10 Medical Schools With Lowest Acceptance Rates

Applying to medical school is a grueling, time consuming process that, for many, does not end with acceptance letters. While business schools extended offers, on average, to nearly half of all applicants in 2010, and law schools admitted a rough average of 35 percent of prospects, medical schools accepted a much smaller portion of their applicant pools, according to an analysis of graduate school data reported to U.S. News. 

In 2010, 521,876 applications were submitted to the 121 medical schools that reported entrance data to U.S. News. On average, just 8.9 percent of applicants were admitted—and at a handful of schools, the acceptance rates were drastically lower. 

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At the 10 schools with the lowest acceptance rates, just 2.2 to 4 percent of applicants were offered admission in 2010. At the Mayo Medical School, the school with the lowest acceptance rate in the country, only 87 of last year's 3,989 applicants were admitted. The Georgetown University School of Medicine drew 11,549 applications, the largest number of 2010 applicants among these schools, and accepted just 420. 

The Stanford University School of Medicine, which places fifth in research in U.S. News's rankings of Best Medical Schools and admits 3.3 percent of applicants, is the highest ranked school on this list—but not all schools with low acceptance rates are top-ranked research institutions. The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, ranked 60th in research, admitted slightly more than 3 percent of applicants in 2010. And the University of Vermont College of Medicine, tied for 60th in the research rankings with GWU, accepted 4 percent of its applicants last year. 

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Keep in mind that while acceptance rate data by school reflects the number of applicants admitted to a particular institution, the average prospective student applies to 14 medical schools, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Therefore, the average acceptance rate across all schools is not a direct reflection of the total number of individuals who get into medical school. 

Here are the 10 medical schools with the lowest acceptance rates, based on applicant and acceptance data reported by the institutions to U.S. News:

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Medical School Compass to find application and acceptance data for every school, residency statistics, and much more. 

U.S. News surveyed more than 140 medical schools for our 2010 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 school 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.