Dropout rates in medical students at one school before and after the installation of admission tests in Austria.

Purpose: Admission to medical studies in Austria since academic year 2005-2006 has been regulated by admission tests. At the Medical University of Graz, an admission test focusing on secondary-school-level knowledge in natural sciences has been used for this purpose. The impact of this important change on dropout rates of female versus male students and older versus younger students is reported.

Progress of medical students after open admission or admission based on knowledge tests.

Context: Although admission to university in Austria is generally open for applicants who have successfully completed secondary school, in some areas of study, including human medicine and dentistry, the selection of students by additional criteria has become legally possible as a result of a decision by the European Court in 2005. We studied the impact of this important change on the temporal pattern of medical students' progress through the study programme.

Methods: All 2532 regular students admitted to the diploma programme in human medicine at the Medical University of Graz during the academic years 2002/03-2007/08 were included in the analysis.