Some notes on the admission of graduate applicants to the medical schools.

A survey of the admissions policy adopted by the medical schools towards older applicants, and in particular graduate applicants, has been carried out. Some 1000 graduates applied for places in 1976, of whom about one in six was successful (compared with one in four for all applicants). The academic requirements for this category of student are normally at least an upper second class degree, age maxima vary from 25 to around 30 years and, increasingly, schools require a financial guarantee from students not in receipt of a Local Education Authority grant. A minority of medical schools reserve a proportion of places for older applicants, but only a very small minority of schools will consider reducing the length of their course for graduate entrants. These factors are tabulated for each of thirty-one of the medical schools in the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic.