Anyone think this year will be more or less competitive than last year?

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Drrrrrr. Celty

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Thoughts? I'm inclined to believe that since the economy is improving and what not that potentially we might see this year being a bit less competitive than the last. What do you guys think?
 
More.

Because it's been getting more competitive every year and I can't really think of a reason for the trend to break. The economy isn't THAT much better.
 
Less. Just by the lower number of participation of SDN on the pre osteo. My 2 cents.
 
NontradCA said:
Less. Just by the lower number of participation of SDN on the pre osteo. My 2 cents.
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Interesting thought. But you're also forgetting the people who don't actively participate on SDN. But I would be more than happy if it was easier to get in haha.
 
The economy is not improving! Watching the stock market increase here and there doesn't mean anything. Unemployment is crazy high still(way higher than reported).
 
Probably more, like every year. I don't think activity on SDN is indicative of the general population of people applying. People never want to go into the real world, so graduate school admissions will always be competitive.
 
HopefulReapp said:
Probably more, like every year. I don't think activity on SDN is indicative of the general population of people applying. People never want to go into the real world, so graduate school admissions will always be competitive.
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It is if you compare the populations on SDN from year to year.
 
NontradCA said:
It is if you compare the populations on SDN from year to year.
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Wow that's a really interesting correlation if true. :laugh:

@gmcguitar4 and the Dow Jones fell over 500 points in the last few days....
 
I would bet the average stats per matriculation class will be about the same, with likely seeing less outliers on the lower end (especially at newer and lower stat programs). Keep in mind, number of applications likely will continue to rise for the next few cycles but that doesn't necessarily mean the quality will also increase. You would be surprised what some people think they can get into school with...
 
It can't keep getting more competitive with new schools continuously opening and class sizes continuously increasing. When you gauge the competitiveness of getting into a DO school, you basically have to go by the lowest common denominator (new/newer schools). And they are by far what is keeping DO admission standards relatively low.
 
Anicetus said:
The economy is not improving. We keep spending.

More people are trying to get into medicine so my opinion is that it will just get more competitive.
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Growth and more employment is a better economy tbh. We're improving and heading back to normal.
 
I don't know if the correlation based on the economy is perfect. There definitely is a strong relationship, but I think the trend of competitiveness would react a bit slower than the changes in the actual economy. E.g. if the economy improves drastically next year, I think it might take a couple of years before that is reflected in the number of applications. Generally speaking though, yeah more applicants over time, but also an increase in spots available so who knows. This is just my uneducated speculation of course, I haven't really looked at any facts on this.
 
ZezKaiEll said:
I don't know if the correlation based on the economy is perfect. There definitely is a strong relationship, but I think the trend of competitiveness would react a bit slower than the changes in the actual economy. E.g. if the economy improves drastically next year, I think it might take a couple of years before that is reflected in the number of applications. Generally speaking though, yeah more applicants over time, but also an increase in spots available so who knows. This is just my uneducated speculation of course, I haven't really looked at any facts on this.
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I'm going to kind of agree with this in the sense that any external factor that is going to affect application numbers is going to see a delayed effect simply because most people who are applying now have been working directly towards this goal for the last three years. If economy is a factor, the people who would be deciding now to pursue medicine wouldn't be applying for a few years.

Although, I could see the cost of medical education being an immediate factor. As the Republicans keep trying to make education more expensive, if they passed something that dramatically affected student loan interest rates it could have more of an immediate impact.
 
I don't know why this cycle might be less competitive, but I am interested to see what happens when and after the 2015 MCAT hits. True, competition has been increasing steadily, so a bigger test should in theory just make things more competitive, but the sections being added are ones that the statistical majority of pre-meds aren't strongly suited for and/or don't like.

More importantly, the first few years won't have much of a realistic standard to work with, from the adcoms' perspective. So the first few cycles might be more or less competitive, depending on whether the new scores are given more or less harsh consideration.
 
I think with the new schools opening and class sizes increasing it is going to stay roughly the same. That being said, I think we will continue to see a divergence in stats between the "new" schools and the "old schools".

Survivor DO
 
Anicetus said:
The only doctor in our family says most premeds vote democrat when they are younger and vote republican when we are older. I think a lot of physicians vote with their wallets essentially, but honestly, so do most people.
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Oh I agree, and that trend isn't isolated to premeds but represents college students in general. Once they hit the real world and start making money the statistics show a swing towards the right there as well (and for the record I am not saying one way is right or wrong, but I am simply stating statistical facts).
 
corpsman33 said:
Oh I agree, and that trend isn't isolated to premeds but represents college students in general. Once they hit the real world and start making money the statistics show a swing towards the right there as well (and for the record I am not saying one way is right or wrong, but I am simply stating statistical facts).
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Yea I've seen stats more or less saying the same. I think it's more a tendency for conservatism as people age rather than party affiliation. Then again the liberal/conservative standards change over time as well, i.e. what is considered extreme today may become more common years from now.
 
corpsman33 said:
Oh I agree, and that trend isn't isolated to premeds but represents college students in general. Once they hit the real world and start making money the statistics show a swing towards the right there as well (and for the record I am not saying one way is right or wrong, but I am simply stating statistical facts).
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I agree. I wouldn't read too much into this, but I have heard "If you are young and not liberal, then you have no heart; but if you are old and not conservative, then you have no brain"

Back to my original point though, saying the economy will not be good due to spending is mislead. in many countries, actually the economy is best when there is a massive amount of spending. Look at Taiwan in the previous decades, that's how it went. (but again there are also many counter examples)

:naughty:

Either way, I think politicians are just there to screw us all over. Truly altruistic politicians don't exist
 
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Didierdrogba said:
I agree. I wouldn't read too much into this, but I have heard "If you are young and not liberal, then you have no heart; but if you are old and not conservative, then you have no brain"

:naughty:

Either way, I think politicians are just there to screw us all over
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It's a game. As for the topic, when do the stats for the number of apps come out this year? I feel like also, with MD getting crazy competitive, more people may be applying for DO schools as backup. I personally know quite a few reapplicants to MD that are now adding DO schools to their list.
 
Bachelors degrees are the new high school diplomas. I can only forsee med school admissions becoming more and more competitive as each year progresses.
 
corpsman33 said:
Oh I agree, and that trend isn't isolated to premeds but represents college students in general. Once they hit the real world and start making money the statistics show a swing towards the right there as well (and for the record I am not saying one way is right or wrong, but I am simply stating statistical facts).
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That was true 30 years ago, but considering that today's Democrat party is more right-wing than the 80s GOP, that anecdote probably won't hold for this generation.
 
notbobtrustme said:
That was true 30 years ago, but considering that today's Democrat party is more right-wing than the 80s GOP, that anecdote probably won't hold for this generation.
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My thoughts exactly.

America nowadays is very very very conservative compared to the rest of the Western world and Eastern Asia
 
notbobtrustme said:
That was true 30 years ago, but considering that today's Democrat party is more right-wing than the 80s GOP, that anecdote probably won't hold for this generation.
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Not trying to pick on you, but nice non relevant argument.
 
serenade said:
Growth and more employment is a better economy tbh. We're improving and heading back to normal.
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Are you crazzzy? There is anything but more employment. Unemployment is still way up. The percentages don't even account for people who are under-employed, people whose unemployment benefits have expired, and people who were ineligible for unemployment. Also a ton of jobs are in sectors like retail and restaurants, not exactly what most people want to make careers out of. The only thing we are seeing is corporate profits going up. So board members of these companies are doing just fine.
 
If labor participation rate was the same as early-mid 2000s unemployment would be around 11%. There are many things I don't agree with the Republicans on, but I still vote that way. Our government has a spending problem, and it needs fixed.
 
NurWollen said:
I hadn't noticed this. Interesting.

I think that this year will be more competitive. No new DO schools opening up... though aren't there a few new MD schools this year?
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That's was kinda another one of my reasons for thinking it might be too.
 
serenade said:
That's was kinda another one of my reasons for thinking it might be too.
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I would really wish this to be true, but I am not sure if the number of apps is correlative with the pre-osteo participation. We can all just cross our fingers at this time and hope for the best.
 
Economy is not improving, Especially in medical device industry. The Affordable Care Act has led to many cuts in employment in that sector because of the new medical device tax. N=1, but my dad says they cut 5ish people from his department, and there are more cuts to come!

Would not bank on the Economy getting better anytime soon. It is not. It is illusion. We as a country need to be fiscally conservative people. We spend way to much.

Look at the new proposed expansion of residencies. Can our Gov afford to fund more of them (15K they said)? No, we should stick with the residencies we have and stop expanding medical school. there are enough if the IMG and FMG dont end up matching, and that would save a lot of money.

I have no idea when this mindset of liberal spending took root. I was raised to believe that you dont spend money that you dont have.
 
It will be hard to judge economy until feds stop pumping 80+ billion into the economy each month.

Also, wasn't there a time in the last 15 years when the number of applicants peaked and then came back down a significant amount? It could happen again.
 
med school apps dropped 26% between 1996 and 2001 - during bill clinton's boom years, with 4% unemployment and $127 billion budget surplus, neither of which will happen again for a long, long time.
 
So, the real question being asked on this thread is whether this year's applicants will have a harder or easier time getting in to med school compared to last year.

My answer is this: while the number of med school applications swings up and down over the years (as has been cited above by other posters) I doubt it will fluctuate enough in either direction from last year to this year to lead to perceptibly different average accepted stats.
 
GypsyHummus said:
I have no idea when this mindset of liberal spending took root. I was raised to believe that you dont spend money that you dont have.
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Started in the 60's, ballooned in the 70's and has progressively gotten worse since. Interestingly, many so-called "conservative" administrations did nothing to change this when they had their chance. I don't know much about the future of this issue, but the people I speak to who do know about it suggest that there is likely no coming back from it...deficits will likely run forever which is just how our government has chosen to do business today. We'll see where this leads us.
 
Talked to my premed advisor about this couple days ago.

At my school anyways, this year is the lowest in applicants my advisor has seen in many years. Already we've had 21 cancellations on the premed committee interview and no wait list which hasn't happened before. Normally there is a huge wait list


So at my university the numbers are way down this application cycle
 
MajorUnderDog said:
Talked to my premed advisor about this couple days ago.

At my school anyways, this year is the lowest in applicants my advisor has seen in many years. Already we've had 21 cancellations on the premed committee interview and no wait list which hasn't happened before. Normally there is a huge wait list


So at my university the numbers are way down this application cycle
Click to expand...

That's interesting.
 
ZezKaiEll said:
Started in the 60's, ballooned in the 70's and has progressively gotten worse since. Interestingly, many so-called "conservative" administrations did nothing to change this when they had their chance. I don't know much about the future of this issue, but the people I speak to who do know about it suggest that there is likely no coming back from it...deficits will likely run forever which is just how our government has chosen to do business today. We'll see where this leads us.
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30s you mean when government spending was the only reason we exited the recession ( inb4 libertarian think tank bs). Realistically the problem doesn't lie with spending, but what we're spending on.

Can we not turn this thread into a economics one tho?

I'd like this to be strictly about medical school admissions.
 
Obamacare scare?

Maybe premeds are worried about there future profession not representing the current or older projected outlook?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ignore spelling and/grammar
 
Poliscidoc said:
Obamacare scare?

Maybe premeds are worried about there future profession not representing the current or older projected outlook?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ignore spelling and/grammar
Click to expand...

Maybe?
 
GypsyHummus said:
I have no idea when this mindset of liberal spending took root. I was raised to believe that you dont spend money that you dont have.
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The Federal Government is not a household.

By that logic, btw, you shouldn't go to medical school because you are spending money you don't have.
 
notbobtrustme said:
The Federal Government is not a household.

By that logic, btw, you shouldn't go to medical school because you are spending money you don't have.
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Maybe poly sci 1 and econ 1 should be added as requirements for being premed too.
 
GypsyHummus said:
Economy is not improving, Especially in medical device industry. The Affordable Care Act has led to many cuts in employment in that sector because of the new medical device tax. N=1, but my dad says they cut 5ish people from his department, and there are more cuts to come!

Would not bank on the Economy getting better anytime soon. It is not. It is illusion. We as a country need to be fiscally conservative people. We spend way to much.

Look at the new proposed expansion of residencies. Can our Gov afford to fund more of them (15K they said)? No, we should stick with the residencies we have and stop expanding medical school. there are enough if the IMG and FMG dont end up matching, and that would save a lot of money.

I have no idea when this mindset of liberal spending took root. I was raised to believe that you dont spend money that you dont have.
Click to expand...

Tell that to Reagan, Bush I and Bush II... What an uninformed statement!
 
serenade said:
Maybe poly sci 1 and econ 1 should be added as requirements for being premed too.
Click to expand...

You guys don't have that? We do at my institution🙁
along with some 30 extra credits that are useless.
 
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