Applicant Number Increase?

[nata723]

I was wondering if anyone knows of articles or statistics on whether more applicants are applying this year. I saw on University of Michigan's site that they so far have a 31% applicant increase. Does this mean people applied earlier or that there are in general more applicants?

Thanks!

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[efex101]

There are more applicants this year...the applicant pool fluctuates but in the last years it has been going up...the stats are also increasing.

 

[146233]

We don't know the breakdown of when people applied until nearer the end of the cycle. Suffice it to say, though, that applicant numbers have steadily been increasing. Given that every pre-med advisor and SDN member says "Apply early!" every year, I'm not sure how many people are actually applying earlier. Should be interesting to see.

 

[efex101]

http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2006/2003to2006det.htm

 

[cyclingmo]

Yup, at this exact moment more applications have been submitten than last year at the same time. Now could it be that more people are paplying earlier? Probably. But could the overall number also be moving up? Probably again.

 

[lisichka]

.

 

[nata723]

Yeah, not only the MCAT administrations but perhaps also the faster AMCAS turn-around times?

 

[missicyhot]

what about the fact that more people are applying "broadly" to more schools? shouldn't that be taken into account in these numbers too?

 

[Abilene85]

Numbers have probably gone up a little bit, but I'm guessing any significant change is due to the new MCAT format. Not necesssarily that more people took it and applied to med school, but that offering more test dates affected the application timeline for many applicants.

 

[Tropicana100]

what about the fact that more people are applying "broadly" to more schools? shouldn't that be taken into account in these numbers too?

sure does. Looking at the # of applicants of a single schools is not a good measure of how many more people are applying compared to previous years. You need the AAMC statistic of TOTAL applicants.

 

[Abilene85]

what about the fact that more people are applying "broadly" to more schools?

This might be happening a bit more than last year, but not significantly more. All the SDN "apply broadly" advice was here for us last year. I doubt that all of a sudden, hundreds or thousands of applicants suddenly got the point and took action. You see those kinds of trends over many years.

 

[Mister Pie]

A 31% increase OVERALL would be ridiculously high. I'm in agreement that some of it has to be due to more people applying early and broadly (though I don't doubt that the overall amount of applicants has probably increased as well).

 

[efex101]

Some of it will have to do with the MCAT...but if you look at the trend the numbers *are* increasing for whatever reason.

 

[Sir Buckethead]

I'm applying in two years with underwhelming stats.

Oh, and I'm also shaking in my boots.