Abstract: Objective By analyzing the overall situation of enrolment scale and the differences among different types of HEIs and different regions of undergraduate medical education of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in China in 2018, to provide basis for the optimization of enrolment scale. Methods Descriptive statistical analysis was applied to analyze the single HEI enrolment, the average enrolment, and enrolment of different provinces. Results Totally 180 HEIs admitted 70 480 medical undergraduate students in 2018, 5.1 students per 100,000 population, 392 students per school, the single enrolment size of 44 HEIs was more than 600 students. The average scale of ordinary HEIs is much higher than that of 985 and 211 Project HEIs. The overall size and relative size of enrolment vary greatly among different provinces. Conclusions The enrolment scale of undergraduate medical education needs to be expanded, and there still exist problems to be solved, such as large single HEI enrolment scale in many HEIs, obvious differences in the enrolment scale of different types of HEI and uneven distribution among provinces.

Key words: Higher education institution, Clinical medicine, Undergraduate medical education, Scale of enrolment