JBHE’s Annual Checkup of Black Students at Medical Schools in the United States

Filed in Professional Schools, Research & Studies on December 16, 2019

The Association of American Medical Colleges has just released data on applicants, acceptances, matriculants, and enrollments at the nation’s medical schools.

In 2019, more than 53,000 students applied to medical schools in the United States. This was up 1.1 percent from the previous year. Of these more than 53,000 applicants, 5,193 were Black. Thus, Blacks made up 9.7 percent of all applicants to U.S. medical schools.

Just over 42 percent of all applicants were accepted. But the Association of American Medical Colleges did not report on the acceptance rate for Black applicants.

We do know that 21,869 students enrolled in medical school for the first time in 2019. Of these, 1,916, or 8.8 percent, were Black. The number of Black matriculants was up 3.2 percent from 2018 and by 37.2 percent from 2013.

All told, in 2019, there were 92,758 students enrolled in U.S. medical schools. Again, no data was reported on the total number of Black enrollees so it is impossible to determine persistence and dropout rates.