When evaluating whether to enroll in Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences, it is important to consider many factors besides the school's medical school admissions statistics. It is essential to determine whether you will be happy and comfortable here, and whether it will provide you the opportunity to gain a good education, to excel as a student, and to grow as an individual. Remember, you are going to college to get an education that prepares you for life, not merely a practical training that prepares you for medical school.
Penn provides exceptional opportunities to gain a broad education while preparing for medical school. On one campus, we provide undergraduate and graduate study in a broad range of fields, from bioengineering to gender studies. Penn also offers courses and majors in a number of health-related fields, including internationally-recognized science departments, health care management, technology and society, health and societies, biological basis of behavior, and human biology. Regardless of their fields, however, our students have the opportunity to study with some of the finest professors in the world. And our pre-health students also have the chance to assist in clinical care and research opportunities at the University's medical, dental, and veterinary schools, all of which are located on the same campus.
Getting into medical school is a very competitive process. Nationally, only 45% of the individuals who applied for admission to allopathic (M.D. degree-granting) medical schools were admitted last year. Penn applicants were much more successful in gaining admission: 84% of seniors were accepted. Penn has always been a leader in preparing students for the study of medicine. Over the years, it has consistently ranked among the top few undergraduate schools in the number of its alumni who enter M.D. programs in the United States.
