Michelson also attributes the decrease in applicants to discouraging statistics about medical school acceptance rates as well as the current instability of the health care system.

"There's a lot of uncertainty in medicine in terms of what will happen in the future and I think students are a bit confused and are trying to get a bit more experience before they commit themselves," she says.

Harvard Students and Medical Schools

Number of Harvard Students that apply to, and are accepted at medical schools.

Source: Association of American Medical Colleges Data Book, 1993 figures.

Despite the confusion over what lies ahead in the field of medicine, those who are sure this is the profession they want to go into have not been dissuaded.

"The students who are really motivated to go into medicine for reasons other than money are continuing to pursue it," Michelson says.

The Common Application

The difficulties students face when applying to medical schools have been eased slightly by the common application, admissions officers say.

As a matter of fact, Boodram says HMS has fewer applicants than other universities because it is one of 10 medical schools which does not participate in AMCAS, the "common application." AMCAS allows students to fill out only one application and send it to many different schools.

Of the 122 medical schools in the United States and three in Puerto Rico, 110 are part of AMCAS, Michelson says.

"Because we don't participate in the centralized AMCAS application service, our applicant pool is usually somewhat smaller than comparable institutions that do participate in AMCAS," he says. "In order to apply to HMS, students have to type out a whole additional application form."

Edmister says he thinks AMCAS is helpful to students early in the process because they only have to fill out generic information--such as their GPA, MCAT score and grades--but is not beneficial later on.

"I think at the start of the process, it's helpful for the student..in that they submit one standard application," he says. "[But] in the long run, the AMCAS does not help the students out because a lot of schools will send students a secondary application."

Edmister says many AMCAS schools ask for more money for the additional application fee and require students to write more essays for that particular medical school.

Michelson says, however, that AMCAS is not the sole deterrent from people's applying to medical schools such as Harvard. Often the reputation of a school plays a role in intimidating applicants.

"I think people screen themselves out too," Michelson says. "People really do look at their state schools if they're concerned at all about money.