How many offers of admission are typically made?

[looptheloop]

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For MD-only applicants, the number of offers of admissions seems to be ~2-3x the number of seats available. Obviously, since MD/PhD students cost a lot more and there are significantly fewer seats available, I would expect that the overall number of offers of admission would be much, much closer to the actual intended number of matriculants.

So, what generally is the case as far as this is concerned? Recognizing that this will vary by school, do most MD/PhD programs admit only the number of seats they have and then draw from the waitlist? Or what?

I am really curious about this.

 

[Principia]

In my experience from last cycle, it was typically about 2x the number of intended matriculants. I'm not sure how the AAMC guideline shake-ups for this cycle will affect this practice though.

 

[looptheloop]

In my experience from last cycle, it was typically about 2x the number of intended matriculants. I'm not sure how the AAMC guideline shake-ups for this cycle will affect this practice though.

Wow, that is more than I expected. If that is truly the case, then I do think that the changes this year will increase reliance on waitlists. I originally didn't think it would make as big of a difference as for MD-only applicants, but that was only under the (none-too-educated) assumption that MD/PhD programs already don't give out many more acceptances than the number of seats.

 

[Fencer]

The national aggregate data has been published in other threads. For example see:

UPDATE on 2018 AMCAS MD/PhD CYCLE (as of actions of 8/14/18)
Total Applicants - 1830 (plus 10 who are likely prior deferred students)
Total Accepts - 789 (at least one MD/PhD acceptance, plus 10 from prior, likely deferrals) - 43.1%
Withdraw after Acceptance - 90 (3 less ???)
Defer to later class - 28 (1 more)
Rescinded Acceptance - 2 (1 less)
Currently MD/PhD Accepted - 669
For comparison, we had 778 total accepts in the 2017 cycle, and 785 total accepts in the 2016 cycle.

This is from my experience in prior cycles. Multiple MD/PhD offers go to about 70% of the 789 individuals with at least one MD/PhD acceptance. Less than 80 individuals get over 8 MD/PhD acceptances (each of them).

 

[looptheloop]

The national aggregate data has been published in other threads. For example see:



This is from my experience in prior cycles. Multiple MD/PhD offers go to about 70% of the 789 individuals with at least one MD/PhD acceptance. Less than 80 individuals get over 8 MD/PhD acceptances (each of them).

Thanks, Fencer! So, taking a total MD/PhD enrollement of ~5500 and dividing by 8 (average years for completion of degree) gives an average total (national) class size of ~688 MD/PhD students. The 789 people that had at least one acceptance from this last cycle is just a little bit over that. If ~70% of the 789 had multiple offers, and if we conservatively define "multiple offers" as being 2 offers, we have 1341 total offers. From this very rough estimate, it would seem that, on average, the number of offers of admission is at least 2x the number of seats (@Principia spot on, haha).

 

[Fencer]

The number of students is closer to 650 per year. Actual time to completion, unfortunately, is around 8.7 years. I caught that the eventual total number of offers should be around 1300, however, just talking about that number might mislead some applicants to think it is relatively easy to get into a program given that the total number of applicants are 1830. The pool of applicants that get multiple MD/PhD acceptances is quite limited. If you follow the prior thread, the number of applicants with at least one acceptance were: 292 (Jan. 5), 358 (Jan. 18), 474 (Feb. 5), 499 (Feb. 14), 605 (Mar. 12), 636 (Mar. 30), 678 (Apr. 18), 701 (May 1), 759 (Jun. 14) and 789 (Aug. 15). After April 30, admission officers are looking to fill their class, which collectively is about 650-660. In the past, Admission officers did not know the other offers of their accepted students until Feb. 10. At that point, reality check means that you extend additional offers. That would not necessarily will happen in the present cycle, as we will not know that information.

 

[looptheloop]

Thanks for the insight about the more accurate numbers for collective class size and average time to completion! It will be interesting to see what happens this year. BTW, as an applicant for this cycle, I use the term "interesting" loosely... 😛