Medical students admitted solely by grade point average show a narrow but highly prosocial personality profile.

Authors

Lena Kristin Bache-Mathiesen, Torbjørn Moum, Reidar Tyssen, Jarle Breivik

Published in

BMC medical education. Jul 15, 2026. Epub Jul 15, 2026.

Abstract

The distribution of students' personality traits may indicate whether an admission system selects candidates suited to medical practice. While many countries use multi-step selection procedures, Norwegian medical schools admit students based solely on upper-secondary school grade point averages (GPA). We primarily aimed to characterise the personality profiles of medical students at the University of Oslo, and then compare them with previous studies of the Norwegian general population and medical students from systems in countries using alternative admission models.
We conducted an observational study of newly admitted medical students, 2022-2026 (mean age = 22.1 years, SD = 4.2; 68% female). Personality was assessed using the Big Five Inventory (BFI; five cohorts, n = 535, response rate (RR) = 89%) and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; six cohorts, n = 632, RR = 95%). BFI scores were compared with available historical data: general Norwegian workers, German final-year, and French first‑ and third‑year medical students using one‑sample t‑tests. MBTI types were compared with previous studies on U.S. and South Korean medical students and the Norwegian general population using chi-squared tests.
Norwegian medical students scored significantly higher than Norwegian workers on all BFI dimensions (p < 0.001). They also scored higher in Agreeableness than German final-year and French first- and third-year students (4.33 vs 4.17, 3.80 and 3.60, respectively) and lower in Neuroticism (2.50 vs. 2.85, 3.00 and 3.00; all p < 0.001). Norwegian students' MBTI personality-type distribution differed significantly from the Norwegian general population and U.S. and South Korean medical students (p < 0.001). Most students were Judging (78%) and Extraverted (70%), with ENFJ the most frequent personality type among women (29%) and ENTJ among men (25%).
Medical students admitted through the Norwegian GPA-only admission system at UiO demonstrated high Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, with a marked overrepresentation of ENFJ women and ENTJ men. These findings indicate a consistently prosocial and structured, but relatively narrow, personality profile. While this profile includes interpersonal and organisational characteristics that may be relevant to clinical practice, the observed distribution also raises questions about limited diversity in personality type distribution and gender-related patterns in recruitment to medical education.

PMID:
42458415
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 16 Jul 2026.

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