Applications to Osteopathic Schools Up Significantly

[HockeyDr09]

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http://www.aacom.org/news/releases/Pages/020211-pr.aspx

Applications to Nation’s Osteopathic Medical Schools Break Record for Fifth Consecutive Year

As potential medical students learn more about becoming an osteopathic physician (DO), they are increasing their applications to osteopathic medical colleges. As of mid-January, with three months left to apply for the 2011 entering medical student class, the number of applicants to the nation’s 26 colleges of osteopathic medicine already has surpassed last year’s cycle-end total. More than 13,500 aspiring physicians have applied to the schools, 7.3 percent more than had applied at this time in the cycle last year.

Potential medical students have submitted more than 100,000 applications to the nation’s 26 osteopathic medical colleges; on average, the colleges are receiving approximately 20 applications for every available seat.
Every one of the colleges is recording increased numbers of applications this year, with growth in applications ranging from under 1 percent to more than 25 percent.
19,426 students are currently enrolled in an osteopathic medical college, a number that has nearly doubled since the year 2000.
More than 20 percent of new U.S. medical students are studying at osteopathic medical colleges.
By 2015, more than 5,300 osteopathic physicians will graduate from the nation’s osteopathic medical schools each year.
Growth in the number of osteopathic medical school graduates will help mitigate looming physician shortages, especially in the critical primary care area. DO students continue to pursue primary care fields (internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics) in proportions surpassing those of their U.S.-trained MD colleagues.
The nation’s approximately 63,000 osteopathic physicians are fully licensed to practice the entire scope of modern medicine, bringing a patient-centered, holistic, hands-on approach to diagnosing and treating illness and injury.

I attached a .pdf from AACOM that gives data on every school. CCOM has already reached 5348 applications for ~202 seats .

Thanks to the wonders of acrobat I was able to convert all the data into an excel spreadsheet. (also attached).

Top 10 Schools Applied to

PCOM 6,343
CCOM-MWU 5,348
NYCOM-NYIT 4,998
LECOM-E 4,619
NSU-COM 4,553
WesternU-COMP 4,207
TOUROCOM-NY 3,895
LECOM-B 3,868
UMDNJ-SOM 3,733
TUCOM-CA 3,725

 

[Kgizzle]

Wow!

 

[Cheshyre]

It's amazing how fast people are warming up to DO programs. At U of Michigan (my undergrad), only a handful of students were thinking about DO when I applied. The next year, the pre-med email lists were full of DO-related lectures and information.

 

[Everglide]

It's amazing how fast people are warming up to DO programs. At U of Michigan (my undergrad), only a handful of students were thinking about DO when I applied. The next year, the pre-med email lists were full of DO-related lectures and information.

Nice. UM has been 2nd place in matriculating people to DO programs for quite some time. I know MSUCOM has been doing more presentations/recruiting down in Ann Arbor.

 

[PeachyPhd]

Hockey Doc,

I extended your spreadsheet to include a preliminary applicants per seat ratio and its quite intriguing (prelim because I didn't include changes to class size for 2015).

I don't want to re-post your data as my own (read-only), but perhaps it might be a useful addition to your spreadsheet?

 

[SoulinNeed]

Three more months? Don't most schools stop accepting apps in March?

I'm sure more people are applying, as more MD students see DO as a viable alternative, but this may also mean that more people are applying early.

 

[Dr Skeptismo]

Awhile ago, I heard that with down turns in the economy you can see a proportional increase in med school applicants. Don't know how true that is, going off memory of secondhand info, but it's seems to be accurate for our current situation. When the economy is uncertain, people look for careers that aren't tied to it. Of course, when the economy turns around I'm sure a proportional amount of those once selfless pre-meds go for that finance degree.

 

[munchymanRX]

Awhile ago, I heard that with down turns in the economy you can see a proportional increase in med school applicants. Don't know how true that is, going off memory of secondhand info, but it's seems to be accurate for our current situation. When the economy is uncertain, people look for careers that aren't tied to it. Of course, when the economy turns around I'm sure a proportional amount of those once selfless pre-meds go for that finance degree.

Although we'd like to think that physicians are altruistic, compassionate model citizens, the fact remains that many are (stupidly) in it for the money and prestige.

 

[MightyMoose]

Hockey Doc,

I extended your spreadsheet to include a preliminary applicants per seat ratio and its quite intriguing (prelim because I didn't include changes to class size for 2015).

I don't want to re-post your data as my own (read-only), but perhaps it might be a useful addition to your spreadsheet?

You should post it, Peachy. I was thinking about doing that, but got waaaaay too lazy. I would actually love to see the ratio of first year seats filled to graduated, because that data is more useful, because it shows how successful a program is at graduating a class. I have about 15 minutes now, so I might throw something together on Hockye Doc's spreadsheet (I'll post it if he's cool with it).

 

[snurpy]

Wow to TouroCOM-NY picking up more applications than the more established brothers in CA and NV. I guess NYC is a selling point itself.

 

[MightyMoose]

This was just for my own edification, but I added a column for each year that specifies the percent of students graduating vs. those matriculated. Now, I should add that some of these could be larger than 1, because some students are held back for a year for one reason or another and graduate with the class behind them. This means that the students graduating with the class are not necessarily the same ones who started with the class, so it is more of an approximation. I found it interesting nonetheless.

 

[MightyMoose]

I guess the attachment was in the wrong format and didn't attach. Here it is... for real this time...


DISREGARD THIS SPREADSHEET. THE ONE POSTED BELOW IS THE CORRECTED ONE.

 

[MLT2MT2DO]

I guess the attachment was in the wrong format and didn't attach. Here it is... for real this time...

Nice work, but I just want to point out the % graduated is incorrect mostly due to ever expanding class sizes. Example is AZCOM you have % graduated as 2009 grads/2009 class size instead of 2009 grads/2005 class size...

 

[MightyMoose]

Nice work, but I just want to point out the % graduated is incorrect mostly due to ever expanding class sizes. Example is AZCOM you have % graduated as 2009 grads/2009 class size instead of 2009 grads/2005 class size...

This is true, I didn't want to take the time to go back and look through the class size data, so the data assumes the class size stays the same.

Good catch though. If I get a chance at some point in the next few days I will see if I can dig up the numbers on the matriculated data from 03/04, 04/05, and 05/06.

 

[MightyMoose]

Ok, I fixed the spreadsheet to account for the years of matriculation correctly (thanks to MLT2MT2DO noticing the mistake).

Disregard the previous spreadsheet and use this one instead.

 

[HockeyDr09]

Ok, I fixed the spreadsheet to account for the years of matriculation correctly (thanks to MLT2MT2DO noticing the mistake).

Disregard the previous spreadsheet and use this one instead.

Awesome work with that spreadsheet Moose.

 

[PeachyPhd]

I've attached my own transformation of the spreadsheet that hockey doc and now moose posted.

In the second folder, I have shown how many applicants are fighting for the same seat in the matriculating class per year to show increases in the number of applicants per year.

I found it interesting. I hope I did it correctly... no one lambaste me if I didn't 😍.

 

[MLT2MT2DO]

Ok, I fixed the spreadsheet to account for the years of matriculation correctly (thanks to MLT2MT2DO noticing the mistake).

Disregard the previous spreadsheet and use this one instead.

Didn't mean to poo poo your work Mighty, I just didn't want a soon to be AZCOM student freaking out by seeing only a ~57% graduation rate. Very nice job and well done, thanks!

 

[MightyMoose]

Awesome work with that spreadsheet Moose.

Thanks. I didn't do much to it though. I'm glad you posted the initial data, because I rarely go and look for that stuff.

Didn't mean to poo poo your work Mighty, I just didn't want a soon to be AZCOM student freaking out by seeing only a ~57% graduation rate. Very nice job and well done, thanks!

Don't even sweat it, man. I'm glad you pointed it out. Now it's a better source of info because of it.


Nice work, Peachy. It's always interesting to see how many people were competing for each seat. Too bad we can't see how many of them were the the same people.

 

[Torr]

Wow. Didn't necessarily want to see these numbers since I'm still waiting for a letter from my top choice to come in but thank you guys for posting this! 🙂

Really glad CCOM isn't my #1 though

 

[anotheremail]

If you look at 2006, 60,000 applied. Now look at the last entry--100,000.

Thats a 66 percent increase in 5 years! Incredible!

 

[Jnorman1218]

Great work on the spreadsheet HockeyDr09!

I am curious about a couple things. First, the total number of applications is a lot higher than the total number of applicants right (since most people apply to multiple schools). If this is the case, it would be interesting to see the actual number of applicants, but I know it would be practically impossible.

Also, out of the total applicants, how many people do you guys think are not competitive at all. I know most other programs (ie-PT,OT, etc) have a high number of applicants who only apply half-heartedly and don't really stand a chance of acceptance. I know it is more difficult to meet the min. requirements for med schools so that number is probably lower. Anyway, I know this stuff really doesn't matter I just was curious.

 

[scpod]

....First, the total number of applications is a lot higher than the total number of applicants right (since most people apply to multiple schools). If this is the case, it would be interesting to see the actual number of applicants, but I know it would be practically impossible....

It's easier to find than you think. I didn't take the time to look them all up but there were 12,617 applicants in 2009. So, the "average" applicant applied to about 7.5 COMs. Back when I applied the average applicant only applied to 6 schools, but there are more to choose from now.

 

[DocEspana]

Well if you wanna go with the 2010 stats, since the 2011 stats aren't done yet: total number of applicants is 13,174.

This figure is the 13,147 applicants the AACOMAS reported as applicants for 2010 entering class plus 27 others who were accepted without ever filling out the AACOMAS (due to being directly promoted from another program in the same COM and never previously filling out a AACOMAS app before that point)

This number doesn't include UNT though, as they do not accept applications from the AACOMAS system.

so yea, as you can see, we already have more applicants by mid-January than we had all year last year.