Discerning applicants' interests in rural medicine: a textual analysis of admission essays.

Background: Despite efforts to construct targeted medical school admission processes using applicant-level correlates of future practice location, accurately gauging applicants' interests in rural medicine remains an imperfect science. This study explores the usefulness of textual analysis to identify rural-oriented themes and values underlying applicants' open-ended responses to admission essays.

Methods: The study population consisted of 75 applicants to the Rural Physician Leadership Program (RPLP) at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

The applicant pool: the genesis of the physician pipeline.

As medical schools across the nation consider the recent call made by the Association of American Medical Colleges to increase numbers of medical school students by 30% by 2015, it is important to explore the characteristics of the applicant pool. Understanding the make-up of the pool of recent applicants to the University of Kentucky College of Medicine can assist us in defining areas where the pool could be expanded in the future. Reviewing data from 2002-2006, we will examine the Kentucky county of origin of our applicants and matriculants.

A comparison of applicant and matriculant trends, and rising costs of medical education in United States medical schools and at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

This paper addresses fluctuations in the applicant and matriculant pools both across United States medical schools and at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine (UKCOM) for 1992-2002. It also presents data regarding the increasing costs of a medical education. Over the past decade, both nationally and at the UKCOM, there has been an over-all reduction in the number of applicants to medical school.

Review, deliberation, and voting: a study of selection decisions in a medical school admission committee.

Background: Medical school admission committees differ in their decision-making procedures. Some assign ratings to groups of application materials to devise rank order acceptance lists, whereas others deliberate and vote on each separate application.

Purpose: This study examined what the screening review and deliberative processes contribute to decision making in a medical school admission committee.