Preadmission profile and academic performance: Are we selecting the best students for medicine?

India has the largest number of medical colleges in the world. Selection process for entry in these colleges is through entrance examination only. The present study was an attempt to explore such factors in pre admission profile of students that can predict the academic performance of the students. This observational cross-sectional study was carried out on 149 students who appeared for the university examination for first year MBBS of tertiary care teaching and research medical institute of Government of India, Bhopal. A prevalidated, pretested, structured questionnaire was used to collect information from the students regarding their sociodemographic and academic profile. Relationship between the study parameters and academic performance of students was explored statiscally.Majority of the study participants belonged to english medium, urban private schools. Almost 85% hailed from higher socioeconomic strata. Study parameters like performance of students in class X and XII, were positively statistically significantly correlated, while number of attempts taken to clear the entrance was negatively correlated to academic performance. Parameters like socioeconomic status, language, proficiency, place of stay and type of school did not show any relation with the academic performance. The entrance examination was found to be skewed towards students from one particular school board, urban, english medium students from higher socioeconomic strata. Possibility of adding scores of class XII and limiting the number of attempts in entrance examination needs to be considered. A level playing field needs to be provided for students across all school boards and across all the socioeconomic, linguistic and geographic backgrounds.