10 Medical Schools With the Lowest Acceptance Rates
Less than 4 percent of applicants are accepted at each of these medical schools.
Morehouse School of Medicine accepted 1.6 percent of applicants for fall 2013.
The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College and The Short List: Grad School to find data that matters to you in your college or grad school search.
Spring can be one of the most anxiety-ridden seasons for aspiring doctors. Fourth-year medical students find out which residency program they will attend, and hopeful first-year medical students find out if they were accepted into a program.
For the latter group, acceptance letters can be especially hard to come by as medical schools continue to be among the most competitive graduate programs
[Elevate a med school application with research experience.]
Prospective students eyeing Morehouse School of Medicine face the steepest chances of getting in. Of the 4,385 applicants for fall 2013, 1.6 percent were accepted. The Atlanta institution rejected the largest proportion of applicants, according to 113 ranked medical schools that reported data to U.S. News in an annual survey.
Almost three times as many prospective students applied to Georgetown University, which accepted 2.8 percent of applicants. Fourth on the list of medical schools that accepted the lowest proportion of applicants, it is one of two D.C. universities to turn away almost all of its applicants.
The other school is George Washington University. With an acceptance rate of 2.1 percent for fall 2012 applicants, it once admitted the smallest percentage of its applicants. It is now sixth on the list, having accepted 3.3 percent of applicants for fall 2013.
[Bolster a medical school application with volunteer work.]
Among the 10 medical schools that accepted the lowest proportion of applicants, the average acceptance rate was 3 percent. Oklahoma State University had the highest acceptance rate out of all schools that submitted data to U.S. News. Just under 800 students applied and 21.5 percent were accepted for fall 2013.
Below is a list of the 10 medical schools that accepted the lowest percentage of applicants for fall 2013.
| School (name) (state) | Applicants | Acceptances | Acceptance rate | U.S. News research rank | U.S. News primary care rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morehouse School of Medicine (GA) | 4,385 | 70 | 1.6% | RNP* | 26 |
| Mayo Medical School (MN) | 4,595 | 83 | 1.8% | 25 | 35 |
| Stanford University (CA) | 7,341 | 196 | 2.7% | 2 | 38 |
| Georgetown University (DC) | 12,250 | 345 | 2.8% | 43 | 68 |
| Brown University (Alpert) (RI) | 8,006 | 234 | 2.9% | 32 | 34 |
| George Washington University (DC) | 10,397 | 339 | 3.3% | 60 | RNP |
| University of California—Los Angeles (Geffen) | 7,027 | 248 | 3.5% | 12 | 13 |
| University of California—San Francisco | 7,308 | 274 | 3.7% | 4 | 4 |
| Harvard University (MA) | 5,779 | 219 | 3.8% | 1 | 11 |
| Wake Forest University (NC) | 7,432 | 284 | 3.8% | 49 | 51 |
*RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of all medical and osteopathic schools. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.
Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Medical School Compass to find information on acceptance rates, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.
U.S. News surveyed 153 medical schools for our 2013 survey of research and primary care programs. Schools self-reported a myriad of data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News's data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Medical Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data comes from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News's rankings of Best Colleges or Best Graduate Schools. The acceptance rate data above are correct as of March 27, 2014.
