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Tl;dr: CycleTrack as a platform had much progress and collected a wealth of data throughout the 2024 cycle (presented below). Despite this, we still have a ways to go in making the platform more representative. Your participation is vital to making information about medical school applications more transparent for everyone. We welcome any discussion or ideas around this data in this thread.
Over the past 3 years, @SeaAtDusk and I have developed CycleTrack, a free application and crowdsourcing tool. With the help of over 12,000 applicants such as yourselves who have tracked over 145,000 applications, we’ve used the power of community to make admissions more open and accessible. Today, I’d like to share with you the strides we’ve made throughout the 2024 admissions cycle, open a conversation about this data, and maybe convince you why your use of the platform can make medical school admissions better for all.
The Platform
In brief, CycleTrack (CycleTrack) is a free website that allows applicants to keep track of their individual medical school applications (replacement for personal spreadsheets), create graphics (e.g. Sankey diagrams), and more. In the background, this data is de-identified and collated in-real-time into a publicly available explorer tool visible to anyone with an internet connection. For more information, visit the CycleTrack about page.
Users & Applications
Throughout the 2023-24 cycle, 7,603 new email-verified users joined the website (additional non-verified users who joined had accounts deleted). 5,636 users added applications to their profile with 103 having tracked previous application cycles as well. This re-applicant count is likely an underestimate as some re-applicants only used the platform in 2024. This amounted to 79,252 tracked applications in 2024. Below is a breakdown.
Top Tracked Programs
Below is a list of the top tracked programs in CycleTrack during 2024. Comparing this to the most recent available data from the AAMC (2023 FACTS Tables A-1, B-8), the top programs in CycleTrack are largely the most applied programs on AMCAS. On the MD side, Canadian schools were fewest tracked. This is likely due to differences in the application process which make the site less useful for Canadian applicants.
Statistics and Demographics – Working Our Way Toward Better Representation
Tracking statistics and demographics in CycleTrack is optional. However, it’s an area in which we learned a lot in 2024. Prior to December, applicants adding a new cycle needed to navigate to a separate menu to enter demographic information. Using cGPA as a marker, only 20% of users went back to add this information. In December, we changed the interface allowing users to immediately enter this information when creating a new cycle. This resulted in over 64% of users adding this information. We believe this change is helping combat biases of users with higher scores more likely entering statistical information. Keeping this change in 2025, we are actively capturing a much richer set of information that will allow the data in CycleTrack’s explorer to be more representative of the total application pool.
With that said, below are plots of MCAT and cGPA recorded in the CycleTrack platform throughout 2024. As you can see, these fall above averages reported by the AAMC and AACOMAS. There is much work to be done for the platform to become more representative. We believe some of this is accounted for by underreporting from a proportion of the CycleTrack userbase and is being addressed by the aforementioned interface change. However, additional outreach is needed to underrepresented groups of applicants. We’ve noticed that as the userbase has grown, statistical averages have begun inching toward national averages.
Insights Into the Application Cycle
CycleTrack has uniquely collected temporal data that is not available elsewhere. For example, the AAMC does not keep track of interview invitations. This has allowed us to perform unique analysis, and distribute information such as this application cycle interview invite distribution.
Furthermore, the volume of data recorded in 2024 has given us greater resolution regarding the cycles at individual institutions. For example, this graph of data from the George Washington explorer page shows the waves of interviews, rejections, and acceptances throughout the cycle.
As the database continues growing, we look forward to generating more actionable data for future applicants and already have ideas to build on for 2025 applicants.
Usage Compared to Other Resources
One of CycleTrack’s greatest advantages is centralizing information. Rather than scrolling through individual SDN threads, or attempting to find the correct thread on other social media, data on CycleTrack is always a few clicks away. This way, forums can be used as they are meant, as platforms for discussion.
While analysis of our usership compared to platforms such as SDN for data sharing is ongoing, here is what we found for MD-PhD applications in 2024. CycleTrack had 5 times as many users as SDN (data from Physician Scientist Forum threads) who recorded data regarding their MD-PhD applications (452 to 90). CycleTrack recorded 6.7 times as many interviews (834 to 124) with 2.7 times the number of users recording interviews (148 to 54).
Looking Forward & Call to Action
We are devoted to making sure information about medical school admissions is free and accessible to all medical school applicants (seriously, we pay the costs from our own living stipend). We are excited to continue implementing the combination of our own ideas with those suggested by the community. With that said, the only way this works is with the participation of the greater applicant community. So, if you are interested in using these tools while giving back to the greater applicant community, consider signing up and tracking your application cycle for 2025.
With that, I would like to open up any conversation about this data. Additionally, we welcome any ideas for how we can further increase representativeness of the platform or use the data generated by this resource to further benefit the pre-medical community.
Over the past 3 years, @SeaAtDusk and I have developed CycleTrack, a free application and crowdsourcing tool. With the help of over 12,000 applicants such as yourselves who have tracked over 145,000 applications, we’ve used the power of community to make admissions more open and accessible. Today, I’d like to share with you the strides we’ve made throughout the 2024 admissions cycle, open a conversation about this data, and maybe convince you why your use of the platform can make medical school admissions better for all.
The Platform
In brief, CycleTrack (CycleTrack) is a free website that allows applicants to keep track of their individual medical school applications (replacement for personal spreadsheets), create graphics (e.g. Sankey diagrams), and more. In the background, this data is de-identified and collated in-real-time into a publicly available explorer tool visible to anyone with an internet connection. For more information, visit the CycleTrack about page.
Users & Applications
Throughout the 2023-24 cycle, 7,603 new email-verified users joined the website (additional non-verified users who joined had accounts deleted). 5,636 users added applications to their profile with 103 having tracked previous application cycles as well. This re-applicant count is likely an underestimate as some re-applicants only used the platform in 2024. This amounted to 79,252 tracked applications in 2024. Below is a breakdown.
Top Tracked Programs
Below is a list of the top tracked programs in CycleTrack during 2024. Comparing this to the most recent available data from the AAMC (2023 FACTS Tables A-1, B-8), the top programs in CycleTrack are largely the most applied programs on AMCAS. On the MD side, Canadian schools were fewest tracked. This is likely due to differences in the application process which make the site less useful for Canadian applicants.
| MD | MD-PhD | DO |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Tufts (1,452) | 1. Harvard (137) | 1. Philadelphia COM (305) |
| 2. George Washington (1,301) | 2. Yale (132) | 2. New York Institute of Technology (281) |
| 3. Emory (1,235) | 3. Pennsylvania (130) | 3. Lake Erie (269) |
| 4. Georgetown (1,183) | 4. UCSF (121) | 4. Michigan State (233) |
| 5. Drexel (1,146) | 5. UCLA (120) | 5. Midwestern University Chicago (201) |
| ... | ... | ... |
| 172. McGill (2) | 164. South Alabama (1) | 46. Philadelphia COM South Georgia (29) |
| 173. Montreal (2) | 165. South Carolina - Columbia (1) | 47. Lake Erie Bradenton (23) |
| 174. Ottawa (2) | 166. Uniformed Services (1) | 48. Baptist Health Sciences University (20) |
| 175. Queen's University (2) | 167. University of British Columbia (1) | 49. Rocky Vista Monstana (7) |
| 176. Memorial University (1) | 168. Western University (Canada) (1) | 50. Orlando COM (6) |
Statistics and Demographics – Working Our Way Toward Better Representation
Tracking statistics and demographics in CycleTrack is optional. However, it’s an area in which we learned a lot in 2024. Prior to December, applicants adding a new cycle needed to navigate to a separate menu to enter demographic information. Using cGPA as a marker, only 20% of users went back to add this information. In December, we changed the interface allowing users to immediately enter this information when creating a new cycle. This resulted in over 64% of users adding this information. We believe this change is helping combat biases of users with higher scores more likely entering statistical information. Keeping this change in 2025, we are actively capturing a much richer set of information that will allow the data in CycleTrack’s explorer to be more representative of the total application pool.
With that said, below are plots of MCAT and cGPA recorded in the CycleTrack platform throughout 2024. As you can see, these fall above averages reported by the AAMC and AACOMAS. There is much work to be done for the platform to become more representative. We believe some of this is accounted for by underreporting from a proportion of the CycleTrack userbase and is being addressed by the aforementioned interface change. However, additional outreach is needed to underrepresented groups of applicants. We’ve noticed that as the userbase has grown, statistical averages have begun inching toward national averages.
Insights Into the Application Cycle
CycleTrack has uniquely collected temporal data that is not available elsewhere. For example, the AAMC does not keep track of interview invitations. This has allowed us to perform unique analysis, and distribute information such as this application cycle interview invite distribution.
Furthermore, the volume of data recorded in 2024 has given us greater resolution regarding the cycles at individual institutions. For example, this graph of data from the George Washington explorer page shows the waves of interviews, rejections, and acceptances throughout the cycle.
As the database continues growing, we look forward to generating more actionable data for future applicants and already have ideas to build on for 2025 applicants.
Usage Compared to Other Resources
One of CycleTrack’s greatest advantages is centralizing information. Rather than scrolling through individual SDN threads, or attempting to find the correct thread on other social media, data on CycleTrack is always a few clicks away. This way, forums can be used as they are meant, as platforms for discussion.
While analysis of our usership compared to platforms such as SDN for data sharing is ongoing, here is what we found for MD-PhD applications in 2024. CycleTrack had 5 times as many users as SDN (data from Physician Scientist Forum threads) who recorded data regarding their MD-PhD applications (452 to 90). CycleTrack recorded 6.7 times as many interviews (834 to 124) with 2.7 times the number of users recording interviews (148 to 54).
Looking Forward & Call to Action
We are devoted to making sure information about medical school admissions is free and accessible to all medical school applicants (seriously, we pay the costs from our own living stipend). We are excited to continue implementing the combination of our own ideas with those suggested by the community. With that said, the only way this works is with the participation of the greater applicant community. So, if you are interested in using these tools while giving back to the greater applicant community, consider signing up and tracking your application cycle for 2025.
With that, I would like to open up any conversation about this data. Additionally, we welcome any ideas for how we can further increase representativeness of the platform or use the data generated by this resource to further benefit the pre-medical community.
