Med School Admission Will Grow Harder, Emerson Says

Admission to the Medical School will become increasingly difficult future years, Kendall Emerson, Jr., Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, predicted yesterday.

Applications for the School will probably rise steadily each year, he said, as "the war and post-war tide of babies reaches our level." But this does not mean, he added, that the School should expand "to meet the needs of our rising population."

"We're always trying to raise our standards," Emerson said. "Expansion would just lower them, and poor doctors are worse than no doctors at all." The greater need for doctors in the future can be met by "better distribution of the number available at present," he added.

Fow Able Students Rejected

Of the 1376 students who applied to the Medical School this year, a slight increase over last year's total of 1269, only a few more than the 114 who were accepted "came up to the required standards," Emerson said.

The national average of two applicants for every place available in medical schools shows a "healthy reserve," according to Emerson, who is also Director of Admissions. Few people have the necessary qualities to be doctors, he said, and those who do almost never fail to gain admission to some medical school.

It makes to difference what an applicant's field of concentration is as an undergraduate, Emerson added, provided that he has met the basic pre-med requirements. Thirty percent of the applicants for the Medical School this year were non-science majors in college and their qualifications were "equal in every respect to those who concentrated in the sciences."