Diversity Grows Among Medical School Applicants As Desire To Become A Doctor Remains High

The pool of young people wanting to become physicians continues to diversify with record shares of Black, Hispanic, and women applicants to U.S. medical schools, the Association of American Medical Colleges said in a new report.

For the 2022-2023 academic year, the AAMC Wednesday said “Black or African American students made up 10% of matriculants in 2022-23, compared to 9.5% in the 2020-2021 academic year.” Meanwhile, matriculants who are Hispanic, Latino, or of Spanish origin made up 12% of total matriculants,” the AAMC’s report said.

Due to an unusually high record-setting 18% increase of medical school applicants in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, this year’s AAMC enrollment report compared data from the 2022-23 academic year with the 2020-21 academic year. In total, the number of students applying to medical schools increased by 4% to 55,188 from 2020-21 to 2022-23, the AAMC said.

“The AAMC has seen a steady increase in applications and enrollments over the last several years as students considering a career in medicine continue to answer the call to service,” AAMC president and chief executive Dr. David Skorton said in a statement accompanying the report.

Women continued to make gains among medical school applicants, accounting for “57% of applicants, applicants, 56% of matriculants, and 54% of total enrollment,” the AAMC said in its report. “This is the fourth year in a row that women made up the majority of these three groups.”

There were 31,190 total female applicants to U.S. medical schools for the 2022-23 academic year compared to 23,924 men, the AAMC said.