Women Continue to Make Gains in Medical School Enrollments

The Association of American Medical Colleges has released new data tables on medical school applications, acceptances, and enrollments. The total number of students applying to medical school in 2021 increased substantially, up nearly 18 percent from 2020, to a record 62,443 applicants.

In 2021, 35,438 women applied to U.S. medical schools. This was an increase of 25 percent. Male applicants increased by only 9.5 percent. Women make up 56.8 percent of all applicants.

The pandemic undoubtedly had a negative impact on 2020 applicants. But 2021 applications from women students were up by 27.3 percent from 2019, the year before the pandemic. Since 2011, women applicants to U.S. medical schools are up by more than 70 percent.

About 38 percent of students who apply to medical school are accepted. In 2021, 13,152 women were accepted to medical school. Thus, the acceptance rate for women applicants was 37.1 percent, compared to an acceptance rate of 39.1 percent for men.

The number of women first-year students at U.S. medical schools in 2021 increased by 5.6 percent, to 12,590. The number of male first-year students declined slightly. Women made up 55.5 percent of all first-year students in U.S. medical schools. In 2017, women made up a majority of the entering classes at U.S. medical schools for the first time.

In 2021, there were 50,328 women students enrolled at U.S. medical schools. They made up 52.7 percent of all medical school students. In 2019, women made up a majority of all medical school enrollments for the first time.