BLACKSBURG, Va. (WFXR) — More people are applying to the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine this year. According to the school, it received 6,374 applications, which is a 48% jump from 2019’s total of 4,299.

The deadline to submit applications for the Class of 2025 was Tuesday, Dec. 1.

“More and more people are discovering the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and recognizing it as a place to become systems-minded scientist physicians,” said Lee Learman, dean of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. “In addition, our continued success in matching all of our graduates to top-choice residency programs is attractive to prospective students.”

Admission to the school has been in demand, but it became competitive within the last five years. School officials say it has averaged more than 4,000 applications for less than 50 open spots.

“There are a few reasons why more people may be applying to medical school this year: the pandemic may have increased a desire to pursue medicine and give back in this time of need; students may have more time to devote to medical school applications with virtual classes and employment; and it is a relatively inexpensive year to apply to medical school because the vast majority of interviews – like ours – have moved to virtual, saving travel expenses,” said Melanie Prusakowski, associate dean for admissions.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the admission team was forced to shift the interview process to a virtual format.

“The entire admissions team has worked hard to figure out how to pull this off virtually,” Prusakowski said. “From figuring out the intricacies of Zoom and adapting our MMI to work in that environment; to working with our interview volunteers to prepare for the shift to a virtual environment; to developing a secure, online way for interviewers to submit scores for each student, all have gone above and beyond to make this shift as seamless as possible.”

Admissions counselors have managed to successfully interview nearly 25 applicants each day of their allotted days. They held four interview dates in September, October, and November.

Two interview dates remain in January and February.

The medical school’s Class of 2025 is set to begin orientation in late July 2021.

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