The impact of a medical-school-based summer program on the acceptance of minority undergraduate students into health professional schools.

A summer program for minority-group undergraduate students who are oriented toward careers in health was established at the Tulane School of Medicine in 1968. Students were admitted independent of their performance in undergraduate science courses. Beginning in 1972, follow-up statistics were maintained on all participants; utilizing these statistics, the authors evaluated the impact of summer program intervention on the acceptance rate into health professional schools of 303 participants between 1972 and 1979. The results show that 209 (70 percent) of the participants were accepted by a health professional school, compared with 37 percent of 212 applicants to the 1976 summer program who were not selected for summer program participation. These results strongly suggest that summer program intervention plays a positive role in the student's attempt to gain admittance to a health professional school.