Two weeks after graduating 119 new physicians, the College of Medicine will welcome 120 new students as the Class of 2025. The students arrive June 1.

Many of them will need an introduction, but their path to medical school is a familiar one. For many others, the college is already something of a second home.

Thirteen have been at the medical school for the past year as part of the Bridge to Clinical Medicine master’s program. Those students graduated alongside the M.D. class on Sunday, now they’ll begin pursuing their own medical doctorate.

Others in the class have been at Florida State as part of the Honors Medical Scholars program, while some were earning a degree in Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences, involving seven FSU colleges and based at the medical school.

In all, nearly 8,200 applicants sought admission with the Class of ’25 – part of a dramatic increase in medical school applications over the past year that many attribute to greater interest in medicine during the coronavirus pandemic.

The class will be diverse, reflecting the college’s mission-based admissions philosophy: Sixteen percent (19 students) are Black; sixteen percent (19 students) are Spanish, Hispanic or Latino. Thirty-six percent of the class are considered to be underrepresented minorities – from racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population.

Forty members of the class are from counties in the Florida Panhandle, seven of those considered to be rural – part of the effort to bring in students more likely to one day serve Panhandle communities in need of more physicians.

And once again, women will outnumber men (66-54), continuing a national trend of more women becoming physicians.