What is a good percentage of acceptance rate?

[Student1222]

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If you go to AAMC website, you can find out the acceptance rate that is within your gpa and mcat range. What percentage would be considered a good acceptance rate?

Is anything above 50% a good chance?

 

[mimelim]

For people that don't know what we are talking about: https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/app...mcat-gpa-grid-by-selected-race-ethnicity.html

Depends on who you are. The application process is expensive. There is no line.

I would also caution you that statistics can be very misleading and the AAMC tables are no different. These are population statistics. They are NOT about individuals and they certainly do not confer any real relevant knowledge to applicants. At best, they give a ballpark about how competitive your academics are compared to the rest of the field. But, that is it and trying to read more into it is harmful. For example, if you have a 3.7/31, people with your stats last year go into medical school 64.7% of the time, but within that group there is tremendous variation. It isn't like all 3,885 applicants had a 64.7% chance of getting in and some got lucky and some didn't. There is some luck involved with medical school admissions, but when you have a chance to see it from the admissions committee side, you realize that it is relatively minimal. The whole, "chance" part goes out the window pretty fast when you apply to multiple schools and multiple people read your application. You realize that assuming people apply broadly and smart, there are a lot of people with 'average' or 'slightly below average' stats that get in 90%+ of the time and there are likewise people that get in <10% of the time. If you took a stack of 3.7/31 applications, after reading maybe 100 of them, you could divide them into three piles, the pretty sure they will get in somewhere, the maybe they will get lucky and the pretty sure they won't get in anywhere. That middle category is actually quite small. Could you do it perfectly? Absolutely not. But, reasonably high fidelity? Sure.

 

[Aubrey Graham]

I would not take those percentage points seriously as there is more to your app than just gpa and mcat...


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[Lucca]

Looking at MSAR ranges and school descriptions is most likely a better predictor of competitiveness for a particular school than the AAMC data. You may fall into the 85% acceptance category on the graph but if you apply to only the top 5 or some absurdly mission specific schools then chances are you won't get in much less than 85% of the time. The MSAR is worth the money.

 

[efle]

For people that don't know what we are talking about: https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/app...mcat-gpa-grid-by-selected-race-ethnicity.html

Depends on who you are. The application process is expensive. There is no line.

I would also caution you that statistics can be very misleading and the AAMC tables are no different. These are population statistics. They are NOT about individuals and they certainly do not confer any real relevant knowledge to applicants. At best, they give a ballpark about how competitive your academics are compared to the rest of the field. But, that is it and trying to read more into it is harmful. For example, if you have a 3.7/31, people with your stats last year go into medical school 64.7% of the time, but within that group there is tremendous variation. It isn't like all 3,885 applicants had a 64.7% chance of getting in and some got lucky and some didn't. There is some luck involved with medical school admissions, but when you have a chance to see it from the admissions committee side, you realize that it is relatively minimal. The whole, "chance" part goes out the window pretty fast when you apply to multiple schools and multiple people read your application. You realize that assuming people apply broadly and smart, there are a lot of people with 'average' or 'slightly below average' stats that get in 90%+ of the time and there are likewise people that get in <10% of the time. If you took a stack of 3.7/31 applications, after reading maybe 100 of them, you could divide them into three piles, the pretty sure they will get in somewhere, the maybe they will get lucky and the pretty sure they won't get in anywhere. That middle category is actually quite small. Could you do it perfectly? Absolutely not. But, reasonably high fidelity? Sure.

You could actually test this couldn't you? Divide 100 random apps to your school into piles of whatever (getting in at all, getting in to a Top 10, etc) and then check back at the end of the cycle and see how correct you were. Not that you have time for it. But it could be done!

 

[GrapesofRath]

There are several variables that influence these percentages tremendously.

1) GPA trends and SMPs: there are definitely a solid number of people in the sub 3.6 GPA range who had a rising upward trend(say 3.85+ work for 3 or more semesters) or who did really well in an SMP. These aren't accounted for in a simple calculation of GPA and MCAT calculations.
2) Age and Extracurriculars: Those who get in with low GPAs not only might have a good upward trend; there also is a good chance they didn't apply right out of college and took some time off and really boosted their app. Americorps, Clinical hospital positions, substantial research, these are the type of things that significantly influence an application and no chart will account for. You really think a 21 year old applying as a senior in college with a 3.4/33 has the same chances as a 25 yr old with a 3.4/33 who also has done 2 years of research since graduating and been in 2 papers, done a year of Americorps, and worked in a hospital as a EKG Tech for a year as well?
3) Picking a smart list of schools: On my limited time on SDN and in the number of people I know personally who've applied to med school it's kind of shocking to me how poorly chosen the schools are on a number of people's list. The number of poorly chosen lists is alot greater than I initially expected. One of my good friends with a 3.8/36 did not get in last cycle largely from applying to only 7 schools(all of which were in US News top 25 rankings---not that those rankings are particularly meaningful). People get awful advice from their advisors and what they hear. Go on the reapplicant page on this site for yourself and you'll see a number of reapplicants who on their first go around didn't apply to a smart list of schools. This is another huge variable and you can bet out of the 25% of people with a 3.8+ and 30-32 MCAT who didn't get into med school last cycle, there were definitely some that had poorly chosen top heavy lists.
4) Interviewing technique and ability: One thing common amongst reapplicants is there interviews didn't go well. Again go on the reapplicant forum on this page and you'll see alot of posts with people who had at least 3 interviews and often more and still didn't nab an acceptance. Another factor that isn't accounted for.

There are many other variables that can be included in here. I've often wondered whether these percentages are inflated or deflated and there are cases for both, perhaps more for them being inflated.

 

[cactus8910]

That's a completely meaningless question, because "good" is so subjective. A 50% chance is a 50% chance. Is it worth it to apply with those stats? Maybe. It depends on so much (ability to improve your application if given more time, resources to apply multiple times, something outside of stats that bumps your app significantly up or down, etc) that can't be generalized.

 

[GrapesofRath]

That's a completely meaningless question, because "good" is so subjective. A 50% chance is a 50% chance. Is it worth it to apply with those stats? Maybe. It depends on so much (ability to improve your application if given more time, resources to apply multiple times, something outside of stats that bumps your app significantly up or down, etc) that can't be generalized.

+1

 

[johnnytest]

There are too many factors in this process besides academics, i.e. AAMC Table 24.

1. Major/Undergrad Institution
2. Age
3.ECs
4. Student Fit: Your reason for medicine vs. Their mission statement, Student Body Fit
5. URM/disadvantaged/legacy/international status
6. Time of application submission
7. Quality of written entries (Activities, PS, Secondaries)
8. LORs
9. Application Reviewer
10. Interview Performance/Interviewers
11 Admissions Committee Meeting
12. Quality of Update letters, letter of intents, etc.
13. Your reason for going into medicine
14. State of Residence

You can expand this list based on what others have said. Granted, low GPA/MCAT are the first/main barriers applicants face from receiving an interview the above factors can drastically skew your "chances" in either direction.

 

[justadream]

Even if there were some formula that took into account all the factors, it is subjective what counts as a "good" acceptance rate.

For example, some people might consider even a 30% acceptance rate to be super high. Admission to top undergrad schools generally have acceptance rates < 10% so in comparison, 30% seems great!

I know I'm comparing different things but the point stands that how "good" an acceptance rate is is subjective.

Another example: If someone told me that the possibility of me winning a lottery f0r 100 million was 1%, I'd exclaim "Wow! That is SO high!!!!".

tl;dr: What counts as high is up to your own perception of risk tolerance.

 

[cactus8910]

There are too many factors in this process besides academics, i.e. AAMC Table 24.

1. Major/Undergrad Institution
2. Age
3.ECs
4. Student Fit: Your reason for medicine vs. Their mission statement, Student Body Fit
5. URM/disadvantaged/legacy/international status
6. Time of application submission
7. Quality of written entries (Activities, PS, Secondaries)
8. LORs
9. Application Reviewer
10. Interview Performance/Interviewers
11 Admissions Committee Meeting
12. Quality of Update letters, letter of intents, etc.
13. Your reason for going into medicine
14. State of Residence

You can expand this list based on what others have said. Granted, low GPA/MCAT are the first/main barriers applicants face from receiving an interview the above factors can drastically skew your "chances" in either direction.

+ Number and range of schools applied to

 

[Inventor of Post-Its]

If you really want a concrete number as to what a "good" chance is, look at the bottom right corner of the pdf linked here for the overall rate for your ethnicity. Anything higher than that is relatively good, anything lower than that is relatively bad.

 

[efle]

For example, some people might consider even a 30% acceptance rate to be super high. Admission to top undergrad schools generally have acceptance rates < 10% so in comparison, 30% seems great!

This analogy could sort of work, if you could stratify and see the % of people per each ACT range accepted to at least one of the top 15 or 20 uni's. But GPAs would carry far less weight and in addition to breaking data down by race you'd also have to add athletes and for some schools humanities majors (eg Hopkins and MIT are far easier to get in to if you have evidence you plan to study something underpopulated/non-STEM)

 

[NeuResurgens]

These do not factor in the applicant's background experience, which goes a long way to determine whether you'll fall into the group that gets an acceptance or the group that doesn't.