How to Get Into the Yale School of Medicine: Requirements and Strategies
/Learn the Yale Medical School acceptance rate, admissions requirements, and strategies, plus YSM secondary essay examples
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Part 1: Introduction
Established in 1810, the Yale School of Medicine is known as one of the oldest medical schools in the United States, as well as one of the best. It currently sits at #10 on U.S. News and World Report’s Research rankings, and its daunting admissions standards reflect its illustrious reputation.
With 5,000 applicants vying annually for about 100 slots, aspiring Yalies must put their best feet forward. To help make your application to Yale as competitive as possible, we’ve assembled a comprehensive guide to acing your Yale secondary application, including a program overview, admissions statistics, and strategies (with examples) for tackling Yale’s daunting secondary essays.
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Part 2: Yale School of Medicine MD programs
Yale School of Medicine offers four tracks of study for students to achieve an
MD:
In addition to these MD programs, Yale also offers a number of dual-degree programs in conjunction with other schools at Yale. Yale medical students can earn an MD/JD, MD/MBA, or an MD/MDiv.
Yale Medical School tuition and scholarships
Yale School of Medicine’s tuition, clocking in at $72,290 during 2024–2025, is steep. Adjusting for fees and cost of living, Yale currently advises its students to budget $111,257 for the first year of attendance.
Because Yale is a private institution, you won’t find any in-state perks. However, the School of Medicine offers generous, need-based financial aid.
In 2019, Yale announced that students receiving financial aid would be expected to borrow just $15,000 per year going forward, reducing its “unit loan” by 50 percent over two years. As a result, students eligible for financial aid take out fewer loans and receive more institutional scholarships, and they should graduate with no more than $60,000 in debt.
Since 2023-2024, students who qualify for need-based aid have been able to commit to taking out a $10,000 annual loan and Yale has agreed to cover the remainder of costs including room and board, meaning these students will graduate with only $40,000 in debt.
For reference, the average medical school graduate debt in 2023 was $250,995.
Research at Yale Medical School
Historically, Yale researchers have pioneered advances in medical research at an astronomical rate, furthering global knowledge of medicine from diagnoses to treatments. Today, many of its research initiatives are being implemented in laboratories nationwide—and they all begin at Yale School of Medicine.
As a student, you may wonder what research opportunities exist for you to become involved in. At YSM, your level of involvement depends on where you are in your med school journey. For instance, those who have not yet matriculated can participate in START@Yale, an intensive in-person summer research program. It’s designed for students to attend the summer before matriculating and is open to all YSM students regardless of their research background.
Students can apply for the First-Year Yale Medical Student Summer Research during their first year and receive a weekly stipend to fund their research project. (Take note of the important deadlines to receive this funding) Third, fourth, and fifth-year students can apply for the Short-Term Research funding if they are involved with research full-time (defined as spending 40 hours per week engaged in research).
To encourage devoting time to research, Yale also offers to waive tuition and to provide a stipend (limited number available) to students who spend a fifth year in med school specifically to focus on research.
Yale also hosts Student Research Day each year, an event that allows students to showcase their research projects through poster sessions and presentations. This platform encourages open discourse between visitors/viewers and researchers.
But you don’t have to wait until you matriculate to medical school to become involved in research. While YSM does not teach undergraduate programs, the same professors who teach at YSM frequently supervise undergraduate research projects. Research topics range from biology to biochemistry, and engaging in research as an undergraduate is an excellent way to prepare for the rigor of graduate research.
Prospective YSM students interested in student research can contact the Student Research Team for more information and to further understand the integral role research plays in YSM education.
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Part 3: How hard is it to get into the Yale School of Medicine?
Yale Medical School admissions statistics
With an acceptance rate of 5.5 percent, Yale School of Medicine is highly selective. Let’s take a look at the admissions statistics for the MD program’s graduating class of 2027:
Applications: 5,495
Matriculants: 104
While Yale hasn’t shared further details regarding its most recent class, statistics for the class of 2024 illustrate Yale’s high expectations when it comes to academic achievement:
Median GPA: 3.92
Median MCAT: 522
(Suggested reading: Average GPA and MCAT Score for Every Medical School)
Yale Medical School admissions requirements
To apply to Yale School of Medicine, applicants must fulfill the following coursework requirements, complete with lab:
General biology or zoology: 2 semesters
General chemistry: 2 semesters
Organic chemistry: 1 semester
Biochemistry: 1 semester (laboratory recommended, but not required)
General physics: 2 semesters
Furthermore, if you are applying in the 2024–2025 application cycle and intend to matriculate in August of 2025, the MCAT score you submit must have been taken between January 2021 and the final test date in 2024.
(Suggested reading: Medical School Requirements: The Definitive Guide)
Yale Medical School application timeline
You’ll submit your Yale School of Medicine application via AMCAS. Here are the dates and deadlines to keep in mind during the application process:
May 1, 2024: AMCAS application opens
May 28, 2024: AMCAS application can be submitted
September 2024–January 2025: Interviews conducted
October 15, 2024: AMCAS application deadline
November 15, 2024: Yale secondary application deadline; Letters of recommendation deadline
March 15, 2025: Applicants notified of admissions decision by this date
As is the case for all medical school admissions, we advise you to submit your AMCAS primary as soon as possible after the system opens. Yale typically sends out secondary applications within a week of receiving your AMCAS primary, beginning in late July when the secondary application becomes available. They’ll consider applications on a first-come basis, so timeliness in returning your secondary can be key to your success as well.
(Suggested reading: The Ideal Medical School Application Timeline)
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Part 4: Yale Medical School secondary application essays (examples included)
Like any other medical school, Yale will first take into account your personal statement and AMCAS Work and Activities section, as well as your MCAT score, GPA, and recommendation letters. But when it comes to secondary applications, Yale also gives applicants a lot of space to communicate who they are narratively—more than most schools allow—giving you the opportunity, hopefully, to stand out from that crowded applicant pool.
Don’t be intimidated by the length of this secondary. Instead, see it as a chance to more fully communicate with the admissions committee. Below, we’ve shared each secondary essay prompt and provided an example of a strong response to Question 1, along with an explanation describing everything it does right:
Question 1: Yale School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms. How will your background and experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future role as a physician? (500 words)
Fortunately, this is your standard “diversity prompt.” The goal with this prompt, as with all diversity prompts, is to show what makes you unique (culturally, intellectually, geographically, skill-based, etc.) and how your unique background and perspective will allow you to add (in a way only you can!) to the future of medicine.
In addition to directly responding to the question in the prompt, remember to also leave some room for explaining how you’d bring your own unique personality, background, and experience to the Yale campus and to New Haven in particular. This is a great way to “demonstrate fit” with Yale, so adcoms can clearly tell you didn’t just copy and paste this essay into multiple different secondary applications.
Check out the following example of a great response to this prompt, followed by an analysis of what makes it so strong:
Having had the privilege of attending quality schools all my life, I’m almost embarrassed to admit how little I knew about the obstacles facing the youth of Dallas’s inner-city public school system. During the summer of my sophomore year, however, I worked as a tutor for StudyWell, a nonprofit focused on increasing educational opportunities for grade-school students in my hometown of Dallas. While teaching math and science to my young students, I realized that the barriers to their education extended far beyond the classroom. Many of their parents were unable to afford transportation to get them to and from school in a timely manner, meaning some kids had to commute on buses for up to two hours each way. Seeing these bright young kids be forced to work twice as hard to overcome the obstacles in their education journey opened my eyes to other disparities in the quality of life all around me. I decided to make it my lifelong mission to mend these gaps through healthcare.
Texas is home to many immigrants, and because the lack of access to health insurance disproportionately affects these communities, many rely on free clinics to receive primary and urgent care services. To learn more about the specific trials these communities face and what I can do to address them, I took on a volunteering position at Care Clinic in downtown Dallas. There, I’ve worked as a Spanish-to-English translator for hundreds of patients, and through serving as an intermediary between these patients and their healthcare, I’ve learned that a large portion of Texas’s immigrant community lacks access to preventative care. This often means that they wait until their symptoms worsen before seeking medical help.
As the doctors at Care Clinic worked tirelessly to treat the patients’ ailments, I decided to utilize my past tutoring work to help educate our patient population on preventative care offerings provided for free by the clinic. Through consulting with the doctors, I designed Spanish-language pamphlets that detailed not only the services we could provide, like check-ups and screenings, but also common symptoms to watch out for (such as fevers or rashes) and when to seek a doctor’s opinion immediately. I’ve also begun negotiations with the city’s public transportation services to provide ride vouchers for patients who need to visit the clinic but cannot afford the transportation costs to do so.
In the long term, I aim to utilize my medical career to help bridge the systemic gaps in healthcare access affecting underprivileged communities. To gain the skills necessary to do so, I’ll take part in Yale’s initiatives such as HAVEN, the student-run free clinic, and supplement my medical education with elective courses through the School of Public Policy to learn how to tackle non-health-related obstacles that currently prevent disadvantaged populations from accessing care.
In this essay, the applicant has done a great job of thoroughly addressing the two core questions in the prompt: how will you use your prior experiences to contribute to Yale School of Medicine’s valuing of diversity in all its forms, and how will you carry this value into your future role as a physician? And although they themself don’t come from an underrepresented or disadvantaged background, their essay demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the challenges that individuals from such backgrounds often face, and it tells a compelling story about the actions they’ve already taken to address those challenges.
Rather than vaguely mentioning volunteer experience or a passion for helping others, they provided crystal-clear examples of the actions they took — such as creating Spanish-language pamphlets on services and preventative measures, and negotiating with local public transport to secure ride vouchers to and from the clinic. They also explain how these actions relate to their long term goal of bridging the systemic gaps in healthcare access that affect underprivileged communities. Then, they go a step further by specifying how they will pursue those goals at Yale. Rather than just giving a generic example that could apply to any medical school, they mention Yale’s Haven Initiative and elective courses they plan to take which will help them accomplish their goal of increasing access to healthcare for underprivileged communities.
This essay works because it goes above and beyond to thoroughly address the prompt, and it contains personalized, detailed information about the applicant and their journey toward a career in medicine that is unique to them alone. Plenty of other applicants will write about volunteer experience and helping patients from underprivileged backgrounds — but this essay is extremely specific in the detail it provides, ensuring that it will stand out as unique and memorable to the admissions committee.
Question 2: Please answer either one of the following questions. (500 words)
MD applicants: Please answer either one of the following questions.
MD/PhD applicants: Please answer question 2 as it pertains to your proposed PhD research.
While there is great emphasis on the physician-patient relationship. Yale School of Medicine also emphasizes the importance of training future physicians to care for communities and populations. Describe how your experiences would contribute to this aspect of the mission of the Yale School of Medicine. (500 words)
Research is essential to patient care, and all students at Yale School of Medicine complete a research thesis. Tell us how your research interests, skills and experiences would contribute to scholarship at Yale School of Medicine. (500 words)
Question 3: If you are not enrolled in college or graduate school classes for the duration of the current academic year, please tell us how you are spending your time. Include both your current and any planned activities prior to enrolling in medical school. (No limit specified)
Question 4: Have there been any updates regarding your activities / achievements / distinctions since completing your AMCAS application, or do you have any important accomplishments you have not yet shared with us here or in your AMCAS application? The Office of Admissions will review your activities / achievements / distinctions in the Experiences section of the AMCAS Application, so you do not need to restate anything included there. We include your AMCAS experiences below for reference. (No limit specified)
Question 5: This section is optional. It should be used to bring to the attention of the Admissions Committee any important information (personal, academic, or professional) not discussed in other sections of your Yale Secondary Application. (500 words)
Gain instant access to med school secondary essay examples for every single prompt required by every medical school in the United States and Canada. Subscribe today to lock in the current investments, which will be increasing in the future for new subscribers.
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Part 5: Yale Medical School interviews
Just a fraction of applicants receive invitations to interview at Yale, so if you do, take pride in having made it to this stage of the application process.
In the 2023–2024 application cycle, all interviews were held virtually.
Your Yale School of Medicine interview day will consist of an orientation meeting with the Director of Admissions, one 20–30 minute interview with either the Director or Assistant Director of Admissions, and two 45-minute interviews with Admissions Committee members. You’ll also get to attend a meet and greet with a YSM faculty member.
Prepare to ace your medical school interview by reviewing the interview feedback on Yale’s Student Doctor Network page to learn what interview questions you might face, and be ready to answer common questions such as “Why Yale?” and “Why medicine?” Additionally, know your own application materials forward and backwards, and be prepared to discuss anything you’ve mentioned in them, such as your extracurriculars, coursework, or essay subjects.
Invited to a med school interview? Congrats! There's no need to land in waitlist purgatory or the rejection pile. Learn how to craft memorable, acceptance-worthy responses using the resource below.
Gain instant access to the most common traditional and MMI interview questions, plus sample responses for each, to help you craft responses that lead to acceptances. Subscribe today to lock in the current investments, which will be increasing in the future for new subscribers.
Final thoughts
An acceptance from Yale School of Medicine will require more than just excellent grades, MCAT scores, and extracurricular achievements. By following the advice in this guide, you’ll be well equipped to write exemplary secondary essays that will get you one step closer to earning your white coat from Yale.
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.