The Association of American Medical College recently released new data on applicants and first-time enrollments at U.S. medical school for the 2015-16 academic year. Good news! There was significant progress for both Black applicants and Black first-time enrollments.
There were 4,661 Black applicants to U.S. medical schools in 2015. They made up 8.9 percent of all applicants to these schools. The number of Black applicants was up a whopping 16.8 percent from 2014. In 2014, Blacks were 8.1 percent of all medical school applicants.
There were 1,576 new Black entrants to U.S. medical schools in 2015. They made up 7.6 percent of all medical school matriculants in 2015. This was up from 6.9 percent in 2014.
Despite this progress, it is clear that the percentage of African Americans in U.S. medical schools severely lags the percentage of Africans Americans in the U.S. population and much more needs to be done to increase the number of Black medical school students.
