Undergraduate medical education

There were 32,893 applicants for the 1985-1986 academic year in US medical schools. Of this number, 17,228 were accepted by at least one school. First-year enrollment equaled 16,929. Because some students were repeating the first year, the number of first-time enrolled students was 16,337. This represents a decrease of 122 students from the previous year. The number of students enrolled in 127 US medical schools in 1985-1986 was 66,604; of this number, 21,624 (32.5%) were women. The estimated number of graduates in 1985-1986 was 16 191. The total enrollment of students of minority groups was 10,964 (16.5%), of which 3556 (5.3%) were black (not of Hispanic origin). The number of full-time medical school faculty was 61,372; another 124,466 were part-time or volunteer faculty. Medical school faculties also have teaching responsibility for a variety of other students, in addition to patient care and research responsibility. The average time needed to complete the curriculum requirements leading to the MD degree is 156 weeks. Twenty-four medical schools offered a combined college-medical school program. The length of these combined programs averaged 265 weeks. Ninety-three percent of students entering medical school in 1985-1986 had completed at least four years of college. More than two fifths of students had a premedical GPA of 3.6 or higher.