Can this possibly be true?

[hye345]

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I have been doing some research on other forums and websites, and this is my theory:

For people who apply to medical school, the average percentage of applicants who are accepted is around 40-50%. This is MUCH higher than I originally figured.

For people who apply to optometry school, the outcome is much bleaker; the average for all 17 schools is roughly 31%.

Is anyone else surprised by this? Have I overlooked something?

Sources:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=252733
http://www.opted.org/2006 Profile of Entering Class.pdf

 

[Dr. Leca]

That can't be true....

I always look at the stats for schools and it says like 5,000 kids apply to med school and only 600 get interviews and only like 130 get accepted. Thats what most schools I see are saying on the websites.

 

[UABopt]

I have been doing some research on other forums and websites, and this is my theory:

For people who apply to medical school, the average percentage of applicants who are accepted is around 40-50%. This is MUCH higher than I originally figured.

For peole who apply to optometry school, the outcome is much bleaker; the average for all 17 schools is roughly 31%.

Is anyone else surprised by this? Have I overlooked something?

Sources:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=252733
http://www.opted.org/2006 Profile of Entering Class.pdf

You had a very common misconception. This misconception comes from the fact that there are so many applicants to each medical school because the AAMCAS makes it so easy to apply to a school, its only a click away. If you look http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2006/2006slrmat3.htm , scroll all the way to the bottom line to see the toals for all ALLOPATHIC medical schools. You will see that 55.6 percent of applicants did not matriculate, that means that 44.4% or about half of all medical school applicants were accepted and ended up in medical school. Overall the stats look quite similar to optometry school. We, though, don’t have a centralized application system, which means you must apply to each school individually. In turn people apply to fewer schools, and the stats at each school look better. According to http://www.opted.org/info_profile.cfm 2585 students applied to optometry school in 2005, for about 1250-1300 seats. Which means that over all about 50 percent of optometry applicants will end up in optometry school somewhere. This of course ignores the fact that medical students can also apply to osteopathic medical schools and foreign schools. I hope that clears things up.

 

[hye345]

That can't be true....

I always look at the stats for schools and it says like 5,000 kids apply to med school and only 600 get interviews and only like 130 get accepted. Thats what most schools I see are saying on the websites.

I think you must have misunderstood me; I meant that 40-50% of applicants get into any medical school at all.

 

[sethuel1]

The percentage of applicants that matriculate at med schools is fairly similar to the percentage of applicants that matriculate in optometry schools.

You can't look at the individual acceptance percentages for optometry schools for the same reason you can't look at the acceptance percentages for individual med schools, because most people apply to more than one school.

 

[mme27]

.

 

[mme27]

You can't look at the individual acceptance percentages for optometry schools for the same reason you can't look at the acceptance percentages for individual med schools, because most people apply to more than one school.

For actual stats that is true. For comparisons though it doesn't really matter. Medical schools probably do have higher numbers. People in both optomety and medical schools most always apply to more than one school so in the end it pretty much balances itself out anyways. If people could only apply to one OD school while applicants could apply to more than one medical school than that would be a different story. This is not the case so I think comparing the two this way is perfectly fine.

Also, I have seen much bigger variety of students apply to OD schools than medical schools. Most folks dont dare apply to med school if their GPA is low (my observations). I know many applicants for optometry however that apply with the lowest GPA's and credentials I have ever seen. There is just a bigger range of people that apply to OD school because most think it wont be to hard to get into. Bigger range means more rejections! I may have worded this crappy but this is just what I have seen. I know many friends who apply to optometry when they have nothing else going because is seems fairly easy to get into. Optometry obviously is hard and competitive and they get a rude awakening with they are rejected. I don't know why they think its so easy to get into. Maybe I just know ignorant people.

 

[hye345]

Now, I'm guessing that the average person who gets admitted into med school has a higher gpa/stats than the average person who gets admitted into optometry school. Is this true?

 

[sethuel1]

Now, I'm guessing that the average person who gets admitted into med school has a higher gpa/stats than the average person who gets admitted into optometry school. Is this true?

yep

 

[UABopt]

The numbers are out there… The average GPA of an entering a US optometry for the class of 2006 was 3.42. The average Dental school had an entering GPA of 3.46 last year. In 2005 the average Allopathic school matriculant had a 3.63 ( GPA http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2006/2006mcatgpa.htm) . While I don't have the exact osteopathic medical school numbers, they tend to range in the 3.3- 3.4 range as well. The average podiatry student had a GPA of 3.2 last year http://www.aacpm.org/html/statistics/stats_mar.asp. So there you have it.

To summarize:
US Allopathic medical school 2005: 3.63
US Dental school 2006: 3.46
US Optometry school 2006: 3.42
Osteopathic medical school (exact number this year unknown): 3.3-3.4ish
Podiatry school: 3.2