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Crowdsourcing Medical School Admissions Data: Development and Analysis of the CycleTrack Platform
Daniel Boris Amusin1, Isabelle Hua2, Arthi Shankar Kozhumam1
1Medical Scientist Training Program, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 303 E Chicago Ave, Morton 1-670, Chicago, IL, 60611, United States, 1 312-503-5232.
CycleTrack, a crowdsourced platform, accurately tracks medical school applications, offering real-time insights into application cycles and interview invitations. Data reveals differences between platform users and national averages, highlighting demand for transparent admissions data.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Health Informatics
- Data Science
Background:
- Medical school admissions data is traditionally opaque.
- Applicants lack real-time insights into application trends and decision timelines.
- Existing data sources are often delayed and lack granular detail.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate CycleTrack, a crowdsourced platform for real-time medical school application tracking.
- To analyze application patterns, user demographics, and admissions timing.
- To assess the utility of crowdsourced data in understanding the medical school application landscape.
Main Methods:
- Developed CycleTrack, a web-based platform utilizing a crowdsourcing model.
- Collected and aggregated data on Doctor of Medicine (MD), MD-Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO), and DO-PhD applications.
- Correlated CycleTrack data with official statistics from the Association of American Medical Colleges and American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine.
- Analyzed user demographics, grade point average (GPA), and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores.
Main Results:
- 34,763 users registered, tracking 415,837 applications.
- Tracked application volume strongly correlated with official data (Spearman ρ≥0.91).
- Observed statistically significant differences in demographics, GPA, and MCAT scores between CycleTrack users and national averages.
- Accurately captured interview invitation cadences for specific MD programs.
- Demonstrated longer interview cycles for DO programs compared to MD and MD-PhD programs.
Conclusions:
- CycleTrack provides a valuable, real-time dataset for medical school application trends.
- Crowdsourced data can accurately reflect application volumes and offer insights into cycle dynamics.
- Significant demographic and academic differences exist between platform users and national applicant pools.
- There is a clear demand for transparent and timely admissions statistics among medical school applicants.
