Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
Quick internet tour yester day to attempt to answer that question. Also from the list serve, a conservative estimate would be that a great majority of students are spending well over $1000 and closer to $2000 apiece for MCAT prep alone
Approx 35000 - 40000 x $2000 = $80,000,000, not including costs of application, travel, time in preparation, books, internet costs
There is another dimension of the pervasive nation of the prep. Where is MCAT prep?
The answer is: Everywhere
In the most public health community minded student organizations, who can work with Kaplan and Princeton and make money, or reduce dependence on dues http://www.ufpremed.org/minutes/2-11-04.pdf
Via cell phones http://www.thehilltoponline.com/news/2004/09/07/BusinessTechnology/The-Convenient.Mobile.Innovation.In.Test.Preparation-711566.shtml
Helping older and disadvantaged
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/08/26/602263.html
http://www.kaplan.com/about/f2b6.html
Makes you wonder if students are beginning to believe that medicine is all about taking tests.
Origin, Admissions, Family Medicine
Ran across this on the internet, likely AAMC. Is NAAHP involved in this? Hopefully so. Looks like this will take many years, however.
Report from GSA-COA meeting July 2004
Study of student expenses in the admissions process - Of principle interest to students was a proposal to study the impact of costs incurred during the admissions process on student debt not covered by financial aid packages. It was noted that most students spend several thousands of dollars on MCAT, AMCAS, supplementary application fees, and travel to interviews. It is not clear to what extent students carry credit card debt in order to cover these fees and what other sources of funding are utilized. There is concern that these expenses may serve to decrease the socio-economic diversity of medical students, since some prospective students may not be able to afford the same fees as students from more affluent backgrounds. The GSA Committee on Admissions (COA) agreed to begin to study the effect of these fees and investigate whether changes can be made at medical schools and/or within AAMC to help alleviate this debt burden incurred during the first steps in obtaining medical education. This investigation will take place along three broad categories, each with their own set of specific questions, as follows:
1. Do the expenses involved in applying to medical school serve to decrease the diversity of medical students from a socio-economic perspective? (Note: some of this information may already be available from within AAMC, other areas may need to be addressed in questionnaires such as the matriculating student survey completed during the 1st week of 1st year orientation.)
o How much money does an average successful applicant spend? Unsuccessful applicants?
o Where does this money come from? Increases in personal debt?
o Are there qualified students who elect not to apply based on expenses? If so, who are these students?
o Do applicants decide how many programs they apply to based on funds available to them?
o Do successful applicants apply to more programs than unsuccessful applicants?
o What is the socioeconomic background of successful applicants v unsuccessful?
2. How do the practices of individual medical school admissions departments affect the overall debt burden to applicants?
o Amount charged for secondary applications and how are these fees determined?
o Where do these 2o application fees end up?
o Are they recycled back into admissions? Sent on to university at-large?
o Does an admissions committee member inspect information on all secondary applications where a fee has been paid, even for students with unimpressive AMCAS application information?
o Are secondary application fees waived when applicant has received MCAT/AMCAS fee assistance through AAMC?
o Is aid available for disadvantaged students to travel for interviews? Could alumni gifts be specifically channeled into a fund to help disadvantaged students travel to interviews?
o Is there any attempt to coordinate with other medical schools in the region during interview time so that students need only make one trip?
3. How could the practices of AAMC change to help alleviate the monetary burden to applicants?
o Changes in the AMCAS Fee Assistance Program-Currently the program requires that students apply for MCAT fee waiver in order to be eligible for AMCAS fee assistance. Students may not realize they need financial assistance when applying for MCAT, which is much less expensive than AMCAS.
o Possibility of utilizing AMCAS as a way of streamlining the 2o application process based on saved information? This might save time on typing individual supplemental applications and potentially save admissions office costs in mailing and compiling paper applications.
o Develop AMCAS to provide information to the applicant on supplemental fees that each medical school requires so that applicants can make more intelligent choices about how many schools to which they can afford to apply. This would eliminate the wasteful practice of sending AMCAS applications without submitting supplementals based on additional costs. AMCAS could also include information from MSAR available when students choose medical schools.
o Reduced fees for subsequent years of application submission through AMCAS? This may be realistic since applicant data is now saved for 2 years and need not be re-verified.
o Production of review materials at cost for MCAT that would help obviate the perceived need for specialized review courses? The challenge would be to produce a product that would be useful yet still not a conflict of interest for the association.
o Recommend "best practices" to admissions departments on ways to help alleviate student debt?
These questions will be studied over the next several meetings with the intention of producing specific recommendations to AAMC and medical schools on how prospective medical students may decrease their debt incurred before medical school.
Michael Jacobson
OSR GSA-Committee on Admissions Liaison
University of Washington
[email protected]
Education - the entire pipeline