The number of students applying to Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine jumped to almost 7,000 applicants for an 170-student class, exceeding the national trend.

Applicants to Feinberg grew 17 percent this year, compared with a 2.7 percent jump nationally. Applications totaled 6,894 for students seeking to enter Feinberg in 2005. There were 5,883 applicants last year and 5,597 in 2003.

“It’s a pretty big jump,” said Raymond Curry, Feinberg’s executive associate dean for education. “As Feinberg’s reputation as a school and as the reputation of our educational program improve, we can expect to see more applicants.”

The number of applicants to medical schools has increased for the entering classes of 2004 and 2005 after a decrease in the number of applicants for the entering class of 2003, according to an October 2004 press release from the Association of American Medical Colleges, a non-profit organization that represents all U.S. and Canadian accredited medical schools.

The number of minority, or underrepresented, student applicants has also increased at Feinberg and nationwide. Medical schools define “underrepresented” students as blacks, Latinos, Puerto Ricans and Native Americans, Curry said.

“In the past five years or so, it has gone from having less than 5 percent of our classes containing minority groups to consistently over 12 percent,” he said.

Although the growing applicant pool is desirable, Feinberg’s admissions staff will have more difficulty deciding which prospective students will be granted interviews, Curry said. University President Henry Bienen boasted of Feinberg’s larger and more competitive applicant pool at his State of the University speech Thursday.

“At the Feinberg School of Medicine … interviews for this year’s class ended just last week,” Bienen said. “The interviewees are some of the very best students from the full range of universities and colleges in the country and have demonstrated remarkable records of achievement.”

Prof. Gregory Makoul said the increase in applications is probably due to the fact that Feinberg was one of the first medical schools to offer its students more hands-on learning experience, in addition to its traditional science courses.

“The new curriculum (the Patient, Physician & Society program) is now 10 years old, and I think that’s been enough time for people to hear good things about it,” said Makoul, director of Feinberg’s program in communications and medicine. “Students are talking about what it means to be a doctor in their first year. The educational environment is not competitive; it’s very cooperative.”

Under the Patient, Physician & Society program, Feinberg students work with simulated patients to build clinical and professional skills, Makoul said.

Even though Feinberg was not among Rena Shah’s list of top five medical schools, the Weinberg senior said she applied because she was attracted to its unique curriculum.

“The curriculum is not so much books and memorization and more problem-based learning,” Shah said. “It’s more organic-based

and holistic.”

Reach Helena Oh at [email protected].