Despite a continuing seven-year decline nationwide, both the number and quality of applications to Yale School of Medicine (YSM) remained high for 2003.
“The Class of 2007 brings outstanding academic credentials to the medical school,” Interim YSM Dean Dennis Spencer remarked at the traditional White Coat Ceremony for first-year students. Spencer noted that the 100 members of the Class of 2007 were selected from over 3,000 applicants, completed 120 undergraduate majors at 46 colleges, as well as eight masters’ degrees and two doctorates at different universities.
Students most frequently cited reasons for choosing Yale were the “Yale system” of non-competitive grading, the quality of the student body and faculty, research opportunities and clinical training at Yale, and positive interactions with students and faculty during their visits to New Haven, said Richard Silverman, director of admissions.
“Beyond their academic accomplishments, this is a group of men and women with an unusual breadth of experience, a group that is quite difficult to characterize in a few words,” Spencer said. Born in 20 countries, they represent a remarkable variety of personal backgrounds. “They include, for example, an advisor to the International Gorilla Conservation Program in Kenya, a UNICEF Health & Nutrition consultant in China, and a volunteer in a Romanian orphanage. There are Peace Corps veterans, high-tech entrepreneurs, journalists, and teachers at all levels from elementary school to high school to college to one student who has delivered lectures at this very medical school.”
Spencer said the first-year class also includes varsity athletes with national championship and All-America credentials as well as musicians, actors, and dancers. Students in the Class of 2007 are also noteworthy for leadership roles in social, political, religious, and professional organizations.
“What they have in common is a commitment to medicine and the desire to make a difference in the world throughout their careers,” Spencer said.
