Requirements for medical school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have 3 years of heavily focused undergrad followed by a year of a related medical experience (paid internship) and then med school.

And they need to let more kids into med school. We need more American-educated doctors.

Sigh. This was addressed above. It's not as simple as simply admitting more students. Could you pack more into the lecture halls? Sure (especially now that lots of students don't go to lecture, it's recorded and many watch it ... or plan to anyway ... later). But there simply are not enough rotation sites or residency sites.

This is not true. There are 6000 more residency spots than US MD/DO grads per year.

And American grads do not want those spots. You realize that not all programs/residencies are the same, right? That not all are created equal? And that rotation sites are not residency spots? I had an M4 complaining bitterly to me just last week about lack of rotation spots.

So to me there seems to be a gap here that I’m not understanding. We have a fairly low medical school acceptance rate, but we are importing doctors to do jobs Americans supposedly don’t want. Further, those foreign doctors are graduating from medical school with fewer years of training and less expensive training (undergrad and medical school is free in many countries), no shadowing, etc. This doesn’t make a ton of sense. Why don’t we admit more Americans on the basis that they will take those primary care jobs? Why don’t we make medical school more affordable so people can better understand the community they serve?

The foreign medical school grads are much, much more willing to take a residency spot at upstairs Alabama medical college or college East Possumtown community hospital And those places need both doctors and residents!

This. There are less desirable residency spots, almost all primary care in non-research based teaching hospitals (Top50 med schools have no problem filling all of their Peds, Internal and Family spots with US MD grads in the first round of match, in fact most of the T75 fills easily). The further down in reputation the residency, it is usually further away from East or West coast or midwest popular metropolitan areas (detroit, minneapolis, chicago).

After the main 2025 Match Day, there were 2,521 unfilled residency spots that went to the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) formerly knows as "scramble" spots. Of the 2,521 positions placed in SOAP, 724 were filled by International Medical Graduates (IMGs), which was 30% of the total placements in SOAP.
In 2025, U.S. MD seniors filled 37.8% of positions in SOAP, while U.S. DO seniors filled 22%.
95-99% of US MD graduates match on match day. and about 90% of DO graduates.
After the SOAP(scramble, for students who do not match on the main match day), 0.6% of US MD graduates remain unmatched and 3% of US DO graduates remain unmatched. Many more IMGs remain unmatched after SOAP than US MD or DOs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a retired US academic physician who worked at a top medical school, I have a few reflections:

At UVa 50 years ago, 500 future premeds huddled into the chemistry lecture hall to hear about the process of becoming a doctor. Over the next four years we studied hard and played hard. But many were lost along the way. At the time of my graduation in 1979, there were only about 50 (10%) students who were directly accepted into an allopathic medical school, mostly UVa or MCV. At that time the national acceptance rate was about 45%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK217679/table/ttt00015/?report=objectonly.
At UVa, I don't know how many reapplied and subsequently accepted. The core requirement classes in biology, chemistry, physics, math, etc., were very challenging. It was very difficult to get an A, much less a B. Grade inflation, at least at UVa, was nonexistent, as it is today. Many had some type of clinical exposure or worked in labs, but it was difficult to find opportunities. Very few had research publications. Gap years were unheard off. For those who wern't directly accepted, some took additional courses or pursued a master's before reapplying. In the late 1970s there were only 3 offshore Caribbean medical schools. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_medical_school I don't know how many chose a DO route. Finally, relative to the present, with loans the financial burden of medical school was feasible for a middle class family.

Just a few comments on the current international medical graduate (IMG) situation. A few years ago I worked with foreign-trained medical students and doctors trying to get into a US residency. For those who had excellent grades, scores and letters, pleasant personalities, and spoke English, they were successful in matching into a residency. In the past couple of years, however, the IMG situation has dramatically changed due to politics. With the stringent VISA requirements, particularly with respect to the H1B, many residency programs are not accepting IMG applicants. This could make the physician shortage worse, particularly in primary care. Just take a look at the posts on this Reddit site for FMGs: https://www.reddit.com/r/IMGreddit/.

2025 Match Data
93.5% of U.S. MD seniors matched
92.6% of U.S. DO seniors matched
67.8% of U.S. citizen international medical graduates (IMGs) matched
58% of non-U.S. citizen IMGs matched,a
https://www.nrmp.org/about/news/2025/05/nrmp-releases-2025-main-residency-match-results-and-data-report-providing-in-depth-insight-into-the-largest-residency-match-in-history/#:~:text=Among%20all%20active%20U.S.%20DO,the%20Match%20and%20SOAP%20overall.

Your "reflections" on medical school admittance are about a half a century old. Not remotely applicable here.

That poster is someone who would know vastly, vastly more about what med schools are looking for in incoming students to than overbearing mom helicoptering their adult children’s professional school paths for bragging rights.

There is a lot of excellent advice on this thread from people with very recent experience with med school admissions who know a lot more than someone who is just a mom.

Yes, and one of them is the poster who has 50 years as an academic physician.

No.

That person's input was to wax rhapsodic about about sitting in a lecture hall with "500 future premeds" (aka white males) to hear about "the process of becoming a doctor" and then they (the white males) "studied hard and played hard" for four years. Then that pp rambled about how they had to walk 10 miles to school in the snow, oh wait, no, sorry, it was something about how "it was very difficult to get an A" back then. Blah, blah, not-on-point blah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:again-the acceptance rate is nearly 45%.

This is not the Herculean task that premed students (and sometimes their moms) contend it is.

Med school and residency are much, much harder than getting in so maybe pace yourself with the complaints. (And I agree, there is a lot to complain about.)

It's not the premed students. It's the braggy/embarrassed mommies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:again-the acceptance rate is nearly 45%.

This is not the Herculean task that premed students (and sometimes their moms) contend it is.

Med school and residency are much, much harder than getting in so maybe pace yourself with the complaints. (And I agree, there is a lot to complain about.)

Yeah, but you have to get there first. That itself is no joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:again-the acceptance rate is nearly 45%.

This is not the Herculean task that premed students (and sometimes their moms) contend it is.

Med school and residency are much, much harder than getting in so maybe pace yourself with the complaints. (And I agree, there is a lot to complain about.)

Yeah, but you have to get there first. That itself is no joke.

Well no but with nearly half being admitted it’s hardly a tragedy either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:again-the acceptance rate is nearly 45%.

This is not the Herculean task that premed students (and sometimes their moms) contend it is.

Med school and residency are much, much harder than getting in so maybe pace yourself with the complaints. (And I agree, there is a lot to complain about.)

It's not the premed students. It's the braggy/embarrassed mommies.

100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have 3 years of heavily focused undergrad followed by a year of a related medical experience (paid internship) and then med school.

And they need to let more kids into med school. We need more American-educated doctors.

Sigh. This was addressed above. It's not as simple as simply admitting more students. Could you pack more into the lecture halls? Sure (especially now that lots of students don't go to lecture, it's recorded and many watch it ... or plan to anyway ... later). But there simply are not enough rotation sites or residency sites.

This is not true. There are 6000 more residency spots than US MD/DO grads per year.

And American grads do not want those spots. You realize that not all programs/residencies are the same, right? That not all are created equal? And that rotation sites are not residency spots? I had an M4 complaining bitterly to me just last week about lack of rotation spots.

So to me there seems to be a gap here that I’m not understanding. We have a fairly low medical school acceptance rate, but we are importing doctors to do jobs Americans supposedly don’t want. Further, those foreign doctors are graduating from medical school with fewer years of training and less expensive training (undergrad and medical school is free in many countries), no shadowing, etc. This doesn’t make a ton of sense. Why don’t we admit more Americans on the basis that they will take those primary care jobs? Why don’t we make medical school more affordable so people can better understand the community they serve?

Because they won't.

They will not take primary care jobs in BF Nowhere Town, Flyover State that do not pay enough to pay back their loans.

So yes -- you are not understanding.

How do you know? Don’t quite a few doctors go into the army on the basis of having their medical school paid for? If medical school were cheaper on the basis of doing your residency in nowhere town a lot of regular, middle class people who might not afford medical school otherwise may take it. We’ve created this hyper-elitist system with a certain set of incentives and then we’re not willing to adjust the incentives, we’ll just get foreign labor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have 3 years of heavily focused undergrad followed by a year of a related medical experience (paid internship) and then med school.

And they need to let more kids into med school. We need more American-educated doctors.

Sigh. This was addressed above. It's not as simple as simply admitting more students. Could you pack more into the lecture halls? Sure (especially now that lots of students don't go to lecture, it's recorded and many watch it ... or plan to anyway ... later). But there simply are not enough rotation sites or residency sites.

This is not true. There are 6000 more residency spots than US MD/DO grads per year.

And American grads do not want those spots. You realize that not all programs/residencies are the same, right? That not all are created equal? And that rotation sites are not residency spots? I had an M4 complaining bitterly to me just last week about lack of rotation spots.

So to me there seems to be a gap here that I’m not understanding. We have a fairly low medical school acceptance rate, but we are importing doctors to do jobs Americans supposedly don’t want. Further, those foreign doctors are graduating from medical school with fewer years of training and less expensive training (undergrad and medical school is free in many countries), no shadowing, etc. This doesn’t make a ton of sense. Why don’t we admit more Americans on the basis that they will take those primary care jobs? Why don’t we make medical school more affordable so people can better understand the community they serve?

Because they won't.

They will not take primary care jobs in BF Nowhere Town, Flyover State that do not pay enough to pay back their loans.

So yes -- you are not understanding.

How do you know? Don’t quite a few doctors go into the army on the basis of having their medical school paid for? If medical school were cheaper on the basis of doing your residency in nowhere town a lot of regular, middle class people who might not afford medical school otherwise may take it. We’ve created this hyper-elitist system with a certain set of incentives and then we’re not willing to adjust the incentives, we’ll just get foreign labor.

Because I work at a med school and spend a lot of time discussing applications/interviews/match with M4s.

And I've taught at USUHS as well (which is what you are talking about when you refer to "quite a few doctors go into the army on the basis of having their medical school paid for"). That is a very unique set of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have 3 years of heavily focused undergrad followed by a year of a related medical experience (paid internship) and then med school.

And they need to let more kids into med school. We need more American-educated doctors.

Sigh. This was addressed above. It's not as simple as simply admitting more students. Could you pack more into the lecture halls? Sure (especially now that lots of students don't go to lecture, it's recorded and many watch it ... or plan to anyway ... later). But there simply are not enough rotation sites or residency sites.

This is not true. There are 6000 more residency spots than US MD/DO grads per year.

And American grads do not want those spots. You realize that not all programs/residencies are the same, right? That not all are created equal? And that rotation sites are not residency spots? I had an M4 complaining bitterly to me just last week about lack of rotation spots.

So to me there seems to be a gap here that I’m not understanding. We have a fairly low medical school acceptance rate, but we are importing doctors to do jobs Americans supposedly don’t want. Further, those foreign doctors are graduating from medical school with fewer years of training and less expensive training (undergrad and medical school is free in many countries), no shadowing, etc. This doesn’t make a ton of sense. Why don’t we admit more Americans on the basis that they will take those primary care jobs? Why don’t we make medical school more affordable so people can better understand the community they serve?

Because they won't.

They will not take primary care jobs in BF Nowhere Town, Flyover State that do not pay enough to pay back their loans.

So yes -- you are not understanding.

We could solve that by paying their loans for every year they stay there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have 3 years of heavily focused undergrad followed by a year of a related medical experience (paid internship) and then med school.

And they need to let more kids into med school. We need more American-educated doctors.

Sigh. This was addressed above. It's not as simple as simply admitting more students. Could you pack more into the lecture halls? Sure (especially now that lots of students don't go to lecture, it's recorded and many watch it ... or plan to anyway ... later). But there simply are not enough rotation sites or residency sites.

This is not true. There are 6000 more residency spots than US MD/DO grads per year.

And American grads do not want those spots. You realize that not all programs/residencies are the same, right? That not all are created equal? And that rotation sites are not residency spots? I had an M4 complaining bitterly to me just last week about lack of rotation spots.

So to me there seems to be a gap here that I’m not understanding. We have a fairly low medical school acceptance rate, but we are importing doctors to do jobs Americans supposedly don’t want. Further, those foreign doctors are graduating from medical school with fewer years of training and less expensive training (undergrad and medical school is free in many countries), no shadowing, etc. This doesn’t make a ton of sense. Why don’t we admit more Americans on the basis that they will take those primary care jobs? Why don’t we make medical school more affordable so people can better understand the community they serve?

Because they won't.

They will not take primary care jobs in BF Nowhere Town, Flyover State that do not pay enough to pay back their loans.

So yes -- you are not understanding.

How do you know? Don’t quite a few doctors go into the army on the basis of having their medical school paid for? If medical school were cheaper on the basis of doing your residency in nowhere town a lot of regular, middle class people who might not afford medical school otherwise may take it. We’ve created this hyper-elitist system with a certain set of incentives and then we’re not willing to adjust the incentives, we’ll just get foreign labor.

Because I work at a med school and spend a lot of time discussing applications/interviews/match with M4s.

And I've taught at USUHS as well (which is what you are talking about when you refer to "quite a few doctors go into the army on the basis of having their medical school paid for"). That is a very unique set of students.

What do you mean they are unique? Are they not doctors? Why aren't incentives given to American trained doctors to practice family medicine in remote places instead of importing doctors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CNA, MA and EMT courses can be from 4-12 weeks and cost > $1000. Just looked and phlebotomy is $2300 at MCCC

In the DMV, the classes fill up fast.

You might be able to do that over the summer, and is fine for a gap year, but it is quite a investment.

Many premeds were in summer community college EMT class. The college fees, NREMT fees, background check, drug test, books, cost about $2000

I’ve been helping my kid look and it is really hard to find one. The only one available near her school requires many many weekends which she can’t do because of her sport. We found an expedited program in Arizona where you work llle 10 hour days for a few weeks and get verified but of course that’s expensive and you need to pay lodging in Arizona and flights there (plus Arizona in the summer so that’s fun). I feel like all this is easy in theory but it adds up. Even the idea of spending her short winter break shadowing doctors after being in classes is a lot. Even premed kids deserve a break!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have 3 years of heavily focused undergrad followed by a year of a related medical experience (paid internship) and then med school.

And they need to let more kids into med school. We need more American-educated doctors.

Sigh. This was addressed above. It's not as simple as simply admitting more students. Could you pack more into the lecture halls? Sure (especially now that lots of students don't go to lecture, it's recorded and many watch it ... or plan to anyway ... later). But there simply are not enough rotation sites or residency sites.

This is not true. There are 6000 more residency spots than US MD/DO grads per year.

And American grads do not want those spots. You realize that not all programs/residencies are the same, right? That not all are created equal? And that rotation sites are not residency spots? I had an M4 complaining bitterly to me just last week about lack of rotation spots.

So to me there seems to be a gap here that I’m not understanding. We have a fairly low medical school acceptance rate, but we are importing doctors to do jobs Americans supposedly don’t want. Further, those foreign doctors are graduating from medical school with fewer years of training and less expensive training (undergrad and medical school is free in many countries), no shadowing, etc. This doesn’t make a ton of sense. Why don’t we admit more Americans on the basis that they will take those primary care jobs? Why don’t we make medical school more affordable so people can better understand the community they serve?

Because they won't.

They will not take primary care jobs in BF Nowhere Town, Flyover State that do not pay enough to pay back their loans.

So yes -- you are not understanding.

How do you know? Don’t quite a few doctors go into the army on the basis of having their medical school paid for? If medical school were cheaper on the basis of doing your residency in nowhere town a lot of regular, middle class people who might not afford medical school otherwise may take it. We’ve created this hyper-elitist system with a certain set of incentives and then we’re not willing to adjust the incentives, we’ll just get foreign labor.

Decades of these programs not being able to fill without IMGs!
These programs are not the best training! For example, When you start Internal Med residency, a 3 year program, you have the option to do a fellowship and subspecialize later, same with Peds. Most IM and Peds residents start residency undecided. Those who chose to go into general peds or general IM often do not decide that until the last year of residency. If you match into a rural/non-academic med center you have essentially eliminated all possibility of choosing a subspecialty as well as all possibility of being on the general peds or IM wards running rounds in a known teaching hospital. Even for family med, it matters! For instance my T7 med school had less than a third of grads pick family med. All of them picked top residencies because they wanted to be head of Famliy Med at the Brigham one day, or live with a spouse who already had a job in a top city, or run one of the highly competitive foreign medical relief camps. None of that happens from those lesser residency programs--the teaching cases are not nearly as many nor as complicated as one needs to get the experience, and every doc and hospital involved in hiring knows it.
Fast forward 20 years: when you are in private practice General Internal Med in a known top practice in popular East coast/DMV city and you are hiring for your group, you look at the med school and residency they trained in to make sure they have the case exposure to be able to not miss the zebras. Typically you get 3-4 good applicants who meet these criteria for one spot. The rural-residency doc has does not make the final 3-4.
Residency matters. Med school matters. Even Undergrad matters, though more for the curated and likely to be paid opportunities for premeds discussed on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have 3 years of heavily focused undergrad followed by a year of a related medical experience (paid internship) and then med school.

And they need to let more kids into med school. We need more American-educated doctors.

Sigh. This was addressed above. It's not as simple as simply admitting more students. Could you pack more into the lecture halls? Sure (especially now that lots of students don't go to lecture, it's recorded and many watch it ... or plan to anyway ... later). But there simply are not enough rotation sites or residency sites.

This is not true. There are 6000 more residency spots than US MD/DO grads per year.

And American grads do not want those spots. You realize that not all programs/residencies are the same, right? That not all are created equal? And that rotation sites are not residency spots? I had an M4 complaining bitterly to me just last week about lack of rotation spots.

So to me there seems to be a gap here that I’m not understanding. We have a fairly low medical school acceptance rate, but we are importing doctors to do jobs Americans supposedly don’t want. Further, those foreign doctors are graduating from medical school with fewer years of training and less expensive training (undergrad and medical school is free in many countries), no shadowing, etc. This doesn’t make a ton of sense. Why don’t we admit more Americans on the basis that they will take those primary care jobs? Why don’t we make medical school more affordable so people can better understand the community they serve?

Because they won't.

They will not take primary care jobs in BF Nowhere Town, Flyover State that do not pay enough to pay back their loans.

So yes -- you are not understanding.

How do you know? Don’t quite a few doctors go into the army on the basis of having their medical school paid for? If medical school were cheaper on the basis of doing your residency in nowhere town a lot of regular, middle class people who might not afford medical school otherwise may take it. We’ve created this hyper-elitist system with a certain set of incentives and then we’re not willing to adjust the incentives, we’ll just get foreign labor.

Because I work at a med school and spend a lot of time discussing applications/interviews/match with M4s.

And I've taught at USUHS as well (which is what you are talking about when you refer to "quite a few doctors go into the army on the basis of having their medical school paid for"). That is a very unique set of students.

What do you mean they are unique? Are they not doctors? Why aren't incentives given to American trained doctors to practice family medicine in remote places instead of importing doctors?

Those places do benefit from some very bright FMGs and I’m sure their care is better for it. The American medical school grads who would go would go to many rural, remote, unappealing community based program would generally be the least competitive except in the unlikely case of a familial tie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CNA, MA and EMT courses can be from 4-12 weeks and cost > $1000. Just looked and phlebotomy is $2300 at MCCC

In the DMV, the classes fill up fast.

You might be able to do that over the summer, and is fine for a gap year, but it is quite a investment.

Many premeds were in summer community college EMT class. The college fees, NREMT fees, background check, drug test, books, cost about $2000

I’ve been helping my kid look and it is really hard to find one. The only one available near her school requires many many weekends which she can’t do because of her sport. We found an expedited program in Arizona where you work llle 10 hour days for a few weeks and get verified but of course that’s expensive and you need to pay lodging in Arizona and flights there (plus Arizona in the summer so that’s fun). I feel like all this is easy in theory but it adds up. Even the idea of spending her short winter break shadowing doctors after being in classes is a lot. Even premed kids deserve a break!

Please tell me this is performance art and not real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CNA, MA and EMT courses can be from 4-12 weeks and cost > $1000. Just looked and phlebotomy is $2300 at MCCC

In the DMV, the classes fill up fast.

You might be able to do that over the summer, and is fine for a gap year, but it is quite a investment.

Many premeds were in summer community college EMT class. The college fees, NREMT fees, background check, drug test, books, cost about $2000

I’ve been helping my kid look and it is really hard to find one. The only one available near her school requires many many weekends which she can’t do because of her sport. We found an expedited program in Arizona where you work llle 10 hour days for a few weeks and get verified but of course that’s expensive and you need to pay lodging in Arizona and flights there (plus Arizona in the summer so that’s fun). I feel like all this is easy in theory but it adds up. Even the idea of spending her short winter break shadowing doctors after being in classes is a lot. Even premed kids deserve a break!

Is she in high school? Maybe time to quite the sport, or commit to the gap year. That is common for athletes.
Shadowing is 40-100 hours total. She can spend one full time week shadowing doc this winter break and one next year or do 2 weeks and be done. Shadowing is not the hard part nor is it a plus to do extra. Winter break in college is usually 4 weeks. She can work one week if she really wants this. Most we know start MCAT studying over winter break junior year so they can take it in April and have fewer practice test/review hours during the semester. Heck my non-premed spent half of winter break doing research and running her club exec board on zoom. If the premed slog tires these kids they will never survive med school or residency. Maybe that is the point of all the reqs, to weed out for mental and physical stamina rather than have the med student who cannot stand for 5+ hours during ICU rounds or surgery with no break during an 80- hr work week.