Proportion of Undergraduates that are Pre-Med?

[joponoda]

This question started to be debated on an unrelated thread, so I figured I would make it a thread of its own.

Here is a link to the tread where the discussion was started (somewhere around post 7 it starts):
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=564986


Also, here is my post from that thread to get things started here:

"Quote:
Originally Posted by choolMed
This one percent increase seems very low since there has been made awareness of md shortages across america. maybe it's the high tuition rate and accumpliation of debt that is a great test in deciding if this career is REALLY for you. B/c it doesnt seem too inticing compared to my friends making 100k+ after three years outside of college. But a piece of me would be missing not entering some sort of health care field and i love to learn as much detail as possible so i truly understand and medical school seems to give me that as well.

30,000 people that want to become medical doctors in America (more accurately, want to attend a US medical school) but we can assume to become doctors. According to the Census there are 14,375,764 college students in America. So 14,375,764 / 30,000 = 479 : 1 ratio describing number of students that are not planing to go to medical school in america to students applying to amcas. Out of a 480 person random group of college aged students there is 1 trying to make medical school. It doesnt mean that you will be accepted or attend a medical school it just says that you have tried by submitting an application and hopefully means you did all the steps in order to become a student (prereq science classes, lor, personal statement, let's not forget mcat study ha) .

Do you think this is correct? Is this what you guys thought? Is this surprising? Will anyone even read this and care? I guess that's the most pertinent question I should ask before I began haha."



First, that is the total number of undergrads, there are many more graduate students that apply to med school also.
Second, you are comparing the total number of college students to the number of application so far this year. So that 30,000 number does not include the 10,000 or so applicants that have not sumbitted yet, nor does it take into the number of people wishing to go into medicine but are still taking prereqs and won't apply this year.

I am not sure how the ratio will come out will all this is factored in, but my experience is that there are many more first year premeds than third year and so the actual ratio of total undergrad studnets to premed undergrad is probably around the 200:1 mark. So for a school with 40,000 undergrads they would be 200 premeds at various stages or ar a school with 10,000 undergrads there would be only 50 premeds at various stages. From information on SDN and from my experinece at my university I would say this is fairly conservative. Maybe the real ratio is 100:1. I don't really know, but one thing is for sure - anyone wanting to go to medical school has competition.

Wow, this turned into a long post...discuss.

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[Wylde]

aren't there something like 45,000 (give or take) applications to medical school each year?

Plus, all of the people that are pre-med (or want to be doctors) but will never apply because they are not competitive.

There is also a difference in the proportion of pre-meds in each institution. Some universities have many, many more pre-meds than others.

 

[Chemist0157]

I go to a small university that only has ~3,000 students. Only 2 of us are applying to medical school this year. I don't know of any who applied last year, and I only know of a couple who will apply in following years. Everyone wants to go into pharmacy around here...

 

[Lukkie]

98% of UCLA south campus is pre med

 

[DrYoda]

Here it definetly seems like a huge proportion of freshmen are premed, and then it drops off quickly after that.

Really, I think the number varies by school. Small liberal arts colleges may have very few premeds. While I would guess schools with big science/engineering programs tend to have more. Generally speaking that is.

 

[TehDoc]

Abundance of pre-meds in california.

 

[airplanes]

what I want to know is how many people take the MCAT each year...since the scoring is scaled, aren't there theoretically quite a few people who end up with scores lower than 20 and don't apply.
Edit: Also, we don't really know how many people have been out of school for a year or more before they apply and aren't in the undergrad/postbacc population.

 

[silverhorse84]

You have to break it down by years (Fr, So, Jr, Sr). At my school, we have a lot of Fr pre-meds, but by the time they get to their Sr year, about 90% of them aren't pre-med anymore. 🙄

 

[Leejwwc]

i think a lot of people initially express interest in going into medicine because it seems like an idyllic career only to switch paths later on for various reasons - lack of interest, lack of perseverance, poor grades, new interests, etc. in college, about 50% of my class expressed interest in medicine in a freshman year survey. about 10% have actually ended up applying. so there is a tremendous amount of "premed attrition."

 

[joponoda]

So,

There are 14,375,764 undergrads in the US census.

About 40,000 people apply to med schools each year. AAMC

Specific Examples: Numbers from here and wikipedia

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor:
Ugrad population - 25,555
Applicatant from institution in 2007 - 660
*Percent of U-grads that are premeds: 10.3%

West Virginia University
Ugrad population - 21,145
Applicants from university in 2007 - 113
*Percent of U-grads that are premeds: 2.1%

Yale University
Ugrad population - 5,316
Applicants from university in 2007 - 225
*Percent of U-grads that are premeds: 16.9%

*assuming that everyone that is premed eventually applies and everyone does their undergrad in 4 year, plus other assumptions that make an ass out of you and me. Feel free to point all of them out though.


Now to the real question: What percentage of undergrads are premed?

From the info above and the change in average MCAT scores between applied and taken, I would guess about:
1.1% of seniors
2% of juniors
20% of sophomores
50% of freshman 😀

For an average of 18 percent of all undergrads = a lot of competition

Anyone know of another profession this competitive? Law, maybe?

Discuss...

 

[jtimmer1]

I go to a generally large school (~23,000). I don't know the actual number of pre-meds, but I have some statistics from a professor, who I think was just trying to scare people, they are as follows: He stated that only 1.9 percent of students that apply from our school gets into medical school, I later found that this number was skewed.

In reality, ~65 students applied to medical school, if I recall correctly, 15 got in. That is ~23 percent.

My professor supposedly was saying out of the FRESHMAN that took his general Biology class, which is the major level biology class, how many got into medical school. This wasnt taking into account the people who didnt apply, pursued other careers, or changed majors. My calculations concluded that ~800 took his general biology class their freshman year, most of which were pre-med, obviously.

This is from a public university in North Carolina, not notoriously known for having pre-med students. So ~800 premeds is quite a large number.

 

[xrevision]

You can't use: "There are 14,375,764 undergrads in the US census." and divide it by 30,000 to get a ratio.

Why?
Because #1 there are about 40000 applicants
And #2 because 14,375,764 includes EVERY undergrad, Fr, So, Jr, Sr...etc.

 

[xrevision]

Not to mention all of the non-trad applicants and such.

 

[link2swim06]

So,

There are 14,375,764 undergrads in the US census.

About 40,000 people apply to med schools each year. AAMC

Specific Examples: Numbers from here and wikipedia

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor:
Ugrad population - 25,555
Applicatant from institution in 2007 - 660
*Percent of U-grads that are premeds: 10.3%

West Virginia University
Ugrad population - 21,145
Applicants from university in 2007 - 113
*Percent of U-grads that are premeds: 2.1%

Yale University
Ugrad population - 5,316
Applicants from university in 2007 - 225
*Percent of U-grads that are premeds: 16.9%

*assuming that everyone that is premed eventually applies and everyone does their undergrad in 4 year, plus other assumptions that make an ass out of you and me. Feel free to point all of them out though.


Now to the real question: What percentage of undergrads are premed?

From the info above and the change in average MCAT scores between applied and taken, I would guess about:
1.1% of seniors
2% of juniors
20% of sophomores
50% of freshman 😀

For an average of 18 percent of all undergrads = a lot of competition

Anyone know of another profession this competitive? Law, maybe?

Discuss...

I don't think law is that competitive at all unless you are talking about top law programs (ex. Harvard, Yale). I know somebody with 2.5 GPA who dropped premed and went to law school. My understanding is there is more law schools than med schools and therefore it is easier to get in.

 

[Wylde]

You have to break it down by years (Fr, So, Jr, Sr). At my school, we have a lot of Fr pre-meds, but by the time they get to their Sr year, about 90% of them aren't pre-med anymore. 🙄

the huge proportion of freshmen premeds (compared to so, jr, sr) might not be because they cannot "hack it" after a few classes.

A lot of people go into college without a real idea what they want for a career (as it should be, there are so many things you don't know before college) and I think a lot of people sign-up as pre-med because they hear all of the positives about being a doctor in our society, but they don't know what other careers are out there. When people research other careers, they realize where their interests lie and switch from pre-med.

of course, a lot of people dont have competitive gpas as well.

edit: as far as competitive programs go. I think that applying to top 10 schools in most fields (dentistry, MBA, phds, law) is going to be just as competitive, or more competitive, as getting into a US allopathic medical school.

 

[silverhorse84]

the huge proportion of freshmen premeds (compared to so, jr, sr) might not be because they cannot "hack it" after a few classes.

I didn't mean to imply that they couldn't hack it or anything. I just think that there are a lot of people who think they want to be a physician, and then when they start getting clinical experience they realize it's not what they thought it was or that it's just not for them. There's nothing wrong with that 🙂 I could have easily been one of those people, but so far nothing has seriously turned me off from wanted to be a physician...

 

[Wylde]

I didn't mean to imply that they couldn't hack it or anything. I just think that there are a lot of people who think they want to be a physician, and then when they start getting clinical experience they realize it's not what they thought it was or that it's just not for them. There's nothing wrong with that 🙂 I could have easily been one of those people, but so far nothing has seriously turned me off from wanted to be a physician...

sorry! I just randomly quoted your post to jump-start my opinion on why I think there are a lot of pre-meds. I probably should not have quoted your post... I was just skimming through and decided to hit "quote". hehe.

 

[silverhorse84]

Haha, ok, no worries. I just didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about my post. 😛

 

[NonTradMed]

1200 students per class in our school. 300 apply. 90% get in. So about a quarter of our class go directly from med school. However, that does not include those that delay their application by a year or two (of which I knew quite a few). Our school is pretty big on the sciences and tend to attract a large number of premed (among other 'pre-' students).

I believe this nation only sees something like 10% of people with graduate degrees....so I'm going to go on a limb here and assume that most people aren't even premed to begin with in college, and those that are tend to drop out very quickly. I think only a few schools have a substantial number of serious premeds. But those schools tend to send a disproportionate number of premeds into med school.

 

[Insulinshock]

Im incredibly surprised at how peaceful this thread has thus turned out. Anywhoo, at my school there are a lot of premeds, but i would say for every ten times i hear a person say they're premed, only 1 has a gpa above a 3.4.

No knock on them, Im just throwin it out there...