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The news is flooded with reports on doctor shortages in the United States, especially in low-income and rural areas, as well as in fields like primary care, family medicine, and psychiatry. On top of that, new medical schools are opening up each year to train new doctors and address some of our country’s healthcare access issues.
How Hard Is It to Get into Medical School? (2023)
Admissions statistics, application mistakes, and strategies to get into medical school despite increasing competition
Audio: Click play to listen to this guide.
Introduction
How hard is it to get into medical school?
If you’re like most premed students, you’ve heard horror stories about qualified applicants who didn’t get into medical school—the first, second, or even third time they applied. Heck, you yourself may even be reapplying to medical school.
Regardless, you may be confused about how you could possibly get in after going to great lengths to “do everything right”—achieving a strong GPA and MCAT score, satisfying your extracurricular requirements, obtaining meaningful medical school letters of recommendation, and so on.
Before you lose hope about your chances of getting into your dream med schools—or, worse, give up completely—we’d like to dig into the details about the current state of medical school admissions so you can understand what you’re actually up against. Then, we’ll list mistakes applicants routinely make and offer high-level strategies to help you get one step closer to becoming physician.
Medical school acceptance rates
The news is flooded with reports on doctor shortages in the United States, especially in low-income and rural areas, as well as in fields like primary care, family medicine, and psychiatry. On top of that, new medical schools are opening up each year to train new doctors and address some of our country’s healthcare access issues.
In combination, you would think that these factors would make it easier to get into med school.
As our healthcare needs are growing and we’re producing more physicians than ever, interest in health careers has grown to an all-time high. Of course, this means that more students are applying to medical school than ever. As a result, the number of annual applicants is increasing faster than the number of available medical school seats, which certainly lags behind our growing physician demand.
Data published by the AAMC shows that between the 2013–2014 and 2022–2023 academic years (i.e., the last 10 years), the total number of medical school applicants grew from 48,014 to 55,188, a nearly 15 percent increase.
Of those applicants, only 20,055 matriculated during the 2013–2014 academic year (41.8 percent), and 22,712 matriculated during the 2022–2023 academic year (41 percent).
In summary, you’re facing not only increased competition but also lower admissions odds than ever.
Why is it so hard to get into medical school?
While the overall matriculation rate to U.S. medical schools is at an all-time low, it may simply be due to a larger number of applications from less-qualified students. Therefore, it’s important to know the stats with which applicants apply today relative to years past. For this, we turn to the average GPA and MCAT score of med school applicants and matriculants.
Among applicants for the 2022–2023 entering class, the average cumulative GPA and MCAT score were 3.62 and 506.5, respectively, up slightly from 3.59 and 505.9 for the 2021–2022 entering class.
Among 2022–2023 matriculants, the average cumulative GPA and MCAT score were 3.75 and 511.9, respectively, just a hair above the stats for the 2021–2022 entering class averages of 3.74 and 511.9.
This upward statistical trend is longstanding and shows no signs of slowing down. Taken together with the yearly increase in applications, it appears that not only are you competing with more students but also that those students’ scores are higher than they have ever been.
Medical school application mistakes
Our goal for this guide is not to discourage you. Rather, we want to shed light on what you’re up against and offer strategies to maximize your odds of getting in.
It’s true that many students apply to medical school each year and that your competition is fierce. It’s also true that many applicants: a) are borderline qualified or unqualified; b) make serious application mistakes; or c) both.
Therefore, if you have solid stats and apply the right way, your odds of getting into medical school will be higher than the roughly 36 percent overall acceptance rate.
We’ll now highlight various medical school application mistakes that students routinely make—and what you should do instead to stand out to admissions committees.
(Note: The rest of this guide assumes that you have competitive or somewhat competitive stats and that you’ve completed or are in the process of completing your medical school requirements, including the right extracurricular activities for medical school, including gaining sufficient physician shadowing, patient exposure, community service, and volunteer hours.)
Medical school application mistake #1: Applying to too many reach schools
We’ve observed a significant number of applicants who apply to too many reach schools—25–50 percent or even higher—that they have little to no chance of getting into.
In other words, what some applicants consider to be “target” or “safety” schools are often much tougher than they think to get accepted to.
If you apply to too many reach schools, your number of competitive applications will be far fewer than you think. For instance, if you apply to 30 schools but 15 of them are realistically out of reach for you, you’re only really applying to 15 schools, which is a low number.
A lot of students feel they should apply to the Stanfords and Harvards of the world, thinking, “Why not? What if something crazy happens and I get accepted? Can’t hurt to apply!”
Except it can hurt. Not only is it expensive to apply to medical school, it’s also very strenuous. Almost every school you apply to will ask you to complete a secondary application (i.e., more essays), which often leads to what some refer to as “secondary fatigue.” When secondary fatigue kicks in, effort and work quality decline, along with your chances of success.
What you should do instead
You’ll want to be incredibly thoughtful about which schools you apply to—and how many.
Because school selection is one of the most important—and underrated—components of successful medical school admissions, we put in significant effort to help our students choose the right schools.
Depending on your stats, our recommendation is to initially apply to somewhere between 15 and 25 carefully selected schools, with the following rough breakdown for the typical applicant:
- 3–5 “reach” schools
- 7–8 “target” schools
- 6–7 “undershoot” schools
- Bonus: 3–5 “far undershoot” schools
Less than 15, and you risk not achieving the right balance of competitiveness. More than 25, and you risk even greater secondary fatigue.
Once you’ve gotten close to submitting applications to your initial list, you can look to add more schools, recycling or modifying the secondary essays you’ve already written. It’s not crazy to apply to 35 or even 40 schools using this approach.
Medical school application mistake #2: Spending too much time on the personal statement at the expense of other essays
I often ask premed students about their #1 struggle or worry when it comes to medical school applications.
Their #1 response? How to write their medical school personal statement.
It’s a valid concern; the personal statement is incredibly important, yet difficult to get just right. However, many students spend weeks, even months on their personal statement, but fail to give enough attention to acing the AMCAS Work and Activities section and medical school secondary essays.
Medical schools practice holistic admissions, meaning they evaluate every part of your application together in hopes of understanding your readiness for medicine.
What you should do instead
Each aspect of your application tells a different part of your story.
For example, your personal statement provides a bird’s-eye view of who you are and your road to medicine, but the AMCAS Work and Activities section offers a detailed look into how you’ve spent your time to understand what it means to be a physician, as well as your accomplishments and growth along the way. Moreover, your secondary essays provide an opportunity to tell medical schools why you’ll be a strong fit for their institution specifically.
Applications that are weak outside of the personal statement are akin to incomplete stories. They leave the reader with more questions and hesitations.
Therefore, I encourage you to devote similar levels of effort to every part of your application, working to ensure that different sections work cohesively to demonstrate to admissions committees why you want to be a physician, why you would be an excellent physician, and why you would be a great fit at their school.
Medical school application mistake #3: Trying too hard to write about the “perfect” topics
Another very common question we receive about personal statements and secondary essays is, “Would it be a good idea to write about [X/Y/Z] topic?” And most of the time, the answer is the same: “Every topic can lead to a strong or weak essay depending on how compellingly it’s written.”
In other words, there’s rarely such a thing as a “good” or “bad” essay topic, only strong or weak execution.
Oftentimes, students have great personal stories to share that demonstrate their unique qualities, but they don’t think admissions committees will be interested in reading about them. For example, they might say, “But that’s not directly related to medicine,” “I don’t think med schools want to hear about that,” or “Don’t adcoms expect students to write about [topic]?”
What you should do instead:
We discourage students from this type of mind reading because, guess what? The essay topics most students “think” will impress admissions committees are often incredibly similar, leading them to write clichéd essays.
Therefore, we recommend that you first think of the qualities you want to demonstrate in your essay and then consider when in your life you’ve demonstrated those qualities.
That way, you’re much more likely to come up with a topic that reflects who you uniquely are and is much easier to write about.
Medical school application mistake #4: Asking too many people for essay feedback
Like many things in life, more feedback on your essay isn’t necessarily better.
Recently, one of our students rewrote an entire essay despite loving their original idea because their undergraduate advisor suggested another topic. Unfortunately, their second essay wasn’t as strong as their original one, nor did it convey the ideas they’d hoped to.
Anyone you send your essays to will have an opinion on how to change it. While everyone means well, know that each additional set of eyes can dilute your voice and weaken the points you’re hoping to make.
What you should do instead
We’re not saying that you shouldn’t show your work to anyone else, but we encourage you to run your essays by no more than two people who know you—and the medical school admissions process—well.
Moreover, if your work accurately captures what you’re hoping to convey, is grammatically correct, and engagingly written, you should confidently move on to the next essay.
Medical school application mistake #5: Submitting applications too late
Most medical schools practice rolling admissions, which means that they’ll invite and accept students on a rolling basis, until all seats are filled.
You’ll have more seats available to you the earlier you apply. Conversely, submitting applications too late will lead to competing against a larger applicant pool for fewer spots.
Medical schools post application deadlines on their website, but these are quite misleading. Specifically, the closer you submit to posted deadlines, the lower your overall admissions odds.
What you should do instead:
You should submit high-quality applications as early as possible. AMCAS tends to open at the very beginning of June each year, and secondaries are sent to students whose primary applications are verified as early as early July.
However, be careful not to rush to submit your applications if your essays are subpar. Submitting lower quality materials can hurt you more than submitting early can help you.
It’s much better to submit a fantastic application several days to weeks later than you’d hoped rather than submit a so-so application ASAP.
Medical school application mistake #6: Preparing for medical school interviews the wrong way
Receiving medical school interview invitations is one of the most exciting parts of the application process, second only to receiving acceptances.
After their initial celebrations, applicants tend to get anxious about how they’re going to respond to various questions and prompts. (e.g., “Tell me about yourself” and “What are your thoughts on the Affordable Care Act?”)
Applicants often over-worry about the wrong things (e.g., questions about things like healthcare policy rarely come up, and there are time-tested approaches to answering them well without intimate knowledge of the subject) and under-worry about critically important aspects of the interview. (e.g., focusing on sociability and answer delivery in addition to the content of responses)
What you should do instead:
While it’s important to practice common questions like “Why do you want to be a doctor?,” you should also look up and practice school-specific questions, develop strategies to tackle any MMI question, and go through mock interviews with folks knowledgeable about the med school interview process.
When you have practice interviews, ask your interviewer to give you feedback on response content and how you presented. If your official interviewer likes you, they’re far more likely to appraise you favorably.
Medical school application mistake #7 Focusing solely on your grades at the expense of experience
We all know that extracurricular activities are a huge part of the med school application process. You’ve probably also heard of 4.0 and 520 candidates being rejected. Often, the reason for this is the belief that, above all else, scores are primary.
While it’s true that GPA and MCAT scores are extremely important, focusing on them too much at the expense of gaining experience in a clinical setting or by shadowing can sap your application of competitiveness.
What you should do instead
Focus on your grades and work hard, but make sure you take the time to volunteer, shadow a doctor and participate in student groups. Adcoms want to see you as a person, not just as a score.
If your GPA falls slightly below the 4.0 you strived for because you were busy volunteering at a community clinic, that’s okay. If you apply with a 4.0 and you never volunteered at that clinic, adcoms won’t see that you’ve demonstrated your interest in medicine. A score won’t show you as an individual and they will be looking for a candidate that will not only be a high achiever but a contributor to their medical community.
Medical school application mistake #8 Drawing attention to grade slumps incorrectly
Sometimes, life happens. Things get in the way, responsibilities pile up or enthusiasm dwindles. If you’ve experienced a hiccup in your near-perfect GPA, there’s no reason to panic and there’s no reason to make excuses.
We’ve seen many premeds suffer small setbacks in grades thinking they must explain it in their personal statement or secondary essays. Drawing attention to a grade slump isn’t a problem by itself, but making excuses for it can be detrimental to your application.
What you should do instead
Some medical schools will offer space to explain this in optional secondary essays, but keep in mind it’s not necessary for you to use that space. Writing about lower scores only works for adcoms if they see some rehabilitation.
Adcoms know that interests and circumstances change, so when explaining a dip in grades, do so with a story that shows how you came out stronger at the other end. You should approach this problem with a three-fold strategy.
- What happened Whatever your reason for the slump, you will initially need to address the circumstances surrounding it. Whether that’s the death of a family member or just a desire to change course academically, you’ll need to discuss that.
- What you learned This experience taught you something about yourself and about life. Adcoms will want to know what took away from it.
- How you’ve improved This part of the explanation is crucial. How have you come back stronger as a result of this experience? Perhaps the adversity cemented your determination to become a doctor or perhaps a change in major led you to a desire to become a physician-scientist rather than a primary care doctor. Whatever your reasons, make it clear that you’ve taken actionable steps to put that episode behind you.
Medical school application mistake #9 Not attending to the details
As is commonly said, the devil is in the details but when it comes to med school applications, the devil is in the lack of attention to the details. When writing your personal statement and secondary essays make sure you cross every T and dot every I.
Adcoms are looking for eloquent, well-read communicators as much as they are stellar stats. Your ability to write fully formed, grammatically correct sentences and express your thoughts clearly paints a picture of you that adcoms see when deciding to offer you an interview.
Medical school applicants are generally very thorough, but even the best of us make mistakes. Spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and even formatting issues portray a candidate that’s less careful than they may like.
What you should do instead
Before submitting any essays, make sure you’ve checked them for accuracy multiple times. This will help ensure you’re putting your best foot forward and is one reason why it’s important to have a second pair of eyes go over your writing.
Applicants should also take full advantage of grammar and spell-checking tools in applications such as Microsoft Word to help. There is even a free version of the popular app Grammarly that can give suggestions and catch errors you may not have noticed.
Final Thoughts
How hard is it to get into med school? Very! But not as difficult as you might think, especially if you put in the necessary effort. By building strong stats, giving yourself ample application preparation, and avoiding common mistakes, you can be a top applicant at almost any school. While it certainly isn’t an easy journey, becoming a doctor is realistic goal that you can achieve.
How Hard Is It to Get Into Medical School? 5 Reasons Premeds Fail
It is more difficult than ever before to get into medical school. Every year, more and more premeds apply to medical school, yet the number of first-year positions stays relatively the same. If your dream is to become a doctor, you will have to avoid the pitfalls that so many premeds fall into—and the first step is understanding what those pitfalls are. So, how hard is it to get into medical school?
According to the AAMC, over 55,000 applicants applied during the 2022-2023 application cycle and only 22,000 matriculated. That’s an acceptance rate of only 40%, which is an increase from the previous cycle but still less than favorable odds. If you’re a premed just starting your future doctor journey, these are worrisome statistics.
There is a silver lining though. Getting into medical school isn’t like winning the lottery. There are steps you can take and mistakes you can avoid that will help ensure acceptance, even when the odds seem stacked against you.
Here are 5 reasons why premeds fail to get into medical school and what you can do to avoid them.
1 | Suboptimal Hard Components (GPA and MCAT)
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room. The number one reason why most premeds fail to get into medical school is suboptimal hard components. This means a low GPA and/or a low MCAT score.
Now I already know what some of you are going to say in the comments. If you browse premed Reddit or Student Doctor Network long enough, you are bound to come across a post that says, “I got into medical school with a 2.0 GPA and a 495 MCAT,” or maybe one that says, “I have a 4.0 GPA and a 528 MCAT and didn’t get into any medical schools.”
After reading a few of these, you might start to think that having a good GPA and MCAT are not that important to your medical school admissions. Not quite.
It’s true that some premeds get into medical school with low GPAs and low MCAT scores. The converse is true too. A killer GPA and MCAT is no guarantee of acceptance either.
These individuals are the exception, not the rule, and there are other factors at play that determine one’s competitiveness as an applicant.
The reality is that if you have a high GPA and a high MCAT, objectively, you are more likely to get into medical school than if you have a low GPA and a low MCAT.
This isn’t just my opinion either.
If you look at the data from the AAMC, higher GPA and MCAT scores are correlated with higher medical school acceptance rates. To convince yourself otherwise is foolish and will only hurt your chances of getting into medical school.
If you find yourself in a situation where you have a low GPA or MCAT score, the good news is there is still hope. You don’t have to give up on your dreams of becoming a doctor. There are students who have been in your exact situation who have still gotten into excellent medical schools and gone on to become wonderful doctors.
You do have to be realistic about your chances though. Realize that if you have low numbers, you are going to have to work hard to compensate. You’ll either have to improve these metrics or shine in other aspects of your application to have a realistic chance of a medical school acceptance.
2 | Having a Checkbox Mentality
The next reason that premeds fail to get into medical school is that they adopt a checkbox mentality. They google medical school application requirements and use the search results as a sort of checklist.
Okay, I need a 3.7 GPA—check. I need a 511 MCAT score—check. I need 200 hours of volunteer work—check. And I need 200 hours of research experience—check.
These premeds believe that if they can just complete every item on the checklist, then they’ll be guaranteed acceptance. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.
Although there are certainly worse ways to approach getting into medical school, the problem with the checkbox approach is that you don’t end up pushing yourself beyond the typical medical school applicant. As a result, you become the typical, cookie-cutter applicant who is indistinguishable from the tens of thousands of other premeds whose applications look nearly identical.
If you set your sights on completing the bare minimum, then that’s all you’ll ever achieve.
To truly maximize your chances, you need to push yourself beyond the typical medical school applicant.
Instead of checking boxes, you need to craft a compelling narrative. You do this by pursuing opportunities you are passionate about, which can sometimes mean diving deep into your interests outside of medicine.
If you’re passionate about a hobby like cycling or swimming, for instance, lean into that. If you’re interested in making a meaningful change toward a social cause you care deeply about, lean into that. Medical schools don’t just want applicants that excel academically and clinically; they want well-rounded applicants who can bring a new and interesting perspective to their medical school.
Deeper experiences also show commitment and perseverance—two qualities that are necessary for any successful medical student.
Becoming a doctor is a long, arduous road, and admissions committees need to see that you have the capacity to follow through on longer-term goals.
3 | Not Choosing the Right Schools
Reason three that premeds fail to get into medical school is they either don’t apply to the right schools or they don’t apply to enough schools.
When choosing where to apply, there are a variety of factors you need to consider.
There are the obvious ones, like average GPA and MCAT of matriculants, but also things like location, class size, and mission statement you need to consider as well.
Take location, for instance. Many medical schools receive funding from the state government and tend to heavily favor in-state applicants. If you apply mainly to out-of-state schools with low out-of-state acceptance rates, you are setting yourself up for failure. By prioritizing and applying to your in-state schools, you can sometimes improve your odds by orders of magnitude.
Next is class size. A school that has fifty spots available is often going to be a lot more selective than a school that has two hundred and fifty spots available.
Also, consider the mission statement of the schools you’re applying to. If a particular program heavily prioritizes research and you have little to no research experience, it may not be worthwhile to apply to that school. Conversely, if they’re heavily focused on primary care and you’re leaning towards neurosurgery, it might not be the best possible fit.
In addition to applying to the right schools, you also need to make sure you’re applying to the right number of schools.
There is an asymmetric risk associated with the number of schools you apply to.
The main risk of applying to too many schools is losing money, whereas the main risk of not applying to enough schools is not getting into medical school that year.
Even if you look at things strictly from a financial perspective, you’re still likely to come out ahead by applying to more schools. Each application cycle is an expensive ordeal, and you only want to apply once.
Additionally, every year you don’t get into medical school is not just another year spent in training—it’s also another year that you miss out on receiving an attending’s salary. So, spending an extra thousand dollars now can end up saving you hundreds of thousands of dollars in missed salary down the road.
Even if you’re a strong applicant, it’s still in your best interest to apply to a large number of schools because it puts you in a position of optionality and power.
I sent out applications to close to 40 medical schools, had over 20 interview invites, and was able to gain multiple acceptances. This gave me the power to choose between schools, pick the one that was the best fit, and leverage my multiple acceptances to get almost all the cost of medical school covered for free.
4 | Failing to Prepare for Medical School Interviews
The fourth reason that premeds fail to get into medical school is that they don’t prepare enough for their interviews.
It doesn’t matter if you have a 4.0 GPA, a perfect 528 MCAT score, and glowing letters of recommendation. A bad interview can make or break your entire application.
Remember, interviews are one of the last obstacles standing between you and medical school acceptance, so it’s vital that you take the time to adequately prepare.
Start by familiarizing yourself with the most common interview questions. Plan out what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it, but keep in mind you want your responses to be well thought out while still sounding conversational. You don’t want to come off like you’re just reciting a canned response.
Next, know your application inside and out. Everything you put on your application is fair game for an interviewer to ask about. This is especially important if you’re applying to a highly ranked research institution. Trust me, they will ask you about your research extensively, and not being an expert on it will land your application in the rejection pile.
Next, learn about the schools that you are interviewing at. Read about their curriculum, their research interests, their student groups, and what other opportunities they offer. If possible, try to pick out one or two unique aspects about each program, then sell these aspects as reasons why that program is a great fit for you. You want to be able to show that you’ve done your homework and are interested in the unique things their program has to offer.
Now all there is left to do is practice. It’s one thing to plan out what you’re going to say and do during your interviews, but it’s an entirely different thing to do it. Start by reciting answers to common questions to yourself, then move on to practicing with others and participating in mock interviews.
The best mock interviews are done with doctors or instructors who have served on medical school admissions committees. They will know first-hand what interviewers are looking for and what you can do to present the best version of yourself. While your friends or family or premed advisor can help you sound good, they won’t have the nuanced understanding of what medical school admissions committees want to hear.
For your medical school mock interview, be sure to check out our interview preparation services. In a Med School Insiders mock interview, you’ll work with a former admissions committee physician. Together, our team has conducted thousands of interviews, and we know the process inside and out.
5 | Following Bad Advice
The last reason premeds fail to get into medical school is they listen to bad advice.
When trying to figure out how to get into medical school, many premeds use online forums like Reddit or Student Doctor Network as their primary source of information. Although these forums may contain some solid advice from time to time, it’s often buried under a ton of questionable and even harmful advice. As someone lacking expertise in medical school admissions, it’s near impossible to sift through and separate the signal from the noise.
Posts on these forums also tend to focus on individual cases instead of overall trends. What worked for one student may not work for another, so you need to find someone who understands the overall trends but can also make adjustments on an individual level.
For a more tailored approach, many students will turn to premed advisors at their university for assistance. Although this may seem to be a step up from online forums, these advisors usually still lack the knowledge and expertise to maximize your chances of getting into medical school.
Remember, premed advisors never went to medical school. As such, they are not the best people to be giving out advice on how to maximize your chances of medical school acceptance.
When applying to medical school, you want help from trusted experts who can elevate your application, help you get into your dream school, and make you so compelling as an applicant that schools fight over you and try to win you over by covering your tuition and living expenses.
As you look at resources and companies to work with, seek out those who are actual M.D. physicians, not Ph.D. or others who didn’t go to medical school. Look for those who have achieved stellar results themselves, have a track record of success with glowing reviews from customers, and a systematic approach so that you know you’ll always receive high-quality service.
If you decide on Med School Insiders, we’d love to be a part of your journey in becoming a future physician.
If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out my piece on How to Get Into Medical School or our Complete Guide to Medical School Interviews.
