Medical School Admission Criteria
For general admission criteria and links to individual medical schools, the following web sites are extremely helpful.
If you are planning on applying to an osteopathic medical school (D.O. granting) you will need to consult the AACOM site. Currently, there are 21 Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine and 4 branch campuses for a total of 25 different sites.
American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine
For the entering class of 2005, there were 9,736 applicants to osteopathic medical schools nationwide and 3,880 students who matriculated for an acceptance rate of 39.8% and 50% were women.
If you are applying to allopathic (M.D. granting) medical schools you will need to consult the AAMC site.
The Medical School Admission Requirements (MSAR) book by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) serves as an official guide for premedical advisors to all 125 accredited allopathic medical schools in the U.S. and the 16 accredited Canadian allopathic medical schools. The AAMC is also the organization responsible for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) which will be addressed in later sections.
For the 2006 entering year 39,108 students applied to medical school nationwide and there were 17,370 students who matriculated. This corresponds to a national acceptance rate of approximately 44%. According to recent AAMC data, of the matriculants in 2006, 48% were women.
(Source: AAMC Data Warehouse Applicant Matriculant File as of 11/7/2006)
Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service
If you are planning on applying to Texas allopathic medical schools, all the schools with the exception of Baylor College of Medicine use the Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service (TMDSAS).
Medical Schools in Texas using TMDSAS:
- Texas A&M
- Texas Tech
- UT Galveston
- UT Houston
- UT San Antonio
- UW Southwestern
Even though the number of applicants nationwide has declined from a high in 1996 of 46,965 to a total of 39,108 in 2006 the selection factors considered by all medical schools remain the same and are similar for all medical schools. It is important to demonstrate academic excellence, acquire some health profession experience, perform community service, and show a comittment involvement and/or leadership. The average G.P.A. for students accepted to medical school for 2006 is 3.64. (Source: AAMC Data Warehouse Applicant Matriculant File as of 10/27/2006)
For the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Medicine 2005 entering class, the overall median G.P.A. was 3.69 and the median science GPA was 3.62 (MSAR Data). The median MCAT score was 10 for Verbal Reasoning and 9 for both the Physical and Biological Sciences sections. The school median for the writing sample was a score of "N".
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences accepts applications from students who are not residents of Arkansas who have strong ties to the state. For 2005, there were 148 matriculants who were residents of Arkansas and 9 non-resident matriculants. As reported in the 2006-2007 MSAR for the UAMS College of Medicine, 100% of the class had baccalaureate degrees, 8% had graduate degrees and 82% were either science and/or math majors.