The new academic year at WashU Medicine does not begin with a starting gun. It begins in waves — interns and fellows arriving in June and July, students in July and August, each group stepping into work that never actually stopped. There is no true quiet stretch to come back from. The wards stay full. The labs keep running.
What there is, instead, is a breath — the one you take mid-stride when you look up and realize the people around you are new, and that you are about to become part of how they learn in and experience this place.
This year, that breath brings a remarkable group across our residencies and fellowships, MD and MD/PhD programs, physical therapy, occupational therapy, audiology and communication sciences, genetic counseling, reproductive sciences, medical physics, and the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences. Together they represent one of the most accomplished and wide-ranging entering cohorts we have welcomed.
Our Newest Residents and Fellows
The first wave is the largest. This year we welcomed 615 new residents and fellows — 317 residents across 26 residency programs, and 298 fellows across 119 fellowship programs. That last figure says a great deal about the breadth of subspecialty training here, and about how many of you are directing, coordinating, or teaching in one or more of these programs, sometimes with just a few learners and sometimes with many!
They come from nearly every state in the country, and 116 trained abroad — 47 residents from 42 international medical schools, and 69 fellows from 50 more.
Our Entering Students
A few numbers stand out.
They chose us from an extraordinary field. Our MD program received 5,038 completed applications and interviewed 968 candidates to enroll a class of 104; MD/PhD drew 688 applicants for 20 seats; and DBBS reviewed more than 2,000 applications to enroll 99 students. Overall yields for our programs range from 33% to 65%, placing us among the most selective in the country. And our genetic counseling program, which fills through a matching program, had an incredible 8% acceptance rate for six spots. Selectivity is not the point in itself — but it does mean that nearly every new person you meet this year had other excellent options and picked WashU Medicine.
They arrive extraordinarily well prepared. The entering MD class brings a mean GPA of 3.92 and a mean MCAT of 520, the 97th percentile nationally. MD/PhD students logged more than 3,500 research hours on average before matriculating, and new DBBS students bring nearly 19 months of prior research experience. Across all programs, our entering students boast incredible academic records, and unique service, research and learning experiences.
They come from everywhere. The 104 members of the MD class studied at 61 different undergraduate institutions, and four come to us from outside the United States. In audiology and communication sciences, 29 entering students represent 26 different undergraduate institutions. Physical therapy spans 13 states and four countries; occupational therapy drew from 12 states and 2 counties; our four reproductive sciences students come from four states; and 41% of entering DBBS students arrive in St. Louis from abroad. These are classes in which almost no two people traveled the same path to get here.
Our smallest programs are among our most distinctive. Six new students began in genetic counseling and four in reproductive sciences, the latter including both clinical and research pathways. Five more entered medical physics across the master’s and PhD tracks, and three joined the PhD program in movement sciences. These are cohorts you could seat around a single table, in fields where a small number of exceptionally well-trained people change what is possible in clinical care and in research.
They are joining programs at the top of their fields. Physical therapy is ranked #1 in the country, occupational therapy #5, and audiology #6. Our DBBS class includes four Olin-Chancellor Fellows and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow.
And we are working to make this education reachable. Every entering audiology student receives financial aid. Nearly half of our physical therapy students received scholarships. All occupational therapy students received some scholarship support, and thirteen are using a new low-interest school loan program. Two genetic counseling students arrive as RISE-GC scholars.
Behind each of these figures is a person who is, right now, a little excited and at least a little nervous, hoping they belong here. They do.
The Support Behind Them — and Behind You
Excellent learners deserve excellent teachers, and the Office of Education exists to support the people who do that work.
For faculty and staff who teach, mentor, assess, or lead programs, the Academy of Educators and the Office of Education offer a deep bench of resources: Foundations in Teaching Skills (FITS), Developing Competencies in Assessment (in partnership with ACGME), the Teaching Scholars Program, Leadership in Educational Administration (LEAP), and our Program Director Bootcamp. If your interest runs toward scholarship, we offer medical education scholarship courses and a certificate, an Education Small Grants Program, individual consultations on education research and program evaluation, and the Loeb Career Development Fellowships.
Our workshop series is available school-wide and on demand for departments, divisions, and teams — on giving feedback, well-being, promotion as an educator, teaching excellence, remediation, mentoring, mitigating bias in assessment, and other topics by request. Just ask.
Mark your calendar, too, for our twice-annual educator symposia: Education Day, October 8, 2026, with a keynote, speed mentoring, education scholarship presentations, workshops, and awards; and the Goldstein Visiting Professorship, a multi-day deep dive into a cutting-edge issue with time for individual and group conversations this spring.
An Invitation
Our mission is to train leaders in health and science. That happens in lecture halls and labs, but far more often it happens in small moments: a resident who explains something clearly on a busy afternoon, a staff member who notices a new student looking lost, a faculty mentor who asks a good question and then waits for the answer.
Welcome to everyone joining us this year. And to everyone who is already here — thank you for the welcome you already have or are about to give them.