The questions admissions committees, curriculum committees, and assessment staff ask about national benchmarks — which tables to pull, how often they update, and how to use them without misusing them. General guidance; no school-specific data.
For the admissions funnel, start with these FACTS tables: A-1 (applications and matriculants by school, state of legal residence, and gender), A-7.2 (applicants, first-time applicants, acceptees, and matriculants by gender, 2016–2017 through 2025–2026), A-16 (MCAT scores and GPAs for applicants and matriculants), A-17 (the same by undergraduate major), and A-23 (the MCAT/GPA acceptance grid). A-3 and A-4 add applicants and matriculants by state of legal residence. The admissions funnel page shows what these tables contain at the national level.
The AAMC publishes the FACTS applicant/matriculant tables each fall (usually October–December), plus a news release summarizing the cycle. The NBME publishes USMLE Performance Data annually. The NRMP publishes Charting Outcomes in the Match roughly every two years (the 4th edition covers 2024) and the Program Director Survey periodically. Plan on refreshing your benchmark decks once a year, after the fall AAMC release — and always check the official sites for the latest edition before citing figures in committee documents.
The acceptance rate is acceptees (applicants accepted to at least one school) divided by applicants; the matriculation rate is matriculants (accepted applicants who enrolled) divided by applicants. Nationally, the acceptance rate has run around 42% in recent cycles (computed from AAMC FACTS Table A-23, aggregated 2021–2022 through 2023–2024). They answer different questions — selectivity versus yield — so define which one a chart shows before anyone reads it.
National figures are the right starting anchor — everyone understands them and they are always available. But mission-aligned peer schools are often the better benchmark for what is achievable in your context, and aspirational peers belong in strategic plans, not routine committee review. Whichever you use, name it on the chart and report distance-from-comparison over several years, not a single-year snapshot. The benchmarking page covers comparison-group discipline in detail.
Keep it to one page: national volumes and your school's stage-by-stage funnel side by side, a multi-year trend (not a single year), and the comparison group named on the chart. Put year and source on every national figure so the slide still reads correctly when it resurfaces next year. End with the question the data raises and the proposed next step — benchmarks that end with "so what?" invite someone else to supply the answer.
Always report counts alongside rates — "57 of 60 (95%)" — so readers see how many people moved the number. Use three-year rolling windows rather than single cohorts, and resist reacting to one year's figure. A working rule: flag values more than one standard deviation from the comparison mean as indicators for investigation (with sample sizes shown), never as automatic findings. Blanks are missing data, not zeros — exclude them from denominators.
Both — labeled, never conflated. The first-time pass rate reflects how well students were prepared; the eventual pass rate (after retakes) reflects remediation capacity. Nationally, the gap is large on repeat attempts: roughly 74% of U.S. MD repeat-takers pass Step 2 CK versus 98% of first-time takers (USMLE Performance Data). If a slide shows only one of the two, it is telling half the story.
The NRMP's Charting Outcomes in the Match (2024, 4th edition) gives observed match rates by specialty and Step 2 CK score band — useful context for advising and for interpreting how a cohort's scores translate into residency options (mean matched U.S. MD senior Step 2 CK: 250.4). The NRMP Program Director Survey (2024) adds the employer side: 77% of program directors consider failed Step attempts when deciding whom to interview. Use both as national context; individual match outcomes are your institution's own data to steward.