How Many Medical Schools Should I Apply To? Which Ones?
/Which medical schools should I apply to? How many? A system for developing your medical school list to get in the first time
“How many medical schools should i apply to?'‘ the answer depends on your GPA, MCAT score, and preferences, among other factors
(Note: A version of this guide can also be found in our free, 102-page comprehensive ebook on medical school admissions, Get Into Medical School: 6 Practical Lessons to Stand Out and Earn Your White Coat.)
----
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: How medical school location impacts your odds of getting in
Part 3: How many medical schools should I apply to?
Part 4: Which medical schools should I apply to?
----
Part 1: Introduction
As a medical school applicant, you're probably extremely stressed out.
After completing your many medical school requirements—including a grueling premed curriculum, the MCAT, conducting research, shadowing doctors, and participating in other extracurriculars for medical school—you deserve to get in somewhere.
Unfortunately, only about 40 percent of med school applicants matriculate in any given year!
If you hope to be among those matriculants, this intimidating statistic undoubtedly leads to many burning questions about the application process. And some of those questions will likely pertain to your school list.
Since our goal is to help improve your odds of getting in, not to mention reduce your stress during the process, we wrote this guide to help answer the most common questions pertaining to medical school lists, including the two biggest ones:
How many medical schools should I apply to?
Which medical schools should I apply to?
We want to stress that where you apply is perhaps the single most underrated part of the admissions process. Many students—traditional and non-traditional—who end up not getting in anywhere simply applied to too many schools where they were not very competitive applicants. The right school list can help maximize your chances of getting in, whereas the wrong school list will increase the odds that you’ll be reapplying to medical school in a future cycle.
----
Part 2: How medical school location impacts your odds of getting in
The geography of the medical schools you apply to can greatly influence your overall chances of admission.
Medical schools in California, New York, and other popular areas tend to receive the most applications, so restricting your list to these competitive locales may hinder your chances of getting into medical school anywhere.
On the other hand, applying to in-state or regional schools often increases your admissions odds because medical schools prefer to admit students who will be more likely to serve their state’s or region’s health care needs. This is mostly true of public medical schools, which tend to admit in-state or in-region applicants at much higher rates, but it’s also the case at some private med schools, too.
For example, Texas residents have a far higher chance of getting into medical schools in Texas than non-residents. But it isn’t just public med schools in Texas that prefer in-state applicants; private schools like Baylor also admit in-state applicants at markedly higher rates.
Conversely, you'll have very low odds of getting into certain out-of-state or out-of-region medical schools that clearly prefer to admit local students. For instance, approximately 96% of matriculants to the University of Washington in 2022 were in-region applicants (i.e., those from Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho), while less than 1 percent were out-of-region applicants. Even among that tiny number, around half of the out-of-region applicants were pursuing an MD-PhD, meaning they were more qualified than the average matriculant!
Given the fees and the amount of work you'll be putting into each secondary application, it's important to carefully consider geography when choosing the schools on your list.
Location can affect how much you pay for medical school
Financially, there can be a huge difference between attending a public school as an in-state resident (less expensive) vs. attending a public school as an out-of-state resident or attending a private school (much more expensive).
To demonstrate this point, let’s compare 2021–2022 annual tuition and fees for two great Los Angeles medical schools, UCLA (Geffen) and USC (Keck):
UCLA (in-state): $45,306 x 4 years = $181,224
UCLA (out-of-state): $57,551 x 4 years = $230,204
USC (in- or out-of-state): $72,655 x 4 years = $290,620
Thus, if you’re a California resident, attending UCLA instead of USC will save you a whopping $109,396—a 38 percent savings.
This example doesn’t even factor in cost-of-living expenses (e.g., food, rent) or interest on your loans that will increase your final repayment amount by tens of thousands of dollars.
So, while medical school is only four years, it could be the most expensive four years of your life. That’s why it’s a good idea to examine how much you’ll be expected to pay when deciding where to apply, even if you plan to apply for medical school scholarships.
(Suggested reading: Tuition at Every Medical School in the United States)
Each place will involve some form of compromise
Have clear compromises in mind that you’re willing to make regarding location. There may be schools you apply to that have great programs but are located in areas that will require you to live in cold or warm environments, further away from family and friends than you would like, or in cities that are larger or smaller than you prefer. You should develop definite ideas about where you are willing to compromise. For example, the University of Alabama School of Medicine might have a great program, but its southern location, hot summers, and conservative community could make studying difficult for those not accustomed to that lifestyle. Likewise, the chilly winters, liberal worldview, and hustle and bustle of New York City won’t suit everyone.
Unforeseen costs of studying in different locations
Each location will have various costs associated with it in addition to just tuition and housing. When making a school list, it’s worth researching general costs of living to avoid any surprises along the way. Some key points to consider are:
Is there adequate public transportation to campus? Most rural locations will require you to have a car to get to campus. This means factoring in the cost of gasoline, car maintenance, and insurance in your new location.
Housing locations In some cities, housing near campus is more expensive. It’s worthwhile to take note of the general cost of rent in areas near schools you’re applying to.
Ease of buying essentials Groceries, going to restaurants, and getting deliveries of food or items from Amazon can all vary in different areas. In New York, there’s something available 24 hours a day, but in Nebraska stores may close earlier than you’re used to. Additionally, the convenience of a big city can come with a cost.
Cost of living comparisons This can be a bit tricky, but if you’ll be moving to a different city for medical school, especially one that’s in a different state, you might want to get an idea of the differences in prices in your new location. Websites such as Numbeo are a great resource for this, with easy breakdowns of essentials like milk, bread, the average cost of rent, and utilities such as electricity and internet.
Entertainment Medical school is tough, but it shouldn’t be all work and no play. It’s important to think about how you might spend your free time and how much it may cost. Medical schools in rural areas may have an abundance of free outdoor activities, such as hiking or cycling, while schools in urban areas will have cinemas and a more active nightlife–both of which can dent your finances if you’re not careful.
How important are personal preferences regarding location?
You should also take the time to consider where you want to spend four years of your 20s (and/or 30s).
While you’ll be working hard and won’t be living a lavish lifestyle, your quality of life matters greatly in getting you through med school. Some questions we ask our students when developing a school list include:
Do you want to live in a rural area or a big city?
Think about how much you enjoy going out, how much driving vs. walking you’d like to do, and whether you’d like to engage in outdoor activities such as hiking or swimming.
Are you open to living in a place with cold winters or do you want to have warm weather all year?
Keep in mind that most places that experience a good mix of weather tend to be more expensive than areas with mostly cold or mostly warm weather, and being near the coast is almost always more expensive than being landlocked, regardless of the temperatures.
How near to your friends and family do you want to be?
If you haven’t already, start asking yourself questions about marriage, family planning, and other social life goals you have, so that you can avoid neglecting your progress towards these important milestones.
What kind of career opportunities will you be looking for?
Some areas are geared more towards certain industries than others (for example, technology in Silicon Valley or biomedical research in New England), and as such the medical schools there will likely have lucrative partnerships with prospective employers within those industries.
Have you considered the local or regional culture?
The United States is a big place with many regional cultures and attitudes. The place where you spend the next four years of your life should be one that you feel comfortable in or attracted to.
While perhaps the most important factors in deciding where to apply are your GPA and MCAT score (more on that below in Part 4), you should definitely contemplate where you think you'll be able to thrive the most.
----
Part 3: How many medical schools should I apply to?
The average number of medical schools students apply to is 16.
Technically, applying to a greater number of schools increases your admission odds. However, in reality, applying to too many schools often leads to less attention and effort given to each individual secondary application, compromising the quality of your secondary essays. Moreover, submitting too many applications can exhaust you—physically and financially—when it comes time to travel around the country for medical school interviews.
Applying to too few schools, on the other hand, reduces your odds of finding and getting admitted to schools that are the right fit for you. Furthermore, you likely won't be able to strike the right balance of “reach,” “target,” and “undershoot” (i.e., “safety”) schools.
So, how many medical schools should you apply to? We recommend that you initially apply to 15–25 carefully selected schools and devote your full effort to those applications. Then, depending on your availability, energy level, and finances, you can recycle your essays and apply to an additional 5–15 med schools.
On the absolute low end, you should apply to 15 schools. On the high end, we recommend you don’t exceed 40 schools.
However, it’s not merely the size of your medical school list that matters, but also the specific programs. If your medical school list is too aggressive based on your stats, you'll want to apply to more schools to achieve the right balance. On the other hand, if your list is more conservative, you may apply to fewer schools.
For example, if a student with a 3.6 GPA and 513 MCAT score applies to 15 of the 25 top-ranked medical schools, their full list should be much larger because most, if not all, of those 15 schools will be reaches for them. On the other hand, those schools would be target programs for a student with a 3.9 GPA and 519 MCAT score, assuming that they also have the extracurriculars to back it up.
As a general rule, the higher your grades and MCAT scores, the lower the number of schools you need to apply to. Conversely, the lower your grades and MCAT scores, the higher the number of schools you should apply to.
(Suggested reading: What MCAT Score Do You Need to Get Into Medical School?)
Can medical schools see how many schools you apply to?
No, medical schools cannot see how many other schools you applied to, let alone which ones. In AMCAS, you indicate which schools you’d like your primary application to be sent to. Those schools will see all of your information except where else you applied.
Is it bad to apply to only one medical school?
You’ve probably heard the saying, “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket.” That saying means it’s best not to put all hope (or possibly your entire livelihood) in one source. When it comes to applying to medical schools, this couldn’t be more accurate.
Even if you have maintained an outstanding GPA, scored impressively high on the MCAT, had stellar letters of recommendation, and accrued 500 shadowing hours (you get the idea…), you still shouldn’t put all of your dreams of med school in the hands of only one school.
If you don’t get accepted into that one school, you must apply to med school again. Since you will have applied to med school previously at that point, you will forever be labeled a reapplicant. There tend to be disagreements surrounding how much being a reapplicant impacts your chances of acceptance, but why worry about whether there’s any validity if you don’t need to?
What if I can’t afford to apply to multiple medical schools?
Applying to medical school isn’t cheap! Between MCAT fees, fees for the primary applications, fees to complete your secondary applications, and fees to appear for interviews (which often include travel and accommodations), the fees can add up—fast!
While we’re telling you it is unwise to only apply to one school, we also understand that not everyone has the financial ability to apply to 40 schools. Imagine being invited to interview at just half of those on top of it!
The good news is that AAMC and AACOM have fee assistance programs to assist students who must complete the AMCAS or AACOMAS, respectively. (TMDSAS does not have a fee assistance program.) The AAMC’s fee assistance program has additional benefits, such as covering the cost of the MCAT, providing complimentary access to MSAR, enabling students to receive AAMC official prep products, and more.
----
Part 4: Which medical schools should I apply to?
You can probably recite your cumulative and science GPA and MCAT score without even thinking.
This will make it easier for you to compare your stats with the admissions statistics of various medical schools’ entering classes, which can be found on most schools’ websites (see Tufts University School of Medicine's Class Profile as an example) or in the AAMC’s Medical School Admissions Requirement (MSAR) database.
However, to make this process easier, we encourage you to review our in-house list, Average GPA and MCAT Score for Every Medical School, and view our video, What is a Good MCAT Score?, to see how you stack up against accepted students at each school.
While it’s simple to learn whether you fall above or below a school’s average stats, it’s much more difficult to figure out how to classify medical schools as reach, target, and undershoot. Therefore, we’ll offer two approaches that you can independently or collectively use to develop your perfect school list: the WedgeDawg system and a general rule of thumb.
We recommend that you use the WedgeDawg system if you want to take a deep dive, and that you use our rule of thumb either as a supplement to WedgeDawg or if you just want to keep things more simple.
Before we explain how each approach works, we want to reemphasize that applying mostly to reach schools—that is, schools whose average GPA and MCAT scores are higher than yours—is one of the primary reasons students end up not matriculating. For that reason, it’s important to develop your school list heavily based on stats.
Option 1: WedgeDawg’s Applicant Rating System (WARS)
WedgeDawg’s Applicant Rating System (WARS) is a popular system on Student Doctor Network that can help you determine your competitiveness at various medical school based on factors including your undergraduate institution, extracurricular activities, GPA, MCAT score, and personal factors. While not perfect—no system is perfect because admissions isn’t guaranteed—WARS tends to yield better results than other systems like LizzyM. Believe us when we say we’ve tested them all.
Getting into the specifics, WARS considers the following variables when determining your competitiveness for medical school admissions:
GPA (averaged across all fields: undergrad cumulative GPA, undergrad science GPA, post-bacc GPA, etc.)
MCAT score
Research experience
Clinical experience
Shadowing experience
Volunteering experience
Leadership and teaching experience
Miscellaneous (i.e., other significant experiences or achievements)
Undergraduate institution
Representation in medicine
GPA trend (If your GPA has consistently been high, give yourself the higher rating)
WARS then uses a formula that differentially weighs each of those variables to produce an overall score that ranges from 0–121 and corresponds to your “level” of competitiveness. Based on your level, WARS breaks down the percentage of medical schools you should apply to within each tier (“category”). The higher your level, the higher the percentage of Category 1 schools (e.g., Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins) you should apply to.
While WARS also recommends a specific total number of schools to apply to based on your level, we’ve found that the recommended numbers are somewhat low, so pay closer to attention to the percentages.
WARS describes how to rate yourself on each factor listed above. Whereas some of the ratings are objective (e.g., GPA, MCAT), most are subjective. However, WARS provides helpful examples of what might receive a 4 vs. a 3 rating in, say, the research category. When it comes to subjective categories, we recommend choosing the lower rating when you’re on the fence so that you can approach your school list more conservatively.
We don’t recommend that you try to figure out how to use the various multipliers, because it can get quite confusing. Instead, use the WARS Online Calculator, which simply asks you to type in your rating for each category to produce your overall score.
In addition to the sometimes subjective nature of WARS—which, frankly, isn’t a major criticism because it reflects the largely subjective systems that medical school admissions committees use—it does have a few issues:
It groups DO schools as one category, although DO schools can vary significantly with regard to accepted students’ average GPA and MCAT scores.
It doesn’t work particularly well for MD-PhD programs, which weigh research experiences far more heavily.
It doesn’t effectively handle disparate GPAs, such as a low undergrad GPA vs. a high graduate GPA, or vice-versa.
It has no way of accounting for “soft factors,” such as the strengths of your application essays or recommendation letters.
Still, WARS is a very helpful way to filter medical schools for your first pass. You can then review each school individually to better understand your odds of getting in, whether your background and aspirations fit with their programs, and so on.
Option 2: Our rule of thumb
Over the years, we’ve supported students who develop their own systems for classifying schools as reaches, targets, or undershoots. While the specifics vary, they’re typically overly complicated.
To keep things simple, we developed another way to decide whether a given medical school is a reach, target, or undershoot for you by comparing your stats to their averages.
The rule goes as follows:
GPA:
If your GPA is .2 or more points higher than the average student of a medical school's entering class, consider that school an undershoot in the GPA category.
If your GPA is .2 or more points lower than their average matriculant's, classify that school as a reach in the GPA category.
If your GPA is within .1 points in either direction of the school's entering class average, consider that school a target in the GPA category.
MCAT:
If your MCAT score is 3 or more points higher than the average student of a medical school's entering class, consider that school an undershoot in the MCAT category.
If your MCAT score is 3 or more points lower than their average matriculant’s, classify that school as a reach in the MCAT category.
If your MCAT score is within 2 points in either direction of the school's entering class average, consider that school a target in the MCAT category.
Overall: Based on the GPA and MCAT categories, you should classify schools as follows:
Reach GPA + Reach MCAT = Reach overall
Undershoot GPA + Undershoot MCAT = Undershoot overall
Reach GPA + Undershoot MCAT = Target overall
Undershoot GPA + Reach MCAT = Target overall
Reach GPA + Target MCAT = Target overall
Target GPA + Reach MCAT = Target overall
Undershoot GPA + Target MCAT = Undershoot overall
Target GPA + Undershoot MCAT = Undershoot overall
Target GPA + Target MCAT = Target overall
The one exception to the formula above is when either your GPA or MCAT score is significantly lower than the school’s entering class average. Specifically, if your GPA or MCAT score is lower than a school’s 10th percentile value, you should classify that school as a “reach,” regardless of how high your score is in the other category.
Therefore, if you have a highly discrepant GPA and MCAT score—whether your GPA is high and your MCAT score is low, or vice-versa—you should err on the side of conservatism with your school list.
How to develop your medical school list
Although applying our general rule of thumb can give you a strong sense of where you stand academically in a given school’s eyes, your GPA and MCAT scores shouldn’t completely discourage you from applying to a school because averages are simply averages. For instance, a school whose entering class boasts a 3.7 GPA most likely admitted students with a 3.9 and a 3.5.
The same applies to MCAT scores. Even if your scores are below a certain school’s averages, you could still get in if you demonstrate that you're an excellent “fit” by discussing particular skills or interests in your medical school personal statement, AMCAS Work and Activities section, secondary essays, and letters of recommendation. Some ways to do this include:
Speaking Spanish (medical schools located in areas with a large number of monolingual Spanish speakers, such as medical schools in Florida, view this as highly desirable)
Having a strong medical research record, including multiple publications (all medical schools value research, but this will be especially appealing to schools with a heavy research emphasis and MD-PhD programs)
Having a significant service background (for schools emphasizing community involvement)
Nevertheless, you should send around three-quarters of your applications to schools whose averages you meet or exceed. Here's our suggested breakdown:
3–5 reach schools
7–10 target schools
5–7 undershoot schools
Bonus: 3–5 “far undershoot” (i.e., “very safe”) schools
And, please, apply to all of your in-state and regional schools if your GPA and MCAT scores hover around their averages.
If you find yourself in the position where you can't identify enough undershoot and far undershoot U.S. MD schools to fill out these categories, feel free to supplement as needed with DO and Caribbean medical schools. However, in this case, you’ll want to prioritize applying to schools with strong residency match rates.
(Suggested reading: MD vs DO: The Biggest Differences (And Which Is Better))
Final thoughts
Choosing the right medical schools to apply to can mean the difference between getting in and having to reapply. Moreover, where you apply can have a significant financial and personal impact on your next four years and beyond.
Therefore, rather than practicing wishful thinking, taking a data-driven approach to developing your school list can help you achieve major admissions success—and avoid heartbreak.
About the Author
Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on medical school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school using his exclusive approach.
----
