Thank you for your interest in the Yale School of Medicine MD Program. Below are the steps to follow to apply to the program. If you have any questions, please contact us.
If you are interested in being considered for the MD-PhD Program, you can find more information on the MD-PhD website.
On this pageAll applicants to the Yale School of Medicine's MD and MD-PhD programs must take the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). For information on the MCAT, including registering to take the test, test dates, test sites, fees and obtaining test results, see the MCAT Website.
Applicants should request that test scores be released to Yale School of Medicine by the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS). If you are applying in 2024 to begin in August 2025, the oldest MCAT you can submit is from January 2021.
Important: Your application will not be reviewed until we receive your MCAT scores.
To apply to Yale School of Medicine, submit the AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service) application. This application will be sent to all the medical schools to which you apply. It can be found at the AAMC Students, Applicants, and Residents site.
On the AMCAS application, you must indicate that you plan to apply to Yale School of Medicine. After submitting the AMCAS application, you will be invited to submit a secondary application to Yale.
To complete the application process, applicants to the MD and MD-PhD programs must submit an online Yale Secondary Application, in addition to their AMCAS application.
All applicants will be invited by email to submit a Yale Secondary Application after submitting the AMCAS application. This email invitation should arrive within two weeks of submitting the AMCAS application to Yale, beginning in early July when the Yale Secondary Application goes live.
Yale School of Medicine will automatically waive the Secondary Application fee for applicants who have been granted an AMCAS Fee Waiver (obtained though the AAMC Fee Assistance Program).
Applicants who were not granted a fee waiver by AMCAS and for whom the application fee would constitute a significant financial burden, may contact the Office of Admissions directly (medical.admissions@yale.edu) to request a Secondary Application fee waiver. Please submit your fee waiver request after you have been invited to submit the YSM Secondary Application. Requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
In your fee waiver request, please share the reasons for your request, and include the number of people in your household and annual family income. You may also attach documentation that you deem important to support your request.
You may not make any online changes to your Yale Secondary Application after it has been submitted. You must submit your changes in writing to the Office of Admissions by logging in to your application and clicking on the "Status" tab, then clicking on the "Communication" menu, then clicking on the button to send an email to the Admissions Office.
If you wish to submit an update to your application at any time throughout the application season (before or after an interview), you may upload a .pdf document using the Document Upload tab in the Secondary Application.
If an important change in your contact information occurs after submitting your application, this information should be submitted to AMCAS.
A Premedical Committee letter is recommended for all MD and MD/PhD candidates.
If your school does not have a Premedical Committee, you may submit at least three individual letters of recommendation. These letters should come from individuals who are in a position to comment knowledgeably on your accomplishments, abilities, experience, and/or personal qualifications. They may come from those who have taught you or worked with you in undergraduate or graduate school classes, in research settings, clinical settings, extracurricular or community service activities, professional settings, or other contexts. It is helpful to have at least one of the letters from someone in the sciences, but this is not mandatory. What is important is that the letters provide information and support that will be informative and helpful to the Admissions Committee, supplementing the information that appears elsewhere in your application.
Letters of recommendation should be sent through the AMCAS Letter Service.
Letters of recommendation should be written by individuals who can evaluate your research potential as a physician-scientist. One letter should be from the research mentor with whom you have been most recently associated.
A complete application consists of the following components:
You can keep tabs on your application status by logging into the student portal.
The Admissions Committee will notify all applicants of their decision by March 15. All students offered admission are required to respond to their offer by end of day April 30. Please note, if a date referenced in the “Decision Notification and Timeline” section falls on a weekend, the actual deadline date is the following Monday.
| Timeframe | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Before April 15th | Applicants wishing to defer an offer of admission for one year must submit their request before April 15 of the admissions cycle in which they were offered admission. See below for details about this limited deferral option. |
| April 15th | Accepted applicants should narrow their acceptance offers down to three schools. |
| Before April 30th | Accepted applicants who ‘commit’ or ‘plan’ to enroll must immediately withdraw admission from all other schools. Applicants who ‘commit’ to enroll also must immediately withdraw from waitlists at all other schools. |
| April 30th – June 1st | Waitlisted applicants accepted must ‘commit’ or ‘plan’ to enroll within five business days and withdraw admission from all other schools. Applicants who ‘commit’ to enroll also must immediately withdraw from waitlists at all other schools. |
| After June 1st | Waitlisted applicants accepted must ‘commit’ or ‘plan’ to enroll within two business days and withdraw admission from all other schools. Applicants who ‘commit’ to enroll also must immediately withdraw from waitlists at all other schools. |
| By June 15th | Applicants who ‘plan’ to enroll must ‘commit’ to enroll and immediately withdraw from waitlists at all other schools. |
All applicants who are accepted and either ‘plan’ or ‘commit’ to enroll must immediately withdraw from all other schools to which they were offered admission. Applicants who ‘commit’ to enroll must also immediately withdraw from waitlists at all other schools.
Applicants who are accepted and either 'plan' or 'commit' to enroll must also send a tuition deposit of $100 with their online response to reserve a place in the class. The deposit is refundable until April 30 and will be applied to tuition charges in the fall semester.
Applicants who are accepted but do not respond to their offer of admission by end of day April 30 will have their offer of admission rescinded, unless they have been approved for an extension (due to extenuating circumstance) beyond this date by the YSM admissions office.
Applicants who are offered a position on the waitlist are required to respond by end of day April 30. Waitlisted applicants who do not accept a position on the waitlist by end of day April 30 will be removed from the waitlist and will not be further considered for admission in this cycle.
Applicants who are offered acceptance from the waitlist after April 30 and before June 1 will have five business days to respond to their offer. An applicant who does not respond within five business days will have their offer of admission rescinded, unless they have been approved for an extension (due to extenuating circumstance) beyond this date by the YSM admissions office.
Applicants who are offered acceptance from the waitlist after June 1 will have two business days to respond to their offer. An applicant who does not respond within two business days will have their offer of admission rescinded, unless they have been approved for an extension (due to extenuating circumstance) beyond this date by the YSM admissions office.
Applicants who participate in the START program must ‘commit’ to enroll at YSM by 5:00pm EST the Friday before START and may not hold waitlist positions at any other schools. All other applicants intending to matriculate at YSM must 'commit' to enroll by 5:00pm EST June 15 and may not hold waitlist positions at any other schools. YSM will not offer admission to students after our August matriculation date.
Yale School of Medicine (YSM) will consider requests to defer an offer of admission for one year for academic reasons that arise during the application year. Requests must be made before April 15 of the admissions cycle in which the applicant was offered admission.
Occasionally, YSM allows an admitted student to defer enrollment for a year (or sometimes two) to pursue/complete a serious and primary academic objective that arises during the application year (e.g. a Churchill, Rhodes, Marshall, Gates-Cambridge fellowship). Deferrals are typically not approved for non-academic reasons.
All decisions made regarding requests to defer are final. If a request to defer is denied and an applicant offered admission decides to pursue other opportunities and not matriculate at YSM, their offer of admission will be withdrawn from YSM and they will need to re-apply in a future cycle, if interested.