Inside the numbers: Medical school enrollment and applications in 2025

A new report from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) shows that U.S. medical schools enrolled a record number of students in 2025, pushing total enrollment past 100,000 for the first time. The milestone reflects steady growth in enrollment over the past decade, even as applications declined for several years before rebounding this year.

Applications rose 5.3% in 2025, driven largely by first-time applicants, while medical schools enrolled their largest first-year class on record. Women continued to make up the majority of applicants and matriculants, and academic credentials remained strong.

At the same time, the AAMC cautioned that changes to race and ethnicity data collection limit comparisons with prior years, and that long-standing gaps in representation and socioeconomic diversity persist across the medical education pipeline.