Getting into med school is hard, and most students who think they want to become doctors never do, no matter how strong of a student they were in high school or what college they end up attending (@WayOutWestMom has shared data on this before).
But many students and/or families come to the board to ask about which colleges are especially good at preparing their students for med schools.
This website (which I found from a link on law schools shared by @NiceUnparticularMan) lists 2024 data on the percentage of alums who attend(ed) any medical school:
To give some framing, here’s some ranges of percentages of alums followed by what “rank” of colleges there were for that range:
- 4.0%: #1 (Johns Hopkins)
- 3.1-3.7% #2-5 (Harvard, Yale, Rice, & Brown)
- 2.0-2.9%: #6-23
- 1.0-1.9%: #24-65
- 0.5-0.9%: #66-148
- 0.1-0.4%: #148-297
Students and families tend to have an easy time finding low probability colleges, which are those that have acceptance rate of 20% or less (i.e. rejecting at least 80% of their applicants). Thus, I want to focus on schools that have more approachable acceptance rates that still have a number of alums who have gone on to med school.
| Rank | School (State) | % of alums who went to med school | Fall 2023 Undergraduate Acceptance Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| #18 | Case Western (OH) | 2.1% | 29% |
| #21 | Brandeis (MA) | 2.1% | 35% |
| #28 | Wofford (SC) | 1.8% | 59% |
| #30 | Yeshiva (NY) | 1.8% | 64% |
| #37 | Austin College (TX) | 1.5% | 47% |
| #38 | Creighton (NE) | 1.5% | 72% |
| #39 | Union College (NY) | 1.4% | 44% |
| #41 | Bryn Mawr (PA ) | 1.4% | 31% |
| #42 | U. of Rochester (NY) | 1.3% | 36% |
| #44 | Whitman (WA) | 1.3% | 50% |
| #47 | Franklin & Marshall (PA ) | 1.2% | 32% |
| #49 | Loyola U. Maryland | 1.2% | 76% |
| #51 | Spelman (GA) | 1.2% | 34% |
| #52 | Morehouse (GA) | 1.2% | 52% |
| #56 | Ursinus (PA ) | 1.1% | 87% |
| #57 | College of the Holy Cross (MA) | 1.1% | 21% |
| #58 | St. John’s College (MD & NM) | 1.1% | (44% MD; 49% NM) |
| #59 | Wabash (IN) | 1.1% | 63% |
| #61 | Oberlin (OH) | 1.0% | 33% |
| #63 | Wake Forest (NC) | 1.0% | 22% |
| #65 | Kenyon (OH) | 1.0% | 31% |
| #62 | Carleton | 1.0% | 22% |
| #69 | Hendrix (AR) | 0.9% | 53% |
| #70 | William & Mary | 0.9% | 33% |
| #72 | Furman (SC) | 0.9% | 53% |
| #75 | Rhodes (TN) | 0.9% | 50% |
| #76 | Muhlenberg (PA ) | 0.9% | 64% |
| #77 | Mount Holyoke (MA) | 0.9% | 38% |
| #78 | Howard (D.C.) | 0.9% | 35% |
| #73 | U. of California - San Diego | 0.9% | 25% |
| #79 | Rensselaer Polytechnic (NY) | 0.8% | 59% |
| #80 | Allegheny (PA ) | 0.8% | 59% |
| #82 | Kalamazoo (MI) | 0.8% | 76% |
| #83 | Trinity College (CT) | 0.8% | 34% |
| #85 | DePauw (IN) | 0.8% | 54% |
| #87 | Trinity U. (TX) | 0.8% | 28% |
| #88 | U. of Dallas (TX) | 0.8% | 54% |
Missing ranks are for schools whose acceptance rate is below 20%. And I went through 0.8% of alums who went to med school, as I needed to stop somewhere, but there are schools with sub-20% acceptance rates that fall below this rate. That is not to insinuate that those schools have poor outcomes, but rather as an indication that the schools included in this table have strong outcomes. Admissions rates came from this aggregator, last updated October 2024, unless the school was not included in which case I used College Navigator (the feds’ website).
Essentially, I hope this helps students and families to realize there are schools at a range of selectivity levels that can get them to medical school. Most of these schools also offer merit aid, which can provide significant savings to either 1) afford college and/or 2) save money for med school (which is not cheap).
Others are welcome to share resources or information on schools that have acceptance rates above 20% that are doing well at sending their graduates on to med school.
Edited to add Carleton and UCSD.