Medical school applications: A disconcerting drop

It's a troubling sign that medical school applications are falling at a time that students are beating down the doors to other professional schools.

Editorial. Oct. 21, 2002.

It's conventional wisdom in academia that a bad economy is good for higher education. That's why yet another drop in medical school applications seems especially telling.

When the economy hits the skids, as it has recently, people often flock to colleges and universities. Some are hoping to make themselves more attractive to employers in a tightening job market. Recent undergraduates apply to graduate school in hopes that by the time they emerge, the economy will have improved. Others return to school to learn a new profession -- one they hope will be recession-proof.

The health care field has long been considered such an opportunity.

Indeed, the institutions that educate people to work in certain sectors of health care have experienced an application boom since the economy began slowing in late 2001. Nursing and pharmacy made the list of programs seeing application increases.

Medical schools, however, did not. Their absence is made even more conspicuous by the fact that several professional schools outside the health care sector also made the list.

Here's a look at application trends as reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education in February 2002.

• Law -- up 21% from the same time in 2001.
• Business -- 65% of the MBA programs surveyed by the Graduate Management Admission Council said applications were up.
• Engineering -- many schools are reporting double-digit application increases.
• Nursing -- the American Assn. of Colleges of Nursing reported a 4% increase in enrollment in baccalaureate programs, and applications appear to be up as well.