Personal characteristics and achievements of medical students from urban and nonurban areas.

To meet the physician shortage in rural America, medical schools have attempted to enroll more students from farms and small towns. How successful these schools have been in selecting rural students who perform satisfactorily as undergraduates has rarely been documented. Accordingly, this research compares the performance and the predictors of performance of urban and nonurban students in a B.A.-M.D. program. Upon admission, students from nonurban areas have personal attributes and achievement levels similar to those of urban students. At the end of the second year of the program (the curriculum period marked by the highest attrition rate), the performance of nonurban and urban students is also indistinguishable. However, the student characteristics which are most predictive of that subsequent performance in the program depend upon the rural/urban origins of the students.