Uncertainly over the future of medicine and the rigors of medical school admission has led students to think twice about applying.

After a large jump in applicants to medical school in 1995, the number of applicants is starting to show signs of decreasing.

Harvard Medical School (HMS), U.S. News and World Report's top-ranked school, has seen fairly steady applicant numbers in recent years.

In 1994, 3,425 students applied to HMS. Of those, 235 were accepted and 165 entered the class. The next year, of the 3,914 applicants, 221 were accepted and 165 matriculated. Last year, a whopping 3,956 students applied, 215 were accepted and 164 matriculated.

But the upward trend collapsed this year, when only 3,708 students applied to HMS, 6 percent fewer than in 1995.

Of those applicants, the number of students accepted has not yet been released. Admissions officers say those statistics will not be made available until after the incoming class has matriculated next fall.

"[That] is about average for us the past couple of years," says Mohan D. Boodram, assistant director of financial aid at HMS.

Johns Hopkins Medical School, ranked second in the U.S. behind HMS, also saw a slight decrease in 1997 applicants. Admissions officers at at the school reported between 200 to 300 fewer applicants this year.

The University of Michigan Medical School also experienced a decrease in the number of applicants this year, with about 100 fewer people applying.

According to LeeAnn Michelson '77, the health career advisor at Office of Career Services, these statistics reflect a larger trend. She says admissions officers have told her that the numbers of new applicants to medical school nationwide has decreased.

"When I've talked to admissions directors at [other medical] schools, they've generally been saying that the numbers have slowed down," Michelson says.

This decrease follows a recent dramatic increase in medical school applications only two years before. Since then, she says the number of people applying has slowed down.

"[In] 1996, the number of applicants nationwide did go up, but very slightly, less than 1 percent," she says.

In 1995, about 14 percent of Harvard's graduating class applied to medical school, the largest number of applicants since 1977, Michelson says. Six years before the jump in applicants, only 7 percent of the class applied.

A Falling Tide?

In the past year, applications to Harvard Medical School have slipped.