What percentage of Pre Meds go on to become a Doctor?

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What Percentage of Freshmen "Pre Meds" do you think eventually become Doctors?

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Govols22

Govols22

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Is there any statistical data showing what percentage of students who label themselves "Pre Med" as a freshmen actually go on to become a doctor? Simply Curious. What do you guys think?
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Hmm, I would say definitely not most. It'd be interesting to know some numbers.
 
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Consider that only ~40-50% of applicants get accepted into medical school. Then think about how many of those freshmen premeds will even get to the application stage (having to survive gen chem, o-chem, physics, and other "weeding courses," then the MCAT, etc.). The final number of freshman premeds that become doctors has to be less than 20% for sure.
 
At top schools it's about 20%. You'll have in a class of maybe 1600 about 600-700 declare some kind of interest in being pre-med entering college. Only 200 actually end up applying to medical school. Probably 125-150 get accepted. So you do the math there 140/640

At lower schools where the quality of students is lower I'd expect this number to be lower. At top schools many people aren't necessairly "weeded out" due to lack of ability, its often due to changing interest or realizing medicine isn't what it appears to be. At your classic State U, you'll still have this as well as hoard and hoards of pre-meds who simply aren't cut out for it and don't have the chops for it.
 
I bet if you looked at every student who at some point has said they're gonna be pre med (regardless of even enrolling in any of the prereqs) it's probably <5%.

If you were to look at people who actually signed up to take at least 1 pre-req then got discouraged...maybe 20%?

At My UG (which Is one of the most pre-medical in the U.S.), the professor on the first day of freshman gen chem said "1 in 3 students at ____ university will start out premed. 1 in 10 will be accepted to med school. It is my job to find the 1/10 in that 1/3."
 
I would probably say less than 20%.

Like someone said, half of the people who stick with "pre-med" throughout college don't get into med school. Then the percentage that change their major/area of focus at some point during college is likely well above 50% also. Of the 20 or so people I remember from HS who were "pre-med" I know of 2 others who are now in med school.
 
In my graduating class, we had a total of ~120 students enrolled for 4 gen chem classes during our 1st year. This included bio, biochem, chem, and health science majors, and probably ~70% of those were pre-med or thinking of doing pre-med. By senior year, only three people ended up applying to medical school and all got in. I know of a handful of people who were going to work for a year or 2 or get a master, and then were going to apply, though I dunno how things worked out for them. A large majority of those 120 actually ended up switching to a major wasn't mentioned above. There were probably only ~25 bio/biochem/chem/health science majors left from those 120.
 
At my school we were told it's 8% of freshmen pre-meds that make it to medical school
 
What determines a pre-med is the question. We all had those oblivious people in our chem 1 class that wanted to be a doctor then next semester they were communication majors. So <<<20% if you include them but only including those that have completed all prereqs 20-40
 
Govols22 said:
Is there any statistical data showing what percentage of students who label themselves "Pre Med" as a freshmen actually go on to become a doctor? Simply Curious. What do you guys think?
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DO2015CA said:
What determines a pre-med is the question. We all had those oblivious people in our chem 1 class that wanted to be a doctor then next semester they were communication majors. So <<<20% if you include them but only including those that have completed all prereqs 20-40
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For the sake of discussion, let's consider any freshman that has ever said the words "I want to be a doctor" or "I'm pre-med"
 
Govols22 said:
Is there any statistical data showing what percentage of students who label themselves "Pre Med" as a freshmen actually go on to become a doctor? Simply Curious. What do you guys think?
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Lawper said:
Credit to James Chang and KevinMD for nicely summarizing SDN in a nutshell

bUimSh8.jpg
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About 10%
 
At my university that I used to attend (2nd largest in the country) my O-chem class had about 400 students. By the time finals rolled around it had about 150 and most were passing with a C. Make of that what you will.
 
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its probably impossible to measure since attrition is so high and pretty much every freshman at my State University came in as self declared premeds or prebusiness types. Most aren't either of the two anymore.
 
Everyone is premed the first week of college. Literally everyone...... So 3% sounds about right
 
DrHalsey said:
At my university that I used to attend (2nd largest in the country) my O-chem class had about 400 students. By the time finals rolled around it had about 150 and most were passing with a C. Make of that what you will.
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Many of the people that started my pre-med course sequence with me didn't make it far enough to sit in an O-chem lecture hall. And as that year went on, more and more vanished.
 
The Knife & Gun Club said:
At My UG (which Is one of the most pre-medical in the U.S.), the professor on the first day of freshman gen chem said "1 in 3 students at ____ university will start out premed. 1 in 10 will be accepted to med school. It is my job to find the 1/10 in that 1/3."
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His/her job is to teach chemistry not act as a pre-medical sieve. I almost called them pretentious, but after thinking about it the statement is more self-degrading than anything else.
 
efle said:
I'd be interested to hear how many people make it to the MCAT with a high GPA and then can't crack 30+/what they need to be competitive, as opposed to getting weeded out in prereqs much sooner
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Where I did my post-bacc (really just second degree) a lot of the chemistry department hated pre-meds and revered all research. Out of my class and the one above me, three of us applied. One kid screwed his app up so bad last year (Had like a sub 30 with maybe 3.5), applied in September, got IIs to a couple of VA schools, then DECLINED them because they weren't up to his par (wanted to go to Dartmouth / Brown) Another one went to the Carib and I'm pretty sure is failing out.
 
breezy16 said:
Where I did my post-bacc (really just second degree) a lot of the chemistry department hated pre-meds and revered all research. Out of my class and the one above me, three of us applied. One kid screwed his app up so bad last year (Had like a sub 30 with maybe 3.5), applied in September, got IIs to a couple of VA schools, then DECLINED them because they weren't up to his par (wanted to go to Dartmouth / Brown) Another one went to the Carib and I'm pretty sure is failing out.
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😱
 
90% of the freshman from my program (~1500 people) raised their hands when our first year bio prof asked who wants to be a doctor. He then told us about 5% of us will ultimately get in. When I graduated, not a single person I knew got into med school, and most didn't even apply. I've graduated for 2 years now so I'm sure at least a couple eventually made it in, or will get in later. But given what I've experienced in the 6 years since I was a freshman, I know that 5% is quite accurate.

EDIT: I just did a google search on the 5 people I knew back in first year whom I thought were the most likely to get into med, and none of them got in. In fact, all of them are working in research now. WOW...
 
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iforget2 said:
At my school we were told it's 8% of freshmen pre-meds that make it to medical school
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That is probably true for most schools, particularly for the schools that are below "elite tier."

I don't think that there are any stats that accurately track this because premed isn't a major at 99% of schools. In many cases, premeds don't even have to let their schools know that they are premed.

Imagine all the premeds that start out freshman year as whatever majors, take Bio I and Gen Chem I, do poorly and then move on to another career goal. Who would be tracking that?
 
I had a class with about 35 people my freshman year in which literally everybody was pre-med. This was an Honors course too, so you would expect the pre-meds in this class to have a bit more success than the typical pre-med.


4 of us made it into medical school.
 
bunchesonothing said:
Many of the people that started my pre-med course sequence with me didn't make it far enough to sit in an O-chem lecture hall. And as that year went on, more and more vanished.
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O-Chem aint no cake-walk. The learning curve is huge, it will put most biology classes to shame (except biochemistry which is in a league of its own). I was one of those students with a C and it was with a curve! I learned alot but still could not ace this ladies tests which by her own admittance were purposely made hard. I did O-chem 2 at my local state college with HAND-WRITTEN exams where we had to write out entire reactions from scratch and still walked out with a B.
 
At my school 80% of freshman premeds will never apply to medical school. And our acceptance rate is right around national average. So about 8% make it to med school
 
if you count all the D.O. schools also, there should be >60% acceptance each year
 
At my big state undergrad, I was in an advanced biology track that was pretty much made up of all pre-medical students. Surprisingly enough, from self-reported stats that students give back to the program (it's only about 100 students per class, you have to apply to get in), about 30-40% actually go on to medical school, which, compared to what people have been reporting here is pretty high.
 
These stats just goes to show that even getting interview invites means we have gone further than 90 percent of the pre meds. Although we are worried about getting in, myself included, we should be proud that medical schools have taken interests in our files. SDN tends to make it look like everyone has perfect scores, but the reality is that a very small portion of pre meds end up with competitive stats and resumes for medical school.
 
purely from personal experience, in my undergrad we had a pre-med orientation freshman year there was probably a few hundred in attendance. Senior year it was probably down <40 and of us I only know a few others that were actually accepted. Admittingly I didnt keep up with allot of these kids so who knows but I remember freshman year almost every kid I met was going to be a doctor "where dey at doh" :shrug:
 
I don't think it's necessarily the pre reqs that weed people out, but more so the realization of what is demanded of both a pre med student and a medical student if they do make it past acceptance. Who doesn't want to be a smart doctor that saves peoples lives and makes a good salary? At one point they realize the actual process sucks and the fantasy of being a fancy surgeon is far from reality.
 
Honestly for the pre meds who quit because they think they're not good enough academically, I really believe a huge chunk would have good shot at DO. With a 3.3 or above (not to mention grade replacement) and >24 mcat they would have a great shot at all the shady new DO schools. But most of them probably were fantasizing about being neurosurgeons with the fancy MD title behind their names...
 
That first semester in General Chemistry as a freshmen is an odd experience. When you realize approximately 200 people out of your class of 215 people raised their hand when asked if they wanted to go to med school, one could only think...
"Alright guys.... We can't all be doctors now..."
 
Dr.Smexy said:
Honestly for the pre meds who quit because they think they're not good enough academically, I really believe a huge chunk would have good shot at DO. With a 3.3 or above (not to mention grade replacement) and >24 mcat they would have a great shot at all the shady new DO schools. But most of them probably were fantasizing about being neurosurgeons with the fancy MD title behind their names...
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Maybe some of the brand new schools, but the days of 3.3/24 students matriculating to med school are coming to a close. Some schools will always take some low stat applicants as part of their holistic review, but DO averages are rapidly rising to, and in some cases surpassing, MD levels.

There's enough competitive applicants to fill all the seats at all the schools now.
 
Here is my n=9 contribution.

My freshman year, I knew 9 people who were pre-med at the get go. 5 of us completed the coursework, 4 of us actually ended up applying to med school. Of the 4, 2 got completely rejected, 1 was "accepted" to carib, and I'm the only one who legit made it (though I had to try twice, no one else tried again).
 
feeling-dizzy said:
if you count all the D.O. schools also, there should be >60% acceptance each year
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I dont think so, I think the acceptance rate overall for DO is actually lower than MD. Obviously not the same candidate pool and some overlap, but it definitely isnt close to 60%.
 
comes down to weather they drink beer or not
 
Is
The Knife & Gun Club said:
I bet if you looked at every student who at some point has said they're gonna be pre med (regardless of even enrolling in any of the prereqs) it's probably <5%.

If you were to look at people who actually signed up to take at least 1 pre-req then got discouraged...maybe 20%?

At My UG (which Is one of the most pre-medical in the U.S.), the professor on the first day of freshman gen chem said "1 in 3 students at ____ university will start out premed. 1 in 10 will be accepted to med school. It is my job to find the 1/10 in that 1/3."
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Is your UG UCSD?
 
CleganeBowlis4Real said:
I dont think so, I think the acceptance rate overall for DO is actually lower than MD. Obviously not the same candidate pool and some overlap, but it definitely isnt close to 60%.
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This may be true if you are considering rate, although I am not confident/haven't checked. But I would surmise that if this is the case, it is because of an extraordinary difference in gross numbers of applicants to DO, and confounded by those who apply MD and DO and chose the former over the latter.

Broken down, it does not mean what you think it does. Common knowledge that DO route is easier to matriculate into
 
Lol, out of my undergrad's massive premed club, I was one of the only ones to make it, because their advising was **** and their premedical committee made it seem like you had to bow down to them and prove yourself worthy to get a letter.
 
Mad Jack said:
Lol, out of my undergrad's massive premed club, I was one of the only ones to make it, because their advising was **** and their premedical committee made it seem like you had to bow down to them and prove yourself worthy to get a letter.
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And yeah! The director of my pre-professional dept. insisted that you had to take an entire year to study for the MCAT. He's so staunch in support of this notion that I avoided telling him I only studied for 3 months and got a 510. The impression I got is that if a premed doesn't follow their instructions to a T about literally everything, they aren't interested in writing them a letter.
 
Here are my numbers from my school (an Ivy)

Approximately 33% of our class comes in as premed. This number is an estimate but I think it's an accurate guess, as most people come in as what I like to call "pre-Goldmann" or "pre-Bain". I would say the confidence range here is 25-40%.

I know for a fact that consistently ~18% of our class gets to the application stage at some point in their lives, so we have around a 45% attrition rate, meaning just over half of our freshman premeds end up applying. Of those 18%, 80% are accepted (confidence range 75-90%), so ~14-15% of our class goes on to medical school.

This means that ~40% of our freshman premeds end up attending medical school.
 
For context my school had probably 200 premeds, of those, 1/2 dropped after gen chem. Of the remaining, probably 20 apply and of those 15 get in. So 15/200 for my place
 
WedgeDawg said:
Here are my numbers from my school (an Ivy)

Approximately 33% of our class comes in as premed. This number is an estimate but I think it's an accurate guess, as most people come in as what I like to call "pre-Goldmann" or "pre-Bain". I would say the confidence range here is 25-40%.

I know for a fact that consistently ~18% of our class gets to the application stage at some point in their lives, so we have around a 45% attrition rate, meaning just over half of our freshman premeds end up applying. Of those 18%, 80% are accepted (confidence range 75-90%), so ~14-15% of our class goes on to medical school.

This means that ~40% of our freshman premeds end up attending medical school.
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So I think there is a big disparity between top tier Ivy League students and the average State U Joe. There are certainly a lot more people in over their head at your average large public state university.
 
Govols22 said:
So I think there is a big disparity between top tier Ivy League students and the average State U Joe. There are certainly a lot more people in over their head at your average large public state university.
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Of course. I'm just presenting my data so that others can see it, not trying to argue that it's the norm.
 
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