How best to select medical students (ie, future doctors) is a topic that has rarely been out of the medical journals and the daily newspapers during the past 30 years. In this Journal in 1974, Campbell et al wrote: “Although mounting criticism and concern are expressed for the manner in which our medical students are selected, the status quo continues”.1 The status quo alluded to was selection of medical students solely on the basis of academic marks obtained in high school matriculation examinations. Fifteen years later, John Best, in one of his regular articles for the Journal,2 acknowledged that to be a good doctor required skills and personal qualities additional to academic aptitude, and wrote: