Just 2.3% of the 2026 medical school graduates who applied to residency said they would prefer to practice in rural areas, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
The AAMC released the data Sept. 24. It follows the class of 2026 from premed through residency applications.
The class is the largest in at least a decade, with 22,189 graduates. The AAMC has projected a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. Here are 17 numbers on the class.
Pipeline
- 22,189: Doctor of Medicine graduates in the class of 2026. That’s up 2.7% from 21,604 in 2025 and up 15.2% from 19,262 in 2017.
- 55,189: People who applied in 2021 for the class that entered medical school in 2022. Of those, 23,810 were accepted and 22,710 enrolled.
- 2,121: Graduates who earned dual degrees, including 722 who earned an MD and a PhD.
Academic background
- 3.75: Mean undergraduate GPA.
- 511.9: Mean MCAT score. Scores ranged from 476 to 528. The possible score range is 472 to 528.
- 84.6%: Share who did research as undergraduates.
- 93.7%: Share with community service experience.
- 27%: Share who took community college classes before attending a four-year college.
- 11.2%: Share who were the first in their families to attend college.
Who they are
- 53: Age of the oldest graduate at enrollment. The youngest was 17.
- 55.6%: Share of graduates in the entering class who were women. Women made up 56.5% of applicants and 55.7% of those accepted.
- 52.1%: Share who identified as white. Another 29.3% identified as Asian, 12.5% as Hispanic or Latino, 10.5% as Black or African American, 1% as American Indian or Alaska Native, 0.4% as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and 4.1% as another race or ethnicity. Another 2.9% declined to respond. The total exceeds 100%, likely because applicants could select more than one.
- 73.6%: Share who speak more than one language. Of the class, 37.6% speak a language other than English at a native or advanced level, and one graduate speaks nine languages.
Career plans
- 97%: Share who want to focus their work on patient care. Another 80.4% want to teach and 49.5% want to do research.
- 53.7%: Share who ranked a stable, secure future as a top career consideration in their second year of medical school. Work-life balance followed at 52.9%, then the ability to pay off debt at 44.4%.
- 2.3%: Share of residency applicants from the class who said they would prefer a rural practice. By comparison, 45% preferred urban or suburban settings and 52.7% had no preference.
- 21,286: Residency applicants from U.S. medical schools. The pool also included 20,700 international medical graduates and 8,409 osteopathic medical school graduates.
