were pretty serious about it. Anyone who wasn't was probably scared away by the sheer size of the application packet.