While this generally increases acceptance odds, by no means do medical schools require this. I always recommend fact-checking tidbits of K-12 daycare lore. Once upon a time, I believed the 'impossible to enter unless perfect stats' rumors too until I looked at the actual data. Apply early in the cycle and broadly to many schools and the numbers quickly turn in your favor.
>t. 30-something who got into a US medical school with closer to a 3.0 (although a 4.0 in the prereqs), a ~50 percentile MCAT, and a soft science bachelors, focusing less than 2 years in late twenties to do so.
They do - my friends who were applying to medical school all had to bring some example of manual dexterity. My housemate brought some needlework she'd done.
> Many medical specialties don't require high dexterity. Most medical students don't decide whether to go into surgery until they've been in school for a while and assisted on some procedures.
The easy and obvious solution is to test everyone on entrance and only let people choose specialities if they have the necessary dexterity.
That's certainly an option.
On balance, I think the increased cost is worth giving people years of advanced notice about what their career options are. If someone really has their heart set on surgeon or nothing, they can go do something else rather than find out they won't make it 2 years into med school (with the associated debt).
Don't you mean they should test for "real professional-level dexterity"?