
Medicine has long been regarded as a highly rewarding profession, appealing to both the altruistic and the intellectual sides of our nature. The path to becoming a physician is often described as long and arduous. This is, in part, true. However, during that journey, you are studying and gaining experiences that are not just in preparation for the future, but are also fulfilling at the time you are undertaking them.
There is not one path to “getting there” either; people begin their journeys at different stages of their lives. Some students enter Carleton having had significant experiences with the healthcare world that have already convinced them that medicine is their calling. Others arrive knowing that they love science and they love helping people, and that medicine might be the perfect career to meld those two passions; they begin the more serious exploration during their undergraduate years. Still others decide midway through their Carleton career, or even a few years after graduation, that they want to pursue medicine. The important message here is that, wherever you are on this path, Carleton has the resources to help you to navigate your own individual path.
Competition for seats in the 149 U.S. medical schools is as strong as ever. There are more than two applicants for each seat, and on average the national acceptance rate to medical school is 40-45%. Carleton’s acceptance rate is considerably better than this national average, and is comparable to our peer institutions.
Carleton supports all of the students and alumni who decide to apply, regardless of GPA and MCAT score, and our acceptance rate for the past 5 year period is 82%. Approximately 77% of the accepted students/alumni are accepted on the first try. For those applicants who earned a GPA of 3.5 or better and an MCAT score at or above the 79th percentile (a 30 on the old MCAT or a 508 on the new MCAT), the acceptance rate for the same time period is 90%.
Of course, medical schools look for much more in their applicants than simply the GPA and MCAT score; applicants must have strong interpersonal skills, an understanding of the healthcare field as gained through experiences in hospitals and clinics, and a strong commitment to service. You can find a list of medical schools that Carleton students/alumni have been accepted to, as well as where they have attended below.
Medical Schools
Carls are accepted to medical schools across the country. Below is a list of allopathic medical schools (in alphabetical order) where Carls have been accepted in the last 6 years. Schools in bold are where Carls have chosen to attend.
Albany | New York University | University of Iowa |
Albert Einstein | Ohio State | University of Kentucky |
Baylor | Oregon Health & Sciences | University of Louisville |
Ben Gurion/Columbia | Penn State | University of Michigan |
Boston University | Rosalind Franklin (Chicago Medical School) | University of Minnesota |
Brown | Rush | University of Nebraska |
Case Western Reserve | Rutgers, Robert Wood Johnson | University of New Jersey |
Central Michigan | Saint Louis | University of New Mexico |
Columbia | Stanford | University of N. Carolina |
Cornell (Weill) | SUNY- Downstate (Brooklyn) | University of Oklahoma |
Creighton | SUNY- Upstate (Syracuse) | University of Pennsylvania |
Dartmouth | Temple | University of Pittsburgh |
Drexel | Texas A & M | University of Rochester |
Eastern Virginia | Texas Tech | University of Southern California/Caltech |
Emory | Texas Tech, Foster | University of Tennessee |
Florida International University | Tufts | University of Texas, San Antonio |
George Washington | Tulane | University of Texas-Southwestern |
Georgetown | Uniformed Services | University of Toledo |
Harvard | University at Buffalo | University of Vermont |
Howard | University of Arizona | University of Virginia |
Jefferson | University of California, Davis | University of Washington |
Johns Hopkins | University of California, Irvine | University of Wisconsin |
Louisiana State University | University of California, San Diego | Washington University |
Loyola | University of California, San Francisco | Vanderbilt |
Mayo | University of Chicago (Pritzker) | Virginia Tech Carilion |
Medical College of Wisconsin | University of Cincinnati | Wayne St. |
Meharry | University of Colorado | West Virginia |
Mt. Sinai (Icahn School of Medicine) | University of Connecticut | Yale |
Northwestern | University of Hawaii | |
New York Medical College | University of Illinois-Chicago |