Do pre-admission programs make a difference in the enrollment of underrepresented-minority students at U.S. medical schools?

PURPOSE: To assess the association between the presence of pre-admission programs directed at underrepresented minority (URM) students at medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) and the first-year and total enrollments of URM students during the 1993-94 academic year. METHOD: The authors ranked 119 LCME-accredited medical schools by the percentages of their first-year classes and total enrollments made up of URM students. They then compared the schools in three ways: (1) schools ranking above versus below the median in terms of numbers of URM students; (2) the top 25% versus the lower 75%; and (3) the top 25% versus the lowest 25%. Logistic regression was used to determine the association between the presence of pre-admission programs and URM enrollment. RESULTS: Fifty-six percent of the medical schools had pre-admission programs. For both first-year and total enrollments, each comparison showed that schools ranked as having higher percentages of URM students (above the mean and in the top 25%) were more likely to have pre-admission programs than were the schools ranked lower (below the mean, lower 75%, and lowest 25%). CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the presence of pre-admission programs is positively associated with enrollment of URM students at U.S. medical schools.