Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine
DO program · private · Iowa
Median GPA
3.72
entering class
Median MCAT
507
entering class
Acceptance rate
~9.9%
approximate
Class size
227
16% in-state
In-state vs. out-of-state
16% of the last entering class were Iowa residents, which leaves about 191 seats for everyone else.
Iowa resident
~10%
estimated odds
Out-of-state
~10%
estimated odds
Estimates for an applicant with this school's median GPA (3.72) and MCAT (507), from AAMC and AACOM applicant outcomes and this school's published figures. Residency moves the estimate little here. Estimates, not guarantees.
What they look for
- Service29%
- Clinical experience27%
- Academics24%
- Research11%
- Leadership9%
DMU asks a pointed application question: describe your exposure to osteopathic medicine, including experiences with physicians in primary care or rural practice in the US, and how those experiences shaped your pursuit of osteopathic education as it relates to the DMU mission. That single prompt tells applicants what the school weighs — shadowing with a primary care or rural DO specifically, and the ability to connect it to the school's mission rather than to medicine in general. Iowa's largest medical school, founded 1898, with rural curriculum options, rural clinical rotations and community engagement programmes. Reported averages near a 3.66 GPA and 507 MCAT.
Watch out: Shadowing only urban specialists leaves the school's own question half-answered. A mission-fit answer that never names the mission is the common failure on this application.
Our reading of this school's own published mission and selection criteria, not an official formula. How we source this
Your odds at every school, not just this one
The In-Depth Analysis ranks all 204 MD and DO schools for your whole file: hours, MCAT sections, grade trend and where you live.