New AAMC Data on Medical School Applicants and Enrollment in 2024

[LindaAccepted]

The New AAMC fact tables are out.

New AAMC Data on Medical School Applicants and Enrollment in 2024

New AAMC data on applicants, matriculants, and enrollment for 2024-2025

www.aamc.org

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[LizzyM]

• The 2024 entering class demonstrated a strong commitment to service. Matriculants cumulatively performed over 16.4 million community service hours, an average of 709 hours per student.

This is where an average (mean) is completely useless. Far better to have given us a median as I expect that the data are skewed to the left with a long tail.

 

[Moko]

• The 2024 entering class demonstrated a strong commitment to service. Matriculants cumulatively performed over 16.4 million community service hours, an average of 709 hours per student.

This is where an average (mean) is completely useless. Far better to have given us a median as I expect that the data are skewed to the left with a long tail.

I also wonder how many of these hours were projected (and ultimately not performed).

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Too much data, here's the press release

Medical school enrollment reaches a new high

New data from AAMC show mixed trends, as applicant numbers fall. COVID might have played a role.

www.aamc.org

 

[Mr.Smile12]

• The 2024 entering class demonstrated a strong commitment to service. Matriculants cumulatively performed over 16.4 million community service hours, an average of 709 hours per student.

This is where an average (mean) is completely useless. Far better to have given us a median as I expect that the data are skewed to the left with a long tail.

Those of us who have plotted this data know. 🙂 It befuddled me why we aren't asked for medians and interquartile ranges like they want us to provide 10-90%ile GPAs and MCATs. (I blame Excel.)

 

[Faha]

The decline in matriculants from minority communities is dramatic and will eventually, over years, affect access to medical care in those communities.
Black matriculants-1,627 of which 1,300 matriculated to non HBCU schools. 7% of matriculants versus 14% of the population.
2124 matriculated in 2021 so a 23% decline.
Hispanic matriculants- 1,357 of which 1,000 matriculated to schools on the mainland (excluding Puerto Rico). 6% of matriculants versus 19% of the population. 1,575 matriculated in 2021 so a 14% decline.
38,600 1st time applicants. There are also an estimated 5,000+ 1st time applicants to DO schools that do not apply to MD schools so an estimated 44,000 1st time applicants for both MD and DO schools.
There were 23,156 1st year matriculants to MD schools and almost 10,000 to DO schools. Approximately 33,000 total so the chances for a 1st time applicant to eventually matriculate to a MD school or DO school is 75%. There are another 8 MD schools applying for accreditation and at least that many for DO schools. By the end of this decade the eventual acceptance rate for 1st time applicants will be 80%. Will the quality of medical students decline also ?

 

[AJS59]

The decline in matriculants from minority communities is dramatic and will eventually, over years, affect access to medical care in those communities.
Black matriculants-1,627 of which 1,300 matriculated to non HBCU schools. 7% of matriculants versus 14% of the population.
2124 matriculated in 2021 so a 23% decline.
Hispanic matriculants- 1,357 of which 1,000 matriculated to schools on the mainland (excluding Puerto Rico). 6% of matriculants versus 19% of the population. 1,575 matriculated in 2021 so a 14% decline.
38,600 1st time applicants. There are also an estimated 5,000+ 1st time applicants to DO schools that do not apply to MD schools so an estimated 44,000 1st time applicants for both MD and DO schools.
There were 23,156 1st year matriculants to MD schools and almost 10,000 to DO schools. Approximately 33,000 total so the chances for a 1st time applicant to eventually matriculate to a MD school or DO school is 75%. There are another 8 MD schools applying for accreditation and at least that many for DO schools. By the end of this decade the eventual acceptance rate for 1st time applicants will be 80%. Will the quality of medical students decline also ?

Might be interesting to see how that affects match rates

 

[AJS59]

as in how the same cause that caused these changes affect match rates or 4 years down the line when these ms1s get there?

More like the downstream effect conceptually — I was looking more at what Faha said about the expected increase in med schools. Essentially the question is what happens when you raise supply on one end (med schools and therefore med students in general) but don't really increase demand on the other end (residency spots in different specialties). Not sure if that means the number of applicants to the competitive specialties and programs increase (thereby driving down match rates), or, more likely, more and more US MD and DO students end up self-selecting for community IM/FM or other less competitive specialities and programs.

Related to what Faha said, it might interesting to see how metrics of med student success (retention, first time Step 1 pass rates, scores on Step 2, etc.) end up varying over time as the apparent acceptance rate increases.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Medical schools report steep drop in enrollment of Black and Hispanic students after Supreme Court ruling

Enrollment of Black and Hispanic students in medical schools dropped precipitously last year after the Supreme Court banned the consideration of race in admissions.

www.statnews.com

 

[AJS59]

im a noob but guessing the latter. my personal theory based on last 2 weeks of research is that this is all trending towards law school admissions. especially as things become so p/f oriented and the waters become murky. prestige is becoming king.

Likely true, yeah. Hopefully NBME doesn't get rid of the 1 last great equalizer (scored Step 2), otherwise I'm not really sure if it'll ever be possible to differentiate applicants.

 

[blue_muse47]

So increasing the average MCAT for black matriculants by 1 point decreased in enrollment by 11.6%. Wow but I have seen a discourse in URMs talking more about DO schools bc they truly believe in holistic applications

 

[Faha]

So increasing the average MCAT for black matriculants by 1 point decreased in enrollment by 11.6%. Wow but I have seen a discourse in URMs talking more about DO schools bc they truly believe in holistic applications

There are 700 fewer Black and Hispanic applicants that matriculated to MD schools in 2024 compared to 2021. Almost all of them could receive a DO acceptance if they apply to DO schools. For some, it may be a newer DO school. Those who attend a DO school will be more likely to match in a primary care specialty and the greatest shortage of primary care physicians is in minority community neighborhoods.

 

[Faha]

is it from lower tier med schools no longer practicing AA / following the SC to pump stat medians up? asking objectively don't want to get into philosophy war

I do not know. However, most of those not accepted to a MD school should be able to receive a DO acceptance.

 

[blue_muse47]

There are 700 fewer Black and Hispanic applicants that matriculated to MD schools in 2024 compared to 2021. Almost all of them could receive a DO acceptance if they apply to DO schools. For some, it may be a newer DO school. Those who attend a DO school will be more likely to match in a primary care specialty and the greatest shortage of primary care physicians is in minority community neighborhoods.

That’s true URM applicants who can’t meet the threshold MCAT for MD schools should look into DO bc they can still do primary care from DO schools. Most URM med students match into primary anyway?

But I think the main goal of this is to make the MCAT average 510+ for all groups of people. URMs looking to get into MD schools should aim for a 510 instead of 505

 

[blue_muse47]

I think I know what it is and tell me if I'm wrong - they can't find the URM's as much as they could back then.

what do I mean - back then, if one is URM, you check the box, it goes through the auto-filter, and boom auto detected. now, they have to scan through essays. for URM applicants that don't know they need to write about their "past experiences" or whatever the term is in essays, screeners/readers/adcoms don't know whether the applicant is white/asian/black/etc. especially since at least for African American names it's not always easy to distinguish just from a name like it is for asian names. could have a John Smith and nobody could 100% guess whether white or African American or what not.

so you see the percents drop since the applicants don't know to indicate or write about their life experiences or whatnot in essays, and maybe their ec's don't specifically work with those populations.

just my 2c and could be totally off mark - just that I don't see schools switching their mission in 1 year (would require switching a ton of faculty and their personal missions etc which takes years)

I think it’s bad advice to tell URMs to not talk about their stories in fact it seems like you literally need to write “as a black man etc” so that they know ur URM. I have seen comments from adcoms on reddit saying how they struggled to tell URM vs ORM. Our stories and identities matter and you have to make it very clear on apps.

I have seen bad advice for URMs circulating social media. Like telling us not to share our stories because it’s “cringy and overused”. But clearly it is a huge factor since u can’t check off race

 

[deleted1199414]

I think it’s bad advice to tell URMs to not talk about their stories in fact it seems like you literally need to write “as a black man etc” so that they know ur URM. I have seen comments from adcoms on reddit saying how they struggled to tell URM vs ORM. Our stories and identities matter and you have to make it very clear on apps.

I have seen bad advice for URMs circulating social media. Like telling us not to share our stories because it’s “cringy and overused”. But clearly it is a huge factor since u can’t check off race

yep exactly. idk if mentorship programs or whatnot exist but if they do they need to go hard on essay/application game discussions.

bc the stats showed the number of urm applicants increased. they're just not making it through the filters/game