Major Increase in Black First-Year Enrollments in U.S. Medical Schools

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, 7,331 Black or African American students applied to U.S. medical schools. This was an increase of 41 percent. The pandemic undoubtedly had a negative impact on 2020 applicants. But 2021 applications from Black students were up by 41 percent from 2019, the year before the pandemic. Since 2014, Black applicants to U.S. medical schools are up by nearly 84 percent.

About 38 percent of students who apply to medical school are accepted. But the AAMC declines to publish data on acceptance rates by racial or ethnic group.

The number of Black or African American first-year students at U.S. medical schools in 2021 increased by 21.0 percent, to 2,562. Black or African American students made up 11.3 percent of first-year students in 2021, up from 9.5 percent in 2020. Of particular note are the increases among Black or African American men; first-year students from this group increased by 20.8 percent.

In 2021, there were 9,229 Black students enrolled at U.S. medical schools. They made up 9.7 percent of all medical school students. In 2014, Blacks made up 7 percent of all medical school enrollments.

Related Articles

4 COMMENTS

  1. Here’s a classic example of “How to Use Statistics to Lie”. If the academic buffoons at AAMC publicly disaggregated that data it would reveal something completely different. Case in point, the racist AAMC included the number of ‘African & Caribbean” immigrants along with “native born Black Americans” to make it appear statistically and optically as an significant increase. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Fayetteville State University Establishes Transfer Agreement with Wake Technical Community College

The new partnership will provide qualified students from Wake Technical Community College with guaranteed admission to Fayetteville State University upon completion of their associate's degree.

Three Black Scholars Taking On New Faculty Positions

The faculty appointments are James Haywood Rolling Jr. at Syracuse University in New York, Elias Towe at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and Roderic Pettigrew at Texas A&M University.

Howard University Receives Record-Breaking 36,000 Applicants for Class of 2028

The class of 2028 applicant pool at Howard University increased by 4,000 applications compared to last year's class of 2027. This year, the university's acceptance rate was roughly 31 percent, down five percentage points from last year.

Laquala Dixon Honored by National Association of Student Personnel Administrators for Service as HBCU Liaison

A member of the NASPA since 2013, Dr. Dixon was honored with the 2024 Sankofa Award for her commitment and contributions to the organization as the HBCU liaison for the Black Diaspora Knowledge Community.

Featured Jobs