Ethnic and gender variations in university applicants to United Kingdom medical and dental schools.

AIM

To explore ethnic and gender variations amongst applicants to undergraduate United Kingdom medical and dental schools.

METHOD

Retrospective analyses of University and College Admissions Services (UCAS) data on all students applying to study pre-clinical medicine and dentistry, during the academic years 1994/5, 1995/6 and 1996/7. Information for each medical and dental applicant included age, gender, social class and ethnic group.

RESULTS

Of all applicants, just over half (50.2%) were male, though a greater proportion of applicants to dentistry were male (54.1%) than for medicine (49.3%) (OR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.15, 1.28). Over one third (36.4%) of all students were from minority ethnic groups, a larger proportion of which were dental students (48.3%) than were medical students (33.8%) (OR = 1.83, 95% CI = 1.73, 1.94). There were also marked differences between medicine and dentistry when the ethnic groups were examined separately. The largest number of applicants from minority ethnic groups came from the Indian community, and this group increased in size annually by 4.1% (P < 0.05) for medicine, and 29% (P < 0.05) for dentistry.

CONCLUSIONS

Significant inter-ethnic and gender differences are observed amongst applicants to medicine and dentistry. Dentistry appears to be relatively more attractive to minority ethnic applicants.