How to Get Into Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine

Read our comprehensive guide on how to get into Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM), including its admissions statistics, requirements, deadlines, and tuition costs.

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Loyola Stritch School of Medicine Acceptance Rate: 1.32%

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine's acceptance rate is 1.32%. According to Medical School Admissions Requirements (MSAR) data, SSOM received 13,289 verified applications in the most recent admissions cycle, and 175 students matriculated. In other words, roughly 1 out of every 76 applicants earned a seat in the entering class.

The table and interactive graphic below show SSOM's acceptance rate data from the five most recent admissions cycles, as reported by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC):

SSOM's average acceptance rate across all five cycles is approximately 1.30%, meaning roughly 77 applicants compete for a seat in the entering class. 

The five-year trend shows a stabilizing applicant pool. Application volume dropped sharply after 2021-2022 and held relatively steady between 12,000 and 13,400 for the following four cycles. Class size held firm at 170 matriculants until 2025-2026, when SSOM expanded slightly to 175. 

How Hard Is It to Get Into Loyola Stritch School of Medicine?

Getting into Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine is exceptionally difficult. A 1.32% acceptance rate places SSOM among the most selective medical schools in the country. Of the 13,289 2025-2026 applicants, only 618 earned an interview invitation. And just 175 of those interviewees ultimately matriculated. That means roughly 95% of applicants never make it past the application review stage. And fewer than 29% of interviewed candidates end up in the entering class.

What Is Loyola Stritch School of Medicine's Acceptance Rate for In-State Applicants?

The acceptance rate for in-state applicants at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine is 4.53%. SSOM received 1,523 in-state applications, extended 159 interview invitations, and matriculated 69 students.

That 4.53% rate is more than three times higher than the overall acceptance rate of 1.32%. That signals a meaningful in-state advantage. Illinois residents make up only 11.46% of the total applicant pool but fill 39.43% of the entering class.

What Is Loyola Stritch School of Medicine's Acceptance Rate for Out-of-State Applicants?

The acceptance rate for out-of-state applicants at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine is 0.91%. Of 11,695 out-of-state verified applications, 455 received interview invitations. And 106 students matriculated. Out-of-state applicants represent 88.01% of the total pool but fill 60.57% of the entering class.

What Is Loyola Stritch School of Medicine's Acceptance Rate for International Students?

The acceptance rate for international applicants at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine is 0%. Of 71 international applications, four received interview invitations, but none matriculated.

The fact that SSOM interviewed four international candidates suggests the school does not categorically exclude international applicants. However, zero matriculants in the most recent cycle means international applicants face the lowest odds of any group.

International candidates should treat SSOM as a reach school and build a school list heavily weighted toward programs with a track record of enrolling international students.

How Many People Apply to Loyola Stritch School of Medicine Every Year?

Approximately 12,000 to 16,000 applicants apply to Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine each year. While application volume has fluctuated across recent cycles, Stritch maintains a relatively consistent class size of around 170 to 175 matriculants per year.

Secondary Application Essays

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine’s secondary application consists of five required essay prompts and four optional prompts for applicants with specific circumstances to address.

SSOM's secondary is heavier than most medical school secondaries. Five required essays at 500 words each demand significant writing time. And each prompt targets a different dimension of your candidacy. Do not treat these as variations on the same theme. Each essay should reveal something new about you that the other four do not.

Loyola Stritch School of Medicine's 2025-2026 secondary essay prompts are:

Required Essay 1: "As you consider Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, please tell us what resonates with you regarding our mission as a Jesuit, Catholic medical school? Consider also what you may be curious about regarding our institutional mission and identity." (500 words)

How to Approach This Prompt

Start by naming what actually stands out to you about Stritch’s Jesuit mission, not just that it’s “service-oriented.” Pick 1–2 elements like cura personalis, social justice, or caring for the whole person, and tie each to something you’ve done or experienced.

Then take it one step further. Show how that value already shapes how you interact with patients or communities. When addressing curiosity about the mission, make it specific, like how it’s integrated into clinical training or student life.

Required Essay 2: "Considering all that you could do with your life, how have you discerned your decision to become a physician? What is particular to the practice of medicine and the vocation of a physician that draws you to apply to medical school versus another helping/caring profession? What experiences, conversations, and encounters have informed your decision to apply?" (500 words)

How to Approach This Prompt

Open your essay with a clear answer to why you want to become a physician, specifically. Then use a few key experiences to support that decision, focusing on moments where you saw physicians in action and understood what makes their role distinct.

Be concrete about what drew you in. Then explain why those moments mattered to you by tying them to what you value about the role.

For example, if you mention watching a physician synthesize symptoms, labs, and history to make a diagnosis, you could explain that it stood out because it required integrating multiple sources of information under uncertainty and taking responsibility for the final call.

You might add that you were drawn to that level of problem-solving and ownership, where decisions directly shape patient outcomes rather than just supporting them.

Required Essay 3: "Social justice, in the Jesuit tradition, justice due to each person's inherent human dignity, is an essential dimension of education at SSOM. Describe an impactful experience working with and for under-resourced communities. Explain what you have learned about yourself through this service and/or what has hindered your efforts to serve others in these environments." (500 words)

How to Approach This Prompt

Choose one experience working with an underserved community and explain it and reflect on it in depth. Describe your role and what you actually did, then shift quickly into reflection.

What did you learn about yourself in that setting? Be specific. For example, you might have realized you struggle with communicating across language barriers, felt uncomfortable navigating cultural differences, or assumed a solution would work when it didn’t.

Call out what was harder than expected. Maybe patients were hesitant to trust you, resources were limited, or your role felt smaller than you anticipated.

Then explain how you adjusted. Did you change how you communicated, ask more questions, rely on team members, or rethink your approach? Strong responses show you can recognize your limits and adapt, not just describe what you did.

Required Essay 4: "Describe a time you received feedback about your performance and disagreed with the feedback. What did you disagree with? How did you handle it?" (500 words)

How to Approach This Prompt

Answer this essay by picking a situation where you genuinely disagreed with feedback, not one where you immediately accepted it. Briefly explain the context, then focus on your response.

Walk through how you processed the feedback, what you said or did in the moment, and how the situation resolved. Even if you still disagreed, show that you handled it professionally and learned something about communication, perspective, or self-awareness.

Required Essay 5: "Medical education is characterized by long hours of study, a steady cadence of course exams, subjective and objective assessment of performance, licensing exams, and sometimes demanding and stressful educational contexts in the clinical environment. How has your chosen undergraduate course of study prepared you for the rigor and demands of the medical school curriculum? What additional skills have you learned as a pre-med student to help you balance your educational and personal responsibilities, including managing your time and relieving stress?" (500 words)

How to Approach This Prompt

This prompt is about showing how you actually handle pressure and structure, not just that you’ve taken hard classes.

Start with a specific example, like managing multiple exams in the same week while keeping up with labs or research, balancing a full course load with a part-time job or clinical hours, or getting through a particularly demanding semester. Then explain what you did to stay on track.

Describe how you planned your time, whether that was using a weekly schedule, blocking out study periods, or prioritizing tasks.

Also show how you adjusted when things became overwhelming, such as changing your study approach, cutting back on less important commitments, or asking for help when needed. Finally, mention how you manage stress in a sustainable way, whether through routines, exercise, or support systems. The goal is to make it clear that you already have habits and systems that will hold up in a medical school environment.

Optional Essay 6: "Please indicate additional grades earned, amendments to your proposed coursework or graduation date, address changes, additions to your list of experiences, and anything else you feel we should know." (100-500 words)

How to Approach This Prompt

Use this space to add anything new since your primary application. That could be updated grades, a new role, or a meaningful experience. Keep it clean and factual, with a quick note on why it matters.

Optional Essay 7: "Please explain in more detail anything that would help us understand any gaps or delays in your education, academic missteps, or personal challenges not listed elsewhere." (1,500 characters)

How to Approach This Prompt

If you need to explain gaps, delays, or academic missteps, do it directly. State what happened, give a brief context, and then focus on what changed afterward. The emphasis should be on how you moved forward, not on you trying to justify why it happened in the first place.

Optional Essay 8: "If you have not been enrolled in coursework for over two years, please let us know what you have been doing since your coursework ended." (100-500 words)

How to Approach This Prompt

Lay out what you’ve been doing over the past few years in a simple, structured way. Focus on how you’ve been using your time and what you’ve gained from it, especially anything that strengthens your preparation for medical school.

Optional Essay 9: "Have you applied to SSOM prior to this application? If so, please list the years of your previous application submissions to SSOM and tell us how your application has improved since your previous submission." (100-500 words)

How to Approach This Prompt

Be clear about when you applied before, then focus on what’s different now. Point to specific improvements, like a higher MCAT, stronger experiences, or clearer direction. You need to clearly show that your application is meaningfully stronger this application cycle.

How to Improve Your Chances of Getting Into Loyola Stritch School of Medicine

The most effective tips to get into Loyola Stritch School of Medicine are logging substantial clinical and service hours before you apply, building a cohesive application narrative that reflects Stritch's Jesuit mission, and treating each secondary essay as a chance to add new information rather than repeat your primary.

Here’s a closer look at each of these strategies:

Log Substantial Clinical and Service Hours Before You Apply

Your extracurricular commitment matters at Stritch. The Class of 2029 data gives you concrete targets to aim for:

Paid non-clinical experience is the highest figure in the dataset. It should recalibrate how you think about your pre-med years. At roughly 20 hours per week, 1,562 hours represents about a year and a half of part-time work. 

Paid non-clinical experience is any compensated work outside of direct patient care. That includes healthcare-adjacent roles like being a medical scribe, but it also includes retail, food service, tutoring, teaching, and office work. 

SSOM looks for applicants who can prove they held real professional responsibility and functioned in environments that demanded accountability. Aim to hold at least one paid role consistently throughout your pre-med years.

Research follows next at 1,140 hours. At 10 hours per week, it takes roughly two and a half years of sustained involvement to reach this. A single summer program does not get you there. 

Join a lab or secure a research position by sophomore year, commit to a specific project, and stay long enough to produce something tangible: a poster presentation, a co-authored abstract, or a completed thesis. 

Add New Information to Each Secondary Essay 

In our webinar on Mapping Application Narratives, Dr. Jason Gomez, an Inspira Advantage admissions consultant who served on the Stanford School of Medicine admissions committee, shares a key way to use your secondaries to improve your chances of admission to SSOM: 

"Each response should add a new layer to your application," he says. "If you use an experience from your primary application, ensure you expand on it with new introspective details rather than just repeating the same story."

At SSOM, this matters more than at most schools because the required essays explicitly ask you to engage with the Jesuit, Catholic mission and to share what you are genuinely curious about regarding institutional identity. That’s not a prompt you can answer by recycling your personal statement. It requires original reflection.

Dr. Gomez also warns against padding. 

"Admissions officers are busy physicians reading thousands of applications," he says. "Keep your responses tight, concise, and meaningful. Extra sentences that don't add to the narrative should be cut."

How to Write Strong SSOM Secondary Essays

Here’s how to apply Dr. Gomez’s advice to your secondaries:

• Use your primary to establish who you are. Your AMCAS personal statement sets your narrative foundation. Every secondary essay at Stritch should build on that foundation with new examples, not restate the same experiences in slightly different words.
• Engage the mission prompt seriously. Most applicants write a surface-level response about wanting to serve others. The strongest essays name a specific Jesuit principle, connect it to a concrete clinical or personal experience, and ask a genuine question about how the school navigates a real tension within that mission. 
• Cut every sentence that doesn’t do work. Read each essay and ask: Does this sentence add a fact, a value, or a perspective that isn’t already present elsewhere in my application? If the answer is no, cut it.

Build a Cohesive Application Narrative Across Every Component

Consistency matters across your full application. As Dr. Gomez advises, being consistent from your personal statement to your secondaries tells the admissions committee who you are and gives them a sense of who they will meet at the interview.

Your application needs to demonstrate alignment with a Jesuit, mission-driven institution, not just with medicine broadly. An applicant whose essays emphasize service, community health, and whole-person care across every section reads as a natural fit. 

An applicant whose personal statement focuses on research excellence and whose secondary essays pivot to social justice without connecting the two reads as inconsistent, regardless of how strong each essay is individually.

Map your themes before you write anything. Identify two or three core threads that run through your experiences and make sure every essay, activity description, and letter of recommendation connects back to at least one of them. 

Keep your personal statement and letters of recommendation open while you write every secondary essay. Use them as a live reference, not something you filed away after your primary submission. 

If a secondary response introduces a value or identity that doesn’t appear anywhere in your personal statement or letters, that’s a sign the essay is pulling your narrative off course. When something does not match, do not just edit the wording to make it sound more consistent. 

Go back to your theme map, identify which core thread that essay should connect to, and rewrite from that anchor point. Admissions readers move fast. A narrative that requires effort to follow is a narrative that loses the reader.

MD Programs Offered

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine offers a core MD program and several dual-degree tracks for students who want to expand their training:

Tuition and Scholarships

First-year MD students at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine pay $35,305 per semester in tuition for the 2025-2026 academic year, totaling $70,610 in tuition for the M1 year. Tuition drops to $23,536.67 per semester beginning in the third year, when students transition into clinical rotations.

The table below breaks down SSOM tuition and mandatory fees by year:

How Much Does Loyola Stritch School of Medicine Cost for 4 Years?

Tuition alone across all four years of the Stritch MD program totals approximately $235,367, based on 2025-2026 published rates. M1 and M2 students pay $70,610 per year. M3 and M4 students pay $47,073 per year as tuition decreases during the clinical years.

Scholarships and Financial Aid at Loyola Stritch School of Medicine

Stritch offers a mix of institutional scholarships, need-based grants, and federal loan programs to help MD students manage the cost of attendance.

Loyola Stritch School of Medicine Application Timeline

Stritch uses rolling admissions, which means earlier submission directly improves your chances. The table below covers the full MD application cycle for the 2026 application cycle:

FAQs

Does Loyola Stritch School of Medicine Give Preference to Illinois Residents?

Yes, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine gives meaningful preference to Illinois residents. The admissions data confirms the advantage: Illinois residents have a 4.53% acceptance rate compared to 0.91% for out-of-state applicants. Illinois residents make up 11.46% of the applicant pool but fill 39.43% of the entering class.

Is Loyola Stritch School of Medicine a Jesuit Medical School?

Yes, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine is a Jesuit, Catholic medical school. SSOM's educational philosophy centers on cura personalis, the Jesuit commitment to caring for the whole person. 

The Jesuit mission shapes SSOM's curriculum, admissions process, and institutional culture. Applicants who demonstrate alignment with these values hold an advantage in the admissions process.

What Is the Oldest MCAT Score SSOM Will Accept?

SSOM only accepts MCAT scores that are up to three years old. For example, any exam taken before January 1, 2023 will not be considered for the 2026 SSOM application cycle, regardless of how competitive it is. If your most recent valid score falls outside that three-year window, retaking the MCAT is not optional.