What are the chances with sooo many applicants???

[JRockdown]

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I have been hearing a lot of talk about this year being especially rich with applications. I decided to do some exploring statistics wise to look into how this might affect our application year. (Now that all my seconds are in, what else am I suppose to do 🙂 ).

First off, some assumptions. I took that matriculants this year would grow by the average rate over the past 6 years. (Arbitrary maybe, but it was the start of the long growth stint, where previously matriculants was fairly stable.) The numbers look like this...

2000.....2001.....2002.....2003.....2004.....2005.....Proj.
16,301 16,365...16,488..16,541...16,648..17,004..17,139

Next Assumption is how to tell total applicants for this year vs prior year. The available data I can see being relavant is the MCAT takers. So here is where it splits into two analysis with two different answers. First assuming that the increase in MCAT takers would approximately mirror the increase in applicants (Meth.1) and second some portion of the increase in MCAT takers would make up for applicant increase (Meth.2). In the second scenario I averaged the percent change in applicants relative to the percent change in MCAT takers over the past 3 years. The result being that for every additional MCAT taker there are 0.633 more applicants. (Inevitably this allready makes more sense based on re-taking MCAT, Drop Out, etc, but for sake of testing we will move onward with the two.)

So with all that out of the way here is how our projected chances pan out in a year with apparently tons of applications!!

........................2004.....2005.....2006......2006
..............................................Meth.1...Meth.2
MCAT Takers.....61,973...66,433...70,901...70,901
Applicants.........35,735...37,364...39,877...38,956
Matriculants......16,648...17,004...17,139...17,139
Acc. Rate.........46.59%..45.51%..42.98%..44.00%

All in all statistical intuition should tell us that even in this simple analysis Method 2 is more accurate and it looks like if you are applying you should have about a 44% chance of getting a white coat. All in all fairly easy to see it is becoming harder to get in, based on increased application without compensating growth in the medical school class size. Interesting considering there is a shortage of doctors, but that is another story.

Anyway, best of luck to all the SDNers hope you are in the 44% for next year (if you agree with my assumptions).

 

[braluk]

From AAMC's 2006/2007 book (from a spreadsheet my premed committee provided for us that transcribed the entire book onto spreadsheet)

I have 16555 matriculants/412802 applications (n=124)
which roughly averages around a 4% acceptance rate across the boards

If you think about it, the average acceptance rate for most schools is 5-10%. If you average all those percentages, I dont see how you could possibly get 44% out of that. Not to mention in-state schools and private schools.
I'll provde you with those statistics too

Private schools:
6667 Matriculants/247228 Applications (n=50)
which equates to approximately 3%. Of course, this doesn't account for multple applications to different schools (i dont have those figures on my spreadsheet) but I'm going to assume that one application will equal one applicant seeing that there's no guarantee (although there is a correlation) that if one application is accepted, another is set to follow suit. I consider an individual application an independent variable to represent one applicant.

Of course my statistics may be completely off, which would be extremely nice if it was, but I think 44% may be a bit too optimistic

 

[hp540]

From AAMC's 2006/2007 book (from a spreadsheet my premed committee provided for us that transcribed the entire book onto spreadsheet)

I have 16555 matriculants/412802 applications (n=124)
which roughly averages around a 4% acceptance rate across the boards

If you think about it, the average acceptance rate for most schools is 5-10%. If you average all those percentages, I dont see how you could possibly get 44% out of that. Not to mention in-state schools and private schools.
I'll provde you with those statistics too

Private schools:
6667 Matriculants/247228 Applications (n=50)
which equates to approximately 3%. Of course, this doesn't account for multple applications to different schools (i dont have those figures on my spreadsheet) but I'm going to assume that one application will equal one applicant seeing that there's no guarantee (although there is a correlation) that if one application is accepted, another is set to follow suit. I consider an individual application an independent variable to represent one applicant.

Of course my statistics may be completely off, which would be extremely nice if it was, but I think 44% may be a bit too optimistic

Applications != #of applicants.

Most people send off more than one application. Crazy ones here send off like 20.

 

[JRockdown]

Yes, mine is based on a person as a unit not an application. The numbers are very different if you do it based on applications not applicants. Sorry for any confusion.

So to sum, yes your stats are off, think of the average number of applications per person being around 11 or 12....4% chance per application (probability is additive) which gives each person about a 44% chance 🙂.

Good thought problem.

 

[LizzyM]

In any given year 44% of all applicants are going to end up matriculating at a medical school in the following year.

An applicant to a specific medical school would have a 3-4% chance of matriculating at that school if the selection process were random and if the applicant were obligated to attend if offered admission. (e.g. 3,000 applications to fill 120 seats with each offer filling one seat).

However, selection is not random (despite the way it may feel), one is not obligated to attend the school that makes an offer (you can choose from among multiple offers) and schools make 2, 3 or even 4 offers for every seat available (so 120 seats may translate to 400 or more offers). So, 3,000 applications may result in 400 offers thus increasing the probability of getting an offer of admission -- if it were random, which it is not.

If your stats are above average for the schools to which you have applied, and if you interview well, I suspect that the likelihood of being admitted to at least one school is closer to 85% and can approach 100% for outstanding applicants (MCAT>10 in each area, gpa >3.69) who apply to at least 8 schools (of course, applying wisely rather than trying to be admitted to schools that do not entertain appies from OOS applicants).

On a population basis, those with gpa's <3.3 who have MCATs<26 are going to have a likelihood of being admitted to med school of far less than 44%.

This is like talking about prognosis. We can talk about likelihood for a population but really matters is your individual case -- either you get in or you don't.