Meet the Class of 2011

Andrew Welch, director of admissions for the M.D. program, offered this overview of the incoming class at its orientation in August.

Your class began as over 5300 applications, forwarded to us by the American Medical College Application Service, an increase of 15% over the previous year. We interviewed 680 individuals, or about 13% of those who applied. The entering class includes 68 MD candidates and 5 MD/PhD candidates.

*The class has average undergraduate grade point averages of over 3.7 in both the sciences and non-sciences. Ninety-two percent of you had an undergraduate GPA of 3.5 or higher and roughly every fifth member of the class earned a GPA above 3.9. At 33.4, your average combined MCATs are the highest in the institution's history, beating last year's record by 1.47 points. Your combined scores are more than 3.8 points higher than the class that preceded you a decade ago.

*The class represents 45 undergraduate institutions and 25 states. One in six of you is a resident of California. With seven graduates in the class, Dartmouth College is the most heavily represented undergraduate institution, but five of you are from Williams, three from MIT, and two each from Bowdoin, Grinnell, Harvard, UCLA, the University of Chicago, Penn, and UVa. 

*Fifty-six percent of you are women and forty-five percent of you are people of color and/or international students.

*Twenty six of you, or just over one-third of the class, were born outside the United States. In addition to being citizens and permanent residents of this country, three of you are citizens of Canada, three of China, two of Nigeria, and one each of Albania, Egypt, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

*Two of you were born about a hundred yards from here at the former site of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and one of those births was attended in 1980 by a third-year DMS student who is now Associate Professor of Medicine at the Medical School.

*Though biology is the most popular major in the class, about every seventh member of the class majored in the social sciences or humanities. 

*Every sixth member of the class is twenty-five or older.

*Seven members of the class are EMTs and one is a US Army certified combat lifesaver.

*You are published in the American Journal of Cardiology, Clinical Cancer Research, Clinical Microbiology Newsletter, Current Treatment Options in Oncology,  Endocrinology, the European Journal of Neuroscience, Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, the International Journal of Computer Vision, the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, the Journal of Chemical Education,  the Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Neuroscience, Neuroscience Letters, Pediatrics, and Tillers. 

*One of you was an Assistant Editor at the Nature Publishing Group.

*Two members of the class already hold graduate degrees, both masters in engineering.  One classmate was a Fulbright Scholar in France; another was elected by her college classmates as the sole student speaker at the institution's 169th commencement.

*In addition to clinics and laboratories throughout the United States, you have participated in health-care and biomedical research in Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Ireland, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, and Zimbabwe.

*Seven members of the class captained intercollegiate teams or clubs and one of those individuals was a two-time captain of three different teams. A member of the class captained the Dartmouth women's soccer team and appeared in three NCAA tournaments. One of you is a member of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association, a two-time state finalist in barrel horse racing, and a participant in the 2004 World Championship Show. One of you is a national champion in a synchronized swimming event and a four-time participant in the national championships. One of you was on a national championship crew and was twice named a Division III National Scholar-Athlete. A classmate is a member of the New Hampshire football Hall of Fame, another was the New Mexico wrestling champion in his weight group. One of you competed in the Ironman Arizona triathlon and qualified for the championships in Kona, Hawaii. One of you has completed over 225 parachute jumps. A member of the class is a seventh degree black belt in Bujikan; another is an Academic All-American.

*Two members of the class have performed in Carnegie Hall. One of you performed the National Anthem at professional hockey games. A classmate is a Scottish Highland piper who also recorded a CD of traditional Cape Breton fiddle music. Another has been seen locally in the "White Mountain Oysters," a bluegrass band. One classmate is the co-organizer and cellist of a Baroque Ensemble that performs on antique instruments. A member of the class studied with a master potter in Kyoto, Japan; another won top prize in the "Stop Racism Video Competition," sponsored by the Canadian government. One of you won a "Most Artistic" award from MIT for the design of a video game called Gizmoball. One member of the class was an instructor at the Academy of Classical Ballet, another the director and choreographer for a Hip Hop dance group. One of you won a Guggenheim Fellowship to work for three months with the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice. One of you was a cartoonist for The Michigan Daily.

*One of you collects finger puppets.
 
*A member of the class is a licensed falconer who appeared in a National Geographic Explorer documentary on birds of prey.

*A member of the class spent four years in the US Army, participated in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal and the Army Achievement Medal. Another member of the class is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy who won more than a dozen combat and peacetime awards, ribbons, and decorations. He piloted the LC-130, the world's largest ski-equipped aircraft, in antartica. Another member of the class conducted research and flew aboard NASA's C-9, known as "the weightless wonder."

*One classmate is a former Peace Corps volunteer, another an Americorps alumnus. One of you collected over 20 musical instruments for donation to a rural school in Costa Rica. Another chaired an organization that raised more than $40,000 for two Boston organizations. One of you helped organize a medical clinic in Kenya, another volunteered with Radio Lollipop at the Miami Children's hospital. A classmate completed a two-year mission in Argentina for his church. 

*One of you is named "Raymond," but goes by his middle name, "Tom."  Another three of you are named Thomas, and one of you is named James, but surnamed "Thomas."  In other words, fifteen percent of the men in the class will answer to some variant of "Tom" or "Thomas."

*And the class has had a range of interesting jobs and experiences. One of you was a Performance bicycle sales associate in Oregon, another a bicycle messenger in Minnesota. One of you worked in customer service for King Arthur Flour; another was a frycook at the Town Docks restaurant on Lake Winnipesaukee. One worked on an asparagus farm, another in a grocery. One of you was a lobbyist in Washington working in support of the "Act to Save America's Forests," another was an intern in New Hampshire governor John Lynch's office. One classmate was a writer and researcher for the Berlitz series of Beijing guidebooks; another was a bus driver and tour guide for Royal Highway tours in Juneau. One taught high school in the Marshall Islands, while a classmate worked for Western Union in the Dominican Republic. A classmate was an electronics sales associate at Sears, another a senior systems engineer at Raytheon.