BUSM Class of 2014

The following is an excerpt from the welcome address given by Dr. Robert Witzburg ‘77, Associate Dean for Admissions, at the White Coat Ceremony and Welcoming Reception. It highlights the incoming Class of 2014 through several statistical attributes, painting a picture of the population present at BUSM today.

There are 178 of you in this, the 162nd entering class of our medical school. You are drawn from a pool of 11,339 candidates and you come to us by way of 6 different entry pathways and 81 undergraduate institutions. 52% of you are women. 41 of you, almost ¼ of the class, hold a graduate degree at the Masters level or above, and several of you have more than one. Some of you did your graduate work in our own Division of Graduate Medical Sciences or in our School of Public Health, but many other fine institutions are also represented in your educational credentials. 19 of you plan to complete a dual degree program, and a number of you are still contemplating adding the MPH, PhD, or MBA to your program of studies.

Academically you are among the most accomplished classes we have ever had, and you are also among the most diverse groups in our history. You are diverse in many ways: 30 of the 50 states in America are represented in this class and the list of your places of birth includes 17 countries. You range in age from 19 to 31 years old, 107 of you speak more than 1 language and, as a group, you speak a total of more than 27 different languages. 17% of you are under-represented minorities. A number of you have parents and grandparents in medicine, while others of you are the first member of an extended family to attend college. In cultural, social, economic, racial, ethnic, educational, and linguistic terms, and in your life experiences, you define the pluralism that we so value in our society.

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