Medical school applications have reached an all-time high this year, with more than 43,000 applicants to U.S. med schools. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports:
32,654 people applied for the first time to medical school, an increase of 2.6 percent over last year. The total number of applicants also jumped by 2.8 percent this year to 43,919, up from 42,741 in 2010.
This is the largest first-time applicant pool since it began tracking in 1989, according to AAMC. Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine has not yet released its application numbers for this year.
“This demonstrates without a doubt that medicine remains a very attractive career to undergraduates,” AAMC President and CEO Darrell Kirch said in a statement. “We are very pleased that medicine continues to be attractive at a time when our healthcare system faces many challenges.”
The growth in number of applications has also been fueled by an increase in the number of schools and spots available to future doctors.
Other fields aren’t faring as well: Grad school enrollment decreased this year for the first time in seven years, and law school applications decreased nearly 10 percent.
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