Only 7% Premed Freshmen Matriculate into Med School?

[fluk77]

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According to the reddit post below, only 7% premed at freshman year eventually matriculates into a medical school. This is discouraging and hard to believe. I normally think for 45% success rate for all applicants, the reasonable expectation for freshmen successful rate would be in the range of 20-30%? Is the 7% rate too low? The 7% rate is really discouraging.

 

[WildWing]

We published an article about four years ago that looked at this - the study we reviewed found that about 16.5% of students who said that they were pre-med when they took the SAT ended up going to medical school:

Premed Milestones: Where Students Leave the Path | Student Doctor Network | SDN

These are some academic premed milestones that are important to be aware of as a premed. What are your thoughts?

www.studentdoctor.net

It breaks down where people fall off the path, which is most commonly the first semester of core sciences: biology, chemistry, or physics.

So the 7% rate doesn't seem too far off. It's a competitive process.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

It is a fallacy to presume every college freshman is optimally prepared for science prerequisite courses or the way those courses are organized, graded, and curated. It is also a fallacy to assume that the only successful life goal is matriculating to medical school.

Let me also tell you about the proportion of PhD's who get tenure-track academia positions...

 

[fluk77]

We published an article about four years ago that looked at this - the study we reviewed found that about 16.5% of students who said that they were pre-med when they took the SAT ended up going to medical school:

Premed Milestones: Where Students Leave the Path | Student Doctor Network | SDN

These are some academic premed milestones that are important to be aware of as a premed. What are your thoughts?

www.studentdoctor.net

It breaks down where people fall off the path, which is most commonly the first semester of core sciences: biology, chemistry, or physics.

So the 7% rate doesn't seem too far off. It's a competitive process.

The research that you referred to in the article is the same for the reddit post, only 16.5% claimed premed finished pre-reqs. Then only about 40% applicants (assume all students finished pre-req would apply to med school) matriculate. 16.5% * 40% = 7%.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I should also point out that disaggregating data would be very useful. The last rules of thumb still suggest that about half of all freshmen who start a STEM degree earn one. There's also the data that says about half of all incoming medical students (AAMC survey, so MD programs) come from the top quintile (20%) of family incomes. Where the 7% come from is important. I also want to make sure how gap year/non-trad applicants count in the calculation.

 

[polymerization]

Discouraging, indeed.

But, 20-30% according to what? What would be easiest is to imagine that, at your school, amongst your peers, 20-30% of those people will be successful, and that's still not possible mathematically. Many schools have enormous classes.

At UCLA alone, the freshman pre-med cohort could fill up every medical school seat in California and then some. Getting 20-30% of all CA schools' freshman pre-meds matriculated would probably exhaust several states' worth in seats, and it's particularly stark because CA students are particularly competitive, which matters.

For instance, the freshman class at Brown's PLME probably significantly exceed the odds of graduating with an MD in comparison to the class at Scenic Nowhere Community College. I say that as a former student of Scenic Nowhere Community College and a current student at Prestigious Global University. The differences are a$tounding.

Opportunities are different. Academic quality is different. So of course whatever tiny percentage estimation of students who actually become doctors would probably still be an understatement, because those matriculating students would still be unfairly distributed.

Unfortunately there are just too many qualified students, period. Selection has to happen somehow. The recent popularity of medical dramas over the last several years, economic uncertainty, and the higher Maslowian need for meaning and purpose over simple survival employment have made medicine unusually attractive.

And once a goal is elevated to a reason for being, the destination becomes sort of secondary. We are seeing medical students in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. This would really complicate any statistics down the line because how do you compare a 30-year career to 250 hours handing out cans of corn?

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk. It's really difficult, probably more difficult than it seems to an outsider. It is encouraging to imagine this is just about getting grades and moving on, but that's far from the truth.

 

[Goro]

There's a reason why Organic Chemistry is know as THE weeding course.

 

[unumsolum]

a lot of the 93% aren't even "weeded out" per se, but they realize that MD is not the best way to achieve their goals. They end up doing PA, PhD, public health, etc.

 

[VasuRulez]

I'm not surprised. Most people I know who were premed first year have changed majors

 

[Isoval]

This is a wholly unsurprising statistic and I arrived at a number around this when trying to go based on my own experience.

A vast majority of people can’t cut it in the prerequisite classes. Whether your school weeds out in General Chemistry, Biology, etc, every school has difficult science classes that weed out a ton of people.

When I was in college, we had about 1300 people in General Chemistry 1 across all sections of whom about 90% (based on a class survey) were pre-med. We had about 700 people in Organic Chemistry 1 across all sections, and this went down to a single section of about 350 people for Biochemistry 1 as a junior. This already is down to about 25% of those who claimed interest as a freshman.

Then, we have the MCAT and actually applying combined with an acceptance rate of around 35-40% for all applicants to any school.

It’s a long process and, just as people literally cannot cut it from an academic standpoint, there are also many who decided that maybe medicine was not their calling after all.

This is essentially an “all-cause” pre-med dropout rate. Many dropped out because they couldn’t do it, but you should also consider that many are dropping out because they no longer had the desire to continue or found something else they loved during college.

Statistics are just statistics and you are you. The fact that 50% of people score under a 500 on the MCAT means nothing to you if you appropriately prepare, for example. Don’t pay attention to meaningless statistics and do your best.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I think this is part of what seems like a generational discourse of transactional thinking. What is the ROI if I become a "premed"? The search for "guaranteed" interviews and offers through direct admission or articulation agreements stems from that concern. Numbers like these feed "the algorithm" and provide emotional shock value, the same way old shock jocks on radio and TV did to get attention.

 

[astrophage]

I agree with everything above. The statistic on pre-meds who actually make it is quite low, but I would wager it's more because people find other passions than because they can't hack it in the pre-med track. I was in a class of 100 chemical engineers, surrounded by engineers from different sub-specialties (mechanical, electrical, etc.). I have no doubt in my mind that any one of those has the intellectual capability to hack it in the pre-med classes, which, if we are being honest with ourselves, are not much more than repeated practice and memorization that build on each other. The pre-med classes are actually quite simple if you have the appropriate study methods and discipline. I think this is where passion comes in, though, as discipline requires an engine behind it, a reason to be so. I think that's why many people do poorly in these classes and drop out or find another avenue they are passionate about.

 

[IlDestriero]

I would think it’s even less. I went to a fancy private university and half the freshmen I knew were “premed”. Then the weed out courses did what they do, and the university did what it does (mostly chew you up and spit you out) and then there were (almost) none left.
Having said that, many of those “washouts” were very bright and electively pivoted into other fields and went on to stunning success in many industries. That’s one of the goals of a successful college experience, explore as many areas of interest as you can, consider careers you never considered before, try new things, take chances, etc.
I almost washed myself out. I’ve had a great career as a specialist, made a great income, had a real impact on patients and trainees, but medicine was the safe and easy path. I went in planning to study physics and to get a PhD in cosmology or astrophysics. I will always wonder, “what if”. The 90’s to today were the golden age of cosmology. Computers transformed theory and thought exercises into a real science, and I was at that nexus.
I still follow astrophysics and cosmology. It’s an interesting, and pretty uncommon, hobby. I think that’s why I follow ancient history as well. There’s so much still unknown, and perhaps unknowable, right here in our own backyard.

 

[eigen]

I'm late to this, but I think the panic underestimates how little most freshman know about career paths.

For a huge number of incoming college students "being a doctor" is something that makes their family happy, that has brought congratulations from peers, and is a career with a known stability. No matter where you are in the US, you've probably seen a doctor as a possible job. Lawyer is similar.

Then they get exposed to other possible careers that are less ubiquitous, and find something they're happy with.

The assumption is that it's "weed out" courses and lack of success- that's part of it, in my experience, but only a small part. I have far more students who have fine grades in the courses but realize they don't like the profession through shadowing or clinical experience, or who find another passion.

 

[WildWing]

I'm late to this, but I think the panic underestimates how little most freshman know about career paths.

For a huge number of incoming college students "being a doctor" is something that makes their family happy, that has brought congratulations from peers, and is a career with a known stability. No matter where you are in the US, you've probably seen a doctor as a possible job. Lawyer is similar.

Then they get exposed to other possible careers that are less ubiquitous, and find something they're happy with.

The assumption is that it's "weed out" courses and lack of success- that's part of it, in my experience, but only a small part. I have far more students who have fine grades in the courses but realize they don't like the profession through shadowing or clinical experience, or who find another passion.

Agreed. The study referenced in the article looked at students who did not complete the full prerequisite coursework set and how many stopped pursing the prereqs at different course levels over the course of their four years. It did not look at the reasons why people chose not to complete the prereqs.