A Healthy Rise in Women Applicants and Matriculants to Medical Schools

The Association of American Medical Colleges recently released new data on applicants and matriculants at U.S. medical schools for 2016.

In 2016, there were 38,773 students who applied to medical schools for the first time. Of these, 19,682, or 50.8 percent, were women. This is the first time since 2007 that the number of women applicants was higher than the number of men.

The number of women applying to medical school in 2016 for the first time was up 5.3 percent from a year ago. In contrast, the number of men applying to medical school dropped by 3 percent.

Despite the edge in applicants for women, more men entered medical school than women in 2016. This year 10,474 women and 10,551 men entered medical school. The gap is considerably smaller than was the case a year ago due to a 6.2 percent rise in women matriculants compared to a 2 percent drop in male entrants to medical school.