The “Fauci Effect” Yields a Bumper Crop of Medical Student Applications
December 22, 2020
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), applications for medical schools this past fall were up 18% in the United States compared to last year. In fact, this level of interest in medical schools has not been seen in more than a decade.
Looking across the overall college and university enrollment landscape for fall 2020, enrollment in general had dropped.
So why do we have a bumper crop of students applying to medical school?
Admiration for medical workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and for Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appears to be the driver for this uptick. Admissions officers of medical schools have even started calling this phenomenon the “Fauci Effect.”
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), applications for medical schools this past fall were up 18% in the United States compared to last year. In fact, this level of interest in medical schools has not been seen in more than a decade.
Looking across the overall college and university enrollment landscape for fall 2020, enrollment in general had dropped.
So why do we have a bumper crop of students applying to medical school?
Admiration for medical workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and for Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appears to be the driver for this uptick. Admissions officers of medical schools have even started calling this phenomenon the “Fauci Effect.”