Disadvantaged Applicants

[SpiritiualDuck]

I was wondering if any applicants had applied disadvantaged status this year and if so, how has it influenced or impacted your application? Was it mentioned at all during interviews? Tell me about your experiences.

A close friend of mine, clearly disadvantaged, chose not to apply as such for many reasons. She's now wondering if she made the right choice.

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[LP1CW]

I didn't apply disadvantaged; although, I think being 21, white and male makes me disadvantaged. I have strong stats, research. I've been accepted in medical school, so I can't complain, but we all recognize the truth. I was talking to my uncle about this. He's a professor, not of medicine, but of psychology. He believes that the current system of correcting wrongs is not the right one either, because it promotes exactly that which it's trying to overcome. In effect, we are discriminating to help those that were discriminated against.

 

[bullhorn]

Originally posted by LP1CW
I didn't apply disadvantaged; although, I think being 21, white and male makes me disadvantaged.

 

[lawestside]

Originally posted by LP1CW
I didn't apply disadvantaged; although, I think being 21, white and male makes me disadvantaged. I have strong stats, research. I've been accepted in medical school, so I can't complain, but we all recognize the truth. I was talking to my uncle about this. He's a professor, not of medicine, but of psychology. He believes that the current system of correcting wrongs is not the right one either, because it promotes exactly that which it's trying to overcome. In effect, we are discriminating to help those that were discriminated against.

I believe you're confusing URM with being disadvantaged. Not the same thing.

 

[jlee9531]

i applied disadvantaged.

im just a poor korean boy taking care of his poor korean family.

its a major point in my PS and extra essays that make you write for applying disad...

and the topic has come up occasionally/indirectly and luckily they are impressed with how i dealt with and attacked the problem. none have specifically asked.....so why are you disad? or anything like that.

maybe more along the lines of...
your PS was excellent. can you tell me more about your family?

 

[OldMD]

I applied disadvantaged... In my essays I tried to emphasize how being a poor, welfare child made medical school out of the question, at least right after high school. Being dirt-poor affects you in many ways, and I just didn't have the support system needed to achieve very much.


On the AMCAS form there is a place to put your family's income when you were growing up, and places to indicate if your family was on federal assistance, etc. I was honest about everything but really, it didn't affect my acceptance. I mean, now I am married, and we are not disadvanted. My parent's poverty was mentioned in the interview but had no bearing on my acceptance.

OldMD

 

[freesolo]

how do you know if your disadvantaged or not? Whats it based on.

 

[darkcity998]

is/has your family been on welfare?
were you raised (or do you live) in a medically-underserved area?
were there any circumstances that have affected your education?
what was your family's income from ages 0-18? and how many dependents?

those are some rough questions I remember from AMCAS.

 

[evines]

Where is there a place that is NOT medically underserved in the US? Just curious. I've only lived in suburban USA locations, and I got the medically underserved "U" beside all of the counties I entered on my AMCAS (eg birthplace, parent location, my location, high school location . . . all different locations, all underserved). Am I just really lucky, or is this normal?

 

[Neuronix]

I was a disadvantaged applicant when I applied last year. I look at it this way. If you talk about it in your personal statement, it doesn't really matter if you mark the disadvantaged box on your application or not, though I did check the box and fill in that part of the AMCAS. Regardless, I don't think that any of the schools I applied to really had a separate admissions process for disadvantaged students. It's just one part of your application. It's not going to excuse a low GPA or MCAT, but rather I feel like it has the strength of a really good EC. It adds diversity and well-roundedness to a school. I heard once that the percentage of students from low-income backgrounds is lower than the percentage of URM students, and I think that's true. Whether or not adcoms are in touch with that fact depends on the medical school.

Most of my interviews mostly talked about my disadvantaged background. I'm not entirely sure why this is. I think some people didn't believe me. I think some others were truly interested. It did help me get into some programs I would not have gotten into otherwise (e.g. Penn), but other programs took no notice of my status and I believe accepted or rejected me regardless.

If anyone has any specific questions or wants to talk about this please get in touch with me sometime. I'm always happy to talk about it.

Good luck!