NUS medical school took in record number of female students in 2024

They make up 60% of cohort; school says this remains consistent with recent trend

- Sandra Davie

More than two decades after lifting the quota on female undergraduates, the National University of Singapore medical school welcomed its largest proportion of women in 2024.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine said 173 of the 286 freshmen who enrolled in 2024—about 60 per cent—are female.

The school said while this is the "highest proportion to date," it remains consistent with the trend over the past few years, when more than 50 per cent of the students admitted into medicine have been female.

For years, since 1979, when a quota capping female students to a third in medicine was imposed, the undergraduate population of the school was male-dominated. But just three years after the quota was lifted in 2003, the proportion of female students rose to about 50 per cent.

The quota was set in 1979 on the rationale that the proportion of women doctors who did not work, or worked only part-time, was higher than for men, and it was costly to train a medical student.

However, the quota was scrapped as more female doctors remained in their jobs over the years.

Nanyang Technological University, which also offers an undergraduate degree in medicine, also reported a higher proportion of female students in 2024, with 50 per cent of the 186 places going to them. The Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, which took in its first batch of students in 2013, said this is slightly higher than in the past three years, when female students typically made up about 45 per cent of the cohort.