Class of 2029

By: Dr. Demonde Haynes

Greetings SOM faculty, friends, staff, and students! I would like to introduce to you the UMMC School of Medicine Class of 2029. There are 170 new first- year medical students in this class. This is a talented, interesting, and excited group of first-year medical students. The average age of the class is 24 with the range being 21 to 42. These students represent 32 different colleges/universities with 11 of them being in-state and 21 being out-of-state schools. They studied 33 different majors with biology being the most common and biochemistry being the second most common. They represent 40 different Mississippi counties. Females continue to outnumber the males consistent with the nationwide trend. Our M1 class is comprised of 57% females and 43% males. Ninety-six percent of the class are from medically underserved counties, and 34% are from rural counties. Our class continues to excel with great metrics with an average Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math (BCPM) GPA of 3.72 and an average MCAT of 505.

There is a family represented with a set of triplets in this class as well as another family of triplets represented with 2 of the 3 in this class. One of our new first-year students is in the combined seven-year MD/PhD program. Twenty of these students were part of one of our early assurance pathway programs. These three early assurance programs are the Mississippi Rural Physicians Program (MRPSP), Promoting Recruitment Opportunities in Medicine with Individual Study Experiences (PROMISE), and the Professional Portal Program (PPP). Forty-one of these students participated in the Early Decision Program demonstrating their commitment to purse their undergraduate medical education in Mississippi early in their process. These students had a much earlier application deadline of August 1^st, but they also were informed of their decision of acceptance much earlier than the October 15^th regular decision deadline. The regular decision application deadline is October 15^th each year.

Welcome Class of 2029 to the UMMC School of Medicine!