Questions on URM and ORM

[Goro]

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And people should also remember that no one is done any favors by being accepted if Adcoms thought that they were at high risk to fail out.

Waitlist management varies by school, but they are often used to "re-balance or restore" some desirable component that was depleted after traffic day. We had a year in which we were left with a lot more men. Everything being equal, women were chosen from the wailist. If we had gotten to the point that there were a big difference in fit, we would have gone back to men.

 

[DoctorDrewOutsidetheLines]

I think it's sad that the less desirable, least respected, and most underpaid specialties in medicine are the ones where people truly get to know and care about patients.

So the fact that URMs are automatically assumed to gratefully take these left over unwanted primary care residency spots because we're somehow less intelligent (based on test scores?!) says something about the characters of the people who choose primary care and the people who scorn those who choose it.

I just wanted to point that out...

I actually want to go Family Medicine/Psych because I want to help others. It doesn't make me any less intelligent or that career path inferior to someone who is a gastroenterologist or orthopedic surgeon, for instance.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

I think it's sad that the less desirable, least respected, and most underpaid specialties in medicine are the ones where people truly get to know and care about patients.

So the fact that URMs are automatically assumed to gratefully take these left over unwanted primary care residency spots because we're somehow less intelligent (based on test scores?!) says something about the characters of the people who choose primary care and the people who scorn those who choose it.

I just wanted to point that out...

I actually want to go Family Medicine/Psych because I want to help others. It doesn't make me any less intelligent or that career path inferior to someone who is a gastroenterologist or orthopedic surgeon, for instance.

Underserved populations also need specialists.

 

[Cavs5284]

Waitlist management varies by school, but they are often used to "re-balance or restore" some desirable component that was depleted after traffic day. We had a year in which we were left with a lot more men. Everything being equal, women were chosen from the wailist. If we had gotten to the point that there were a big difference in fit, we would have gone back to men.

In a hypothetical situation where the school is lacking in black students, assuming there are no African Americans on the waitlist but there are immigrant Africans on the waitlist, do the African immigrant applicants get picked to "balance" the lack of black students?

In another waitlist scenario, say there are both African Americans and immigrant Africans on a waitlist. The immigrant Africans have higher stats and the school has a shortage of black students compared to previous years after traffic day. Who gets chosen from the waitlist? Does history of service change the answer (i.e. African immigrant/African American have equal stats but the immigrant has service history while African American does not)?

In another scenario (non-waitlist), say there is a immigrant African applicant with no history of service to underserved communities, how are they evaluated by medical schools? Are they still considered URM and accepted with slightly below average stats or are they held to the same standards as Asians and white applicants?

I realize there are so few African Americans that apply to medical school in general that these scenarios are likely rare but, just for the sake of discussion, how would these situations be handled?

 

[DoctorDrewOutsidetheLines]

@Cavs5284 Sorry to hijack your thread but since you admitted you're in admissions, I have a quick question and if you can answer if I'll be very grateful.

Am I a Twofer (30 Rock reference, peeps, relax)? I just learned Haitians are considered Latinos, and I'm half mulatto Haitian and half AA.

And if so, does that give me, like double URM boost or consideration in the admissions process?

EDIT: Just curious why you don't ask these questions to the physicians and administrators you work with in admissions...there are very few SDN adcoms and a lot of premeds on here...

 

[Cavs5284]

@Cavs5284 Sorry to hijack your thread but since you admitted you're in admissions, I have a quick question and if you can answer if I'll be very grateful.

Am I a Twofer (30 Rock reference, peeps, relax)? I just learned Haitians are considered Latinos, and I'm half mulatto Haitian and half AA.

And if so, does that give me, like double URM boost or consideration in the admissions process?

EDIT: Just curious why you don't ask these questions to the physicians and administrators you work with in admissions...there are very few SDN adcoms and a lot of premeds on here...

I'm not very deep in my involvement in medical school admissions. I volunteer occasionally on interview days and grade candidates based on a rubric immediately following the interview. I am not on the admissions committee and do not have any insight into how they discuss applicants. I could ask members of the committee, but this is a very controversial topic and I am not sure I would get an honest answer without the cloak of anonymity. It's also quite likely that one of the adcoms on SDN is on my school's admissions committee and I'd rather preserve my own anonymity as well.

For your situation, I think you would just be considered whatever you self-identify as. Not sure if you would get an extra boost, although I have heard adcoms on SDN use the phrase "killing two birds with one stone" in describing applicants that were female minorities so it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Med Ed]

In a hypothetical situation where the school is lacking in black students, assuming there are no African Americans on the waitlist but there are immigrant Africans on the waitlist, do the African immigrant applicants get picked to "balance" the lack of black students?

In my (limited) experience serving on an admissions committee, black/African American and African applicants are treated interchangeably for purposes of racial diversity.

In another waitlist scenario, say there are both African Americans and immigrant Africans on a waitlist. The immigrant Africans have higher stats and the school has a shortage of black students compared to previous years after traffic day. Who gets chosen from the waitlist? Does history of service change the answer (i.e. African immigrant/African American have equal stats but the immigrant has service history while African American does not)?

As stated above, wait list management varies by school, but many, if not most, rank the applicants on the list as part of their holistic review. The admissions committee has therefore already wrestled with the complex, multidimensional nature of their applications and decided how they stand in relation to each other.

You may notice that people outside admissions often like to pose hypothetical questions of applicant A vs. applicant B, while people inside admissions consistently point out that it doesn't really work that way.

 

[Goro]

This is worth a sticky!!!

You may notice that people outside admissions often like to pose hypothetical questions of applicant A vs. applicant B, while people inside admissions consistently point out that it doesn't really work that way.

 

[Cavs5284]

In my (limited) experience serving on an admissions committee, black/African American and African applicants are treated interchangeably for purposes of racial diversity.



As stated above, wait list management varies by school, but many, if not most, rank the applicants on the list as part of their holistic review. The admissions committee has therefore already wrestled with the complex, multidimensional nature of their applications and decided how they stand in relation to each other.

If the bolded is true, it seems very possible that immigrant Africans are edging out African Americans.

Also, the SDN concensus seems to be that URM policies that are in place are meant to provide physicians that mirror the patient population and specifically not for the purpose of diversity. Seeing as the population of post-civil rights act black African/Caribbean immigrant families make up a small fraction of the United States population, wouldn't this be counterproductive to the publicly stated goals of URM admissions policies? If we are trying to make a culturally competent force of physicians, wouldn't it be important to recognize the vastly different cultures of African Americans and more recent black immigrants instead of treating them superficially in admissions based on physical appearance alone?

This is worth a sticky!!!

I think most people understand that admissions is not one candidate versus another one (besides a few borderline candidates at admissions committee meetings or waitlist candidates). Nonetheless, applicants are competing with each other for a limited number of spots. These hypotheticals I proposed are reasonable because many medical schools use a point system to evaluate applicants and establish cutoffs for admissions.

For example, you yourself mentioned one such system where Rhodes scholars and URM's would be granted +5 on an admissions basis, Publications +3, volunteering +1, etc.

The hypotheticals I have proposed, if answered, would help us gain knowledge on these values.

 

[Goro]

Based on the posts we see on SDN, I beg to disagree. The posts always are based upon a single parameter (GPA of X vs MCAT of Y).

I think most people understand that admissions is not one candidate versus another one (besides a few borderline candidates at admissions committee meetings or waitlist candidates). Nonetheless, applicants are competing with each other for a limited number of spots. These hypotheticals I proposed are reasonable because many medical schools use a point system to evaluate applicants and establish cutoffs for admissions.

For example, you yourself mentioned one such system where Rhodes scholars and URM's would be granted +5 on an admissions basis, Publications +3, volunteering +1, etc.

The hypotheticals I have proposed, if answered, would help us gain knowledge on these values.

 

[Lost in Translation]

I think most people understand that admissions is not one candidate versus another one (besides a few borderline candidates at admissions committee meetings or waitlist candidates)

That's not entirely true. I was told at one of my interviews that the decision process post-interview goes something like this:

1. Decide whether or not an applicant is worth admitting. If not, send a rejection
2. Compare all applicants that were deemed worthy of admission to each other
3. Send out acceptances to the ones that were more-worthy than the other worthy ones

 

[Med Ed]

If the bolded is true, it seems very possible that immigrant Africans are edging out African Americans.

No, schools would accept all the current African immigrants and more African Americans, if they could. The limiting factor is the number of qualified African American applicants in the pool.

Also, the SDN concensus seems to be that URM policies that are in place are meant to provide physicians that mirror the patient population and specifically not for the purpose of diversity. Seeing as the population of post-civil rights act black African/Caribbean immigrant families make up a small fraction of the United States population, wouldn't this be counterproductive to the publicly stated goals of URM admissions policies? If we are trying to make a culturally competent force of physicians, wouldn't it be important to recognize the vastly different cultures of African Americans and more recent black immigrants instead of treating them superficially in admissions based on physical appearance alone?

Admissions policies aimed at URM's are intended to accomplish both goals of enhancing the educational experience in school and the effectiveness of the physician workforce afterwards. The problem, as I mentioned above, is the paucity of qualified candidates, particularly when it comes to African American men. Medical schools, particularly lower-tier private ones, have arguably resorted to accepting affluent immigrants as a means to buffer their racial diversity. This is the Achilles heel of race-based admissions policies, and if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Fisher I think this will be the crux of that victory.

I think most people understand that admissions is not one candidate versus another one (besides a few borderline candidates at admissions committee meetings or waitlist candidates). Nonetheless, applicants are competing with each other for a limited number of spots. These hypotheticals I proposed are reasonable because many medical schools use a point system to evaluate applicants and establish cutoffs for admissions.

For example, you yourself mentioned one such system where Rhodes scholars and URM's would be granted +5 on an admissions basis, Publications +3, volunteering +1, etc.

The hypotheticals I have proposed, if answered, would help us gain knowledge on these values.

What we are saying is that to truly answer your hypotheticals, please produce complete hypothetical AMCAS applications, including hypothetical PS's, hypothetical LOR's, and hypothetical interviewer ratings. Until then it read as the same old 3.4/32 vs. 3.6/30.

 

[andreamx]

As a middle/upper middle class black American, I would like to add that yes we are strongly inclined to serve poor black communities. It's something that is HEAVILY emphasized growing up. If you do any research on black Greek organizations (which mostly consist of wealthier black college graduates) we are pushed to serve our underserved brothers and sisters. Of course not all of us do, but to assume that wealthier black people don't care about the poorer ones is extremely untrue. Even if we end up working somewhere that doesn't directly serve low income black populations, we are inclined to find some way to give back, whether is be volunteering or giving money. Especially with all the events going on in our country, I'd say the push to serve our own community is even greater.

Sorry if that's a huge block of text. I'm on my phone so I can't format.

 

[Cookie04]

As a middle/upper middle class black American, I would like to add that yes we are strongly inclined to serve poor black communities. It's something that is HEAVILY emphasized growing up. If you do any research on black Greek organizations (which mostly consist of wealthier black college graduates) we are pushed to serve our underserved brothers and sisters. Of course not all of us do, but to assume that wealthier black people don't care about the poorer ones is extremely untrue. Even if we end up working somewhere that doesn't directly serve low income black populations, we are inclined to find some way to give back, whether is be volunteering or giving money. Especially with all the events going on in our country, I'd say the push to serve our own community is even greater.

Sorry if that's a huge block of text. I'm on my phone so I can't format.

Yes!!! I can't say this enough! At least for most middle/upper class Black families anyway.