affirmative action

Also post your opinion on useless trolling. Thanks. 🙂

RonaldColeman said:

Hey guys,

I'm probably opening up a can of worms here, but I'd be interested in seeing your opinions on this issue. This was a very contentious topic on the premed boards 4 years ago (have I really been on the forums that long?), but I never see the topic on the medical student/resident boards...perhaps for good reason! I'd be particularly interested in hearing how medical school may have changed your views.
As an example, I remember when I was applying to medical school, a lot was made of a study done at UC Davis which showed that while differences in test scores between affirmative action admits and "legitimate" admits remained throughout medical school, there were apparently no meaningful differences in 3rd year "evaluations." At the time, I thought this was solid evidence in favor of affirmative action. Now that I've gone through 3rd year and have seen just how subjective it can be--and that everyone pretty much gets good evals--I really question this finding.

Click to expand...

If you're "probably opening up a can of worms" then why are you posting it? Don't pretend that you have a scholarly interest in this subject.

Yeah, you're a troll, you see that no one here is worried about this and yet you bring it up to stir up controversy - good luck in your life endeavors, I can see with your attitude you'll need it 🙄

Poety said:

If you're "probably opening up a can of worms" than why are you posting it? Don't pretend that you have a scholarly interest in this subject.

Yeah, you're a troll, you see that no one here is worried about this and yet you bring it up to stir up controversy - good luck in your life endeavors, I can see with your attitude you'll need it 🙄

Click to expand...

Great minds think alike. 🙂

skypilot said:

Also post your opinion on useless trolling. Thanks. 🙂

Click to expand...

GMTA, and we even posted at the same TIME

skypilot said:

Great minds think alike. 🙂

Click to expand...

NOW YOU'RE FREAKING ME OUT, TWO POSTS AT THE SAME TIME what are the chances? spOoKy

medical school has not changed my mind about affirmative action... I feel that medical schools let some people in that are underqualified and these people get hammered in school and are forced to go into noncompetitive fields...

in truth, residency selection committees don't use affirmative action in their decision making unless they are large internal medicine programs, etc. if you are a rad/onc department with only 2 seats to fill every year, you go after who is the most qualified... this goes for radiology/anesthesia/derm, etc. any committee that only has 10 seats to offer per year doesn't care what race you are...

if it's a large internal med program like Hopkins/MGH, etc., then once again they are forced to take race into account as part of their decision making otherwise they will face national exposure...

in short, affirmative action let these people in, but on the way out, if they have underperformed, they get screwed... and in my opinion, rightfully so... delayed justice...

I think affirmative action exists for 2 reasons: to open up opportunities that otherwise would not be available to people coming from a certain background and to prevent potentially racist groups from underrepresenting people from certain minority groups in their institutions and as a result preventing them from getting jobs for which they are qualified.

Once medical school is done, I feel the first reason should not be there. I think it's stupid to say "oh we need to make sure the opportunities are available ...." when somebody has had the opportunities to prove themselves straight through high school, college, AND medical school. Coming out of medical school, it's now up to you to prove via board scores, evals, etc. how deserving you are of a residency seat.

In terms of the underrepresentation issue, though, this is a stickier issue. Pistons brings up a good point about number of seats (when you have <10 seats, how can you represent all groups equally anyway?). But you know what? There are so many factors that shouldn't mean anything and don't rely on qualifications (foreign versus American grads; the name of your school, the names of your letter writers, etc.) that affirmative action becomes a lesser issue in my mind.

GoPistons said:

medical school has not changed my mind about affirmative action... I feel that medical schools let some people in that are underqualified and these people get hammered in school and are forced to go into noncompetitive fields...

Click to expand...

Yeah I know of a couple of black students who fit this description. I also know a few white students who fit this description as well. So if the underqualified black students' admisstions were due to affirmative action, what's the excuse for the underqualified white students?

Hurricane said:

Yeah I know of a couple of black students who fit this description. I also know a few white students who fit this description as well. So if the underqualified black students' admisstions were due to affirmative action, what's the excuse for the underqualified white students?

Click to expand...

Poor performance by someone who was a qualified applicant is unfortunate. Poor performance by an 'affirmative action' or personal connection-admit is a waste. The fact that many white people are unfairly accepted due to connections doesn't make it right to discriminate for blacks against unconnected white people to balance that out. It doesn't balance anything. It leaves the unconnected white people doubly screwed. The right thing would be to accept the best candidate. God forbid, right?
My view hasn't changed at all to answer the op.

Okay let's be fair - ALL people - white, brown, black, etc. can get in because of connections. It's just maybe a bit more common if you're white because, stereotyping, if you're brown, your parents are often doctors or engineers but probably just came here recently (not generations ago) and native Americans, blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented.

I agree it stinks if somebody underqualified gets in because of affirmative action, connections, or what medical school they came from (i.e., pedigree). But this is the way things are in almost every field except maybe PhD work in which you have to jump through soooooo many hoops for the remainder of your life getting grants, publishing papers, and showing results that if you are underqualified, you really will just be kicked out or will never get past being another research monkey in a big name's lab.

Playing devil's advocate, there may be benefits to a program taking a student with big name connections. Students don't get big name connections by accident. Either they have a well-connected family which may help bring money into the school or more connections to the school or they made themselves well-connected through research and other work but maybe didn't do as well in coursework and so are well qualified in some "intangible" way.

Support without exception for affirmative action to make sure that all people are equally represented everywhere is stupid and racist. Everybody should be given equal opportunity to prove themselves throughout the educational process and, at the end, if they are not qualified compared to another candidate at the level of, say, residency, they should not receive a seat for the sake of representation.

If you really want to split hairs, DO's and IMG's/FMG's should be considered for seats in every program without exception, regardless of where they studied. There's also discrimination in automatically considering American allopathic grads over all others, regardless of qualifications.

If people think that this is different in any other field, they're sorely mistaken. Affirmative action, connections, daddy's $, whatever the cause, plays into every aspect of society as a whole.

If you go to law school, business school, or medical school, there will always be those that do well, those that don't, those that got in by knowing someone and those that got in on the color of their skin.... WHY IS THIS SUCH A FREAKING BIG DEAL, AS THOUGH NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF THIS BEFORE?? Why is this such a "SURPRISE OH MY, IM SO OFFENDED" it HAPPENS EVERY DAY PEOPLE SUCH IS LIFE!!!!!

Are these people so ridiculously ignorant to believe that life is fair? GIVE ME A BREAK jeezuz

This subject has been beaten to DEATH -and as for the OP - is THIS your scholarly interest? 🙄

person2004 said:

Poor performance by someone who was a qualified applicant is unfortunate. Poor performance by an 'affirmative action' or personal connection-admit is a waste. The fact that many white people are unfairly accepted due to connections doesn't make it right to discriminate for blacks against unconnected white people to balance that out. It doesn't balance anything. It leaves the unconnected white people doubly screwed. The right thing would be to accept the best candidate. God forbid, right?
My view hasn't changed at all to answer the op.

Click to expand...

Perhaps "unqualified" was the wrong word. I wasn't really talking about connected people.

I don't know the admissions stats of my fellow medical students, so I can't really say if they were qualified for admission or not. But there are some students, of all races, who can't cut it and perform poorly once they get into medical school. If an unconnected black student perfoms poorly, people are quick to assume that the person had questionable admissions stats and got in due to affirmative action. But when an unconnected white person performs poorly, then what do people think? That the student looked good on paper, but admissions committee made a mistake in admitting them? Perhaps the black student had identical stats, and the admissions committee made a mistake in their case too. Or that the white student is just "going through a hard time." Or some other excuse. But for the black student, blaming affirmative action is the knee-jerk response.

In this sense, I think affirmative action does a disservice to minorities, because it makes it easier for other people to dismiss their acheivements or justify their failings.

This horse has been down to the ground...we need to shut this whole thing down because it's pointless.

Happy MLK day...Oh! the irony of it all 🙄

carminosa said:

This horse has been down to the ground...we need to shut this whole thing down because it's pointless.

Happy MLK day...Oh! the irony of it all 🙄

Click to expand...

No one forces you to open this thread.

I, for one, have personally sat on an admissions committee for a very reputable medical school... I also had a vote... The scenario everyday would be the following "this is so and so... blah blah... MCAT x... undergrad GPA y... oh this is also one of our few under-represented minorities (URM)"... being a URM had equal weight to MCAT and undergrad GPA... I have seen URMs with 21 MCATs admitted over others with 41 MCATs b/c they were URM... our admissions director would just keep saying "URM, URM" and slowly the applicants votes would rise... our committee could only admit x number of people per meeting...

this was discrimination in its purest form...

anyway, the URMs most definitely get in... now they usually get killed during the first two years of medical school... almost flunking out... our school doesn't help them at all... a 21 MCAT shouldn't be forced to compete with a class that has an average of a 35 MCAT... it's just not fair... to them or the school... then these people do poorly and are left with only considering internal med/peds/etc.

I don't feel bad for the guy with the 41 MCAT... who certainly was admitted to some other school... I feel bad for the guys at the bottom... the non-URMs who weren't given a chance to pursue medicine because they can't "get in"... it's really not fair... but such is life...

anyway, in residency it doesn't work like this for the most part... nor does it work like this in a small practice of only a few docs... justice eventually prevails...

Eh, this is a thread about medical school admissions. What's it doing in the residency forum?


Can someone send this to allo where it belongs?

GoPistons said:

anyway, the URMs most definitely get in... now they usually get killed during the first two years of medical school... almost flunking out... our school doesn't help them at all... a 21 MCAT shouldn't be forced to compete with a class that has an average of a 35 MCAT... it's just not fair... to them or the school... then these people do poorly and are left with only considering internal med/peds/etc.

Click to expand...

First of all, URM w/ 21's definitely DON'T get into many schools, if any at all. Second of all, URM represent a small # of the total medical school population, only 6% today's physicians are URM. 6% !!!! Are spots really being unfairly taken? GoPistons, should URM only represent 1 or 2 %, or is that asking too much? Third, you can excell in medical school and still decide to go into internal meds/peds. Obviously to go to a good/ top tier program, you need to have the numbers, but to suggest that people that do poorly must consider IM or peds is ridiculous. I am not an URM, but have a good friend who is an URM who told me he only had average MCAT's, but scored in the 230's on step I and II, has excellent grades, and I know more that have a similar story. These stories are not the exception. Of course some people, ALL people will struggle, but you make it seem as if only URM struggle, and should get punished. Some URM will struggle and fail, but that only constitutes the "minority" 🙂

NOSTLMO said:

Second of all, URM represent a small # of the total medical school population, only 6% today's physicians are URM. 6% !!!! Are spots really being unfairly taken? GoPistons, should URM only represent 1 or 2 %, or is that asking too much?

Click to expand...

URMs could represent 100% of all students - if they are admitted without any weight being given to their URM status.

To the OP, my position hasn't changed. I didn't support Affirmative Action before, and I don't now either.

-Trifling Jester

I have to clear up two points.

Point # 1: All URMs are not underqualified to go into medicine... what is happening with preferred admissions policies is that URMs are going to schools that they are underqualified for... my example for instance... let's say a 3.5 GPA / 26 MCAT / public high school / state school undergrad is competing with a class full of 3.96 / 35 MCAT / private high school / Ivy league undergrad people... it is an uphill battle for them... that is why they tend not to do well... if they were at there more appropriate medical school with a class of their intellectual/those that had the same opportunity peers, the results for them (residencies) would be much different...

Point # 2: It is a zero sum game... for each underqualified URM that is let in, there is a seat down the line that is taken away for somebody else...

anyway, people should be going to schools that they are qualified for... period...

interestingly, this discrimination happens in reverse too... overrepresented minorities (Asians) are generally at schools that they are overqualified for... with some of the more "average" of them not able to get into medical school at all...

I agree with you that URMs are only 6% or so of medical school classes... it is unfortunate... if you get rid of affirmative action, you would probably be at 3%... the problem is in our public school/urban/low socieconomic society... AA is not a fix for this and never will be...

NOSTLMO said:

First of all, URM w/ 21's definitely DON'T get into many schools, if any at all.

Click to expand...

Sure they do. I am thinking of one particular URM student who was admitted to my medical school with just that--a 21 MCAT. Yet, this student attended med school with the benefit of URM-based scholarships and special tutors. Blessedly, this student was finally booted after the second unsuccessful attempt at passing our preclinical years. We have numerous similar students who are not booted, but barely pass. I think such students cause the bimodal distribution of USMLE scores at this school.

The school in question is the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. Our affirmative action organization is called the Urban Health Program. Look it up. Among many roles, it hires holds special tutoring classes for minorities struggling with academics. Admission to our tutoring sessions is based on skin color...being darker than a paper bag, essentially. It's naked discrimination, pure and simple. Can any of the six hundred current UIC medical students refute this?

To answer the OP, medical school has made me hate affirmative action more. I'm posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

Funny...I always got the feeling from a lot of people in my class that they thought I was there because of affirmative action...not b/c of my grades or board scores(which are excellent) but simply because I'm black...and now I see that I was right.

Same here ap18! I am in the top 20% of my class and at times I get the impression that they think I am here because I am black. I guess there will always be some that feel that way. At any rate, I can't live for anyone's approval.

At my school there is a large contingent of URMs which makes for a very supportive environment, essential for success in my opinion. The student organization is one of the most active on campus sponsoring various charities and events and many of the students are academic leaders. I guess it depends on where you go to school. Anecdotes about some random student who failed out don't mean a thing.

🙂

I don't think anybody disputes the quality of minority students in medical school. Anybody who does is an idiot. All the minority students that do receive the recognition for being the best deserve it, plain and simple, because they earned it.

The question is about the people who are borderline. It's not in doubt that the person with the best scores, grades, research, whatever will get in. It becomes more of a question when you have a white student with maybe a 3.5 gpa and a 30 mcat who may be turned down for a minority student with perhaps a 3.0 gpa and a 24 mcat from a similar undergrad school with no significant distinguishing extracurriculars, class difficulty, LOR's, research, or other things aside from URM status. Most of the time, I would hope, the person with the better credentials would get in. Being a URM does bring in other factors and brings into question in cases like this about who will get in.

I know at my institution we have programs that specifically offer special opportunities to minority students for advancement. There are programs in place to start the coursework before the class year even starts (including seeing and taking the first anatomy exam before school even starts) and to get cheaper review books and classes, all supported by federal grants earmarked for helping the underserved. These programs are not available on the basis of need but on the basis of race only (i.e., Hispanic/AA). There are students (2 from my class) in these programs who have 3.7+ GPA's as science majors from ivy league schools and top MCAT scores whose parents are both doctors and only came here because of location and cost. On the other side, there are many white students who are on full loans and have come from challenged economic backgrounds to make their own way through high school, college, and ultimately to medical school to be the first professional in their family and yet receive no "favors" like these.

I don't begrudge anybody their earned right to be somewhere. I don't support people receiving unfair advantages that other people may need more. I think the people who are the most disadvantaged, regardless of race, deserve support. But that does NOT always happen, and there are many cases where the people who don't need it receive it and the people who do don't.

There are always going to be people who (wrongly) look at a minority student and think they got in only because of URM status. These people will also look at the Asian and Indian students and think they're all great at math and are getting the best grades in class because they study all the time. And these people will look at students whose family is full of doctors and think they probably got support from their family members and have an unfair advantage because of them.

I think people are more upset about the problems with the system (and there are problems with the system) and don't mean to begrudge a spot that's been earned by any student. However, I think the problems in the system are not as rampant as people think and that we over-analyze this.

BlahtoThis said:

However, I think the problems in the system are not as rampant as people think and that we over-analyze this.

Click to expand...

Yup, sure there is always jealousy whether it is because of access to money, influence or some perceived preference. But in the end we all have to pass the exams and the USMLE which is no mean feat.