How many applicants have type 1 diabetes?

[mattpk]

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This is somewhat targeted at the adcom members on here, and I'm just curious: how many applicants do you see that are type 1 diabetic? I'm worried that I'm going to be the only one in my med school class with the disease, as throughout all of my high school or college years, I always found classmates to befriend who had T1D. Is it very uncommon?

 

[LizzyM]

Google says, "In the US, approximately 5.3 out of every 1000 adults (aged 18 and older) are estimated to have type 1 diabetes. This equates to roughly one in every 200 adults."

So, probability would tell us that you might be the only one in your med school class given that medical school classes tend to be <200 per class and there is no reason to believe that T1DM would be over-represented among medical students. Of course, this isn't to say that there could be a class with 2 or 3 students with the condition and there could be years when no students with the condition matriculate at a given medical school.

 

[LunaOri]

We see a few applicants every year with T1DM, but I can’t say how many are accepted or enrolled. You might or might not have another student with T1DM in your particular class year, but likely there will be others in your school.

 

[longhaul3]

With a prevalence of 0.5%, if you have 150 classmates there's a 53% chance of at least of them having it, assuming it's distributed in medical students at the same rate. It may not be, but I'm sure it's close enough to conclude it's pretty much a toss-up.

 

[Goro]

This is somewhat targeted at the adcom members on here, and I'm just curious: how many applicants do you see that are type 1 diabetic? I'm worried that I'm going to be the only one in my med school class with the disease, as throughout all of my high school or college years, I always found classmates to befriend who had T1D. Is it very uncommon?

I've had students with the illness, and it's been very very uncommon.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Going to use British statistics:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(24)00107-4/fulltext

Using prevalence data from the UK, we estimate that there are more than 10 000 university students with type 1 diabetes, out of a total student population of 2·8 million.
The US university population is roughly 6-7 times larger (15M).

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816774

4 out of 1000 US youths, 5 of 1000 adults have T1D estimated.

 

[mattpk]

Very interesting to hear, thank you all for the info!! Hopefully I'll stumble into someone in my class 🙂

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Very interesting to hear, thank you all for the info!! Hopefully I'll stumble into someone in my class 🙂

I assure you, chances are good someone at the medical school (student, faculty, or staff) has T1D.