Medical school applications---a critical situation

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7368.786

BMJ 2002;325:786-787 ( 12 October )

Editorials

Medical school applications $---$ a critical situation

The supply of medical students may not meet the demands of medical school expansion in the United Kingdom

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Medical schools need well qualified, well motivated medical students. Admissions tutors, their desks piled high with applications,usually worry little about a dearth of applicants. Nevertheless,because each applicant applies to four schools, the surfeit islargely illusory. The statistics of the Universities and CollegesAdmissions Service (www.ucas.ac.uk) show that, whereas 9192 "home"(United Kingdom) entrants applied to medical school in October1995, five years later this number had dropped by 12%, to 8108.Medical schools expanded, and in 2000 the number of home entrantswas 5229 compared with 4361 in 1995, a rise of 20%. The most importantstatistic underlying selection is the selection ratio¹ $---$ thenumber of applicants for each place at medical school $---$ and it fellfrom 2.11 in 1995 to 1.55 in2000.

The falling selection ratio inevitably concerned the Department of Health. Medical education in the United Kingdom is currentlyexpanding. Five new medical schools will have opened by 2005,and 6873 home . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Realism as a confounder: Ian D Wacogne
bmj.com, 11 Oct 2002 [Full text]
medicine and myth: douglas salmon
bmj.com, 11 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Medical school applications - not a critical situation: Steven A Burr
bmj.com, 12 Oct 2002 [Full text]
The legacy of a failing service: Charles O. Lister
bmj.com, 12 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Other opportunities: ABDULLAH MA SHEHAB
bmj.com, 13 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Encouraging potential medical students - ways forward: Beryl A De Souza, et al.
bmj.com, 16 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Medicine will become less popular: Sushant Varma
bmj.com, 17 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Medical students are overqualified to be GP's: James Sherifi
bmj.com, 18 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Re: Medical students are overqualified to be GP's: Andrew S Thornton
bmj.com, 18 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Don't drop the standards but broaden the range: Cornelius L Katona, et al.
bmj.com, 18 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Student progression, performance and variation in A level scores: Wiji Arulampalam, et al.
bmj.com, 30 Oct 2002 [Full text]
Other considerations: Samuel J Leinster
bmj.com, 14 Nov 2002 [Full text]
McManus is right but for the wrong reasons: Chris Bundy
bmj.com, 17 Jan 2003 [Full text]
we need to be a desirable profession !: Chris F.L.
bmj.com, 19 Jan 2003 [Full text]