The URM Advantage

[Aeterni]

Lol, talk about close-minded. Without even reading what others have written, you know that the people on the other side of the debate are wrong.

Sorry, I meant long i typo a lot on ipad keyboard.

Edit: the point of my previous post was to re-plug the two articles I linked because as I stated before they address many of the common issues that I've noticed are raised in these threads. So that's how I justified not reading the thread past the first few posts

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[sector9]

I have no idea what point you are trying to make here.



That's easy. Because they are being encouraged to do so. (by mentors, pre-med advisers, etc.)



Why? Wasn't the OP comparing acceptance rates with overall population demos? Are you suggesting that a Black child should not have the audacity to dream the same dreams as a White child?
Please explain.

I'm guessing you haven't taken a stats class.

 

[plumazul]

I'm guessing you haven't taken a stats class.

I'm guessing you don't want to answer the question. That's fine.

 

[HoltMD]

Wow! People are still bitching about the two black students in med school?

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mjvFNOwmc&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

 

[sector9]

I'm guessing you don't want to answer the question. That's fine.

I'll take that as a no.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make here.

Allow me to give a recap as I don't think you are following along in the discussion:
Minitor starts out with:

Blacks totally have an advantage. If you can't see that you are blind.

qtipp replies with:

Yeah... totally.

And I reply with:

Right bro... just as you pointed out later on with your graphs, Blacks are applying with much lower stats than other races. For example, 3782 Blacks applied with an MCAT score of equal to or below 20. There were only 10411 Black applicants total. That's 36.3% of Black applicants applying with less than a 21 on the MCAT.

Compare that to White applicants, where 4819 applied with under a 21 out of 78024 applicants, meaning only 6.2% of White applicants are applying with less than a 21.

I don't care what race you are, you can't be applying with under a 21 and expect much to happen.

The AAMC statistics can't tell you why Blacks are applying with lower MCAT scores than there counterparts. However, basing your argument on overall acceptance percentages is completely flawed.

The stats that I'm quoting are from the newer tables (2009-2011).

So let me break it down for you: Minitor said that blacks have an advantage in medical school admissions. If you compare a black applicant with a white/asian applicant with the same cGPA and MCAT, then yes, blacks DO have an advantage in med school admissions. They are accepted at a higher rate than their fellow ORM applicants.

qtipp responds to Minitor with his misleading table. His table is showing TOTAL acceptance percentages for different races. qtipp is trying to say minitor is wrong by pointing to the TOTAL acceptance percentage for blacks being lower than other races.

I responded to qtipp by telling him that blacks do have an advantage in med school admissions and that the reason for the low TOTAL acceptance percentage is because blacks are applying with lower stats (36.3% of black applicants applied with under a 21 on the MCAT, which we can all agree is uncompetitive for MD schools. By comparison, only 6.2% of white applicants are applying with less than a 21. With a huge chunk of black applicants applying with stats far below the expectations of med school adcomms, we shouldn't be surprised that they have a low total acceptance rate. That doesn't mean that they don't have an advantage in admissions though).

qtipp is making a mistake in his/her logic by saying that blacks don't have an advantage in med school admissions. The analysis is not well designed. If you wanted to make a better analysis, you have to start looking at other factors. The easiest factors to compensate for are MCAT and cGPA since the AAMC releases those stats for free. An example of how to do that would be to take the percentage of ORM's accepted for each MCAT and cGPA combination and multiply it by the number of black applicants for that same MCAT/cGPA combo. You would then have the number of black applicants you would expect to be accepted if blacks were treated the same as ORMs in the admissions process. Your final step is to compare your "expected" number with the actual number of Blacks accepted. I have done a similar thing in my thread stickied in WAMC although I was comparing the ORM races (White and Asian) with the URM races (Blacks, Hispanics, etc).

That's easy. Because they are being encouraged to do so. (by mentors, pre-med advisers, etc.)

It's fine if you want to speculate about why blacks are applying with low stats. Unless someone has conducted a study on it, then any opinions remain an interesting conjecture.

Why? Wasn't the OP comparing acceptance rates with overall population demos? Are you suggesting that a Black child should not have the audacity to dream the same dreams as a White child?
Please explain.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't stated a single reason WHY blacks are applying with uncompetitive stats. I'm just saying that they ARE applying with them and that blacks applying with lower stats accounts for the lower total acceptance percentage that qtipp is propping up as some groundbreaking revelation proving that URMs really aren't at an advantage.

 

[235788]

Wow! People are still bitching about the two black students in med school?

[YOUTUBE]Y2mjvFNOwmc[/YOUTUBE]

oh great this extremist again.

He talks about white people as if all of us are middle class or above.

How much white privilege did this guy grow up with? Very little if any.

 

[WhizoMD]

oh great this extremist again.

He talks about white people as if all of us are middle class or above.

How much white privilege did this guy grow up with? Very little if any.

"Richard Colson Baker was born in April 22, 1990, in Texas to missionary parents and took up residence in Egypt, Germany, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver and Ohio.[1] Since he lived the first four years of his life in Egypt, he spoke Arabic before English.[7] He started listening to rap in the sixth/seventh grade when he went to Hamilton Middle School, a mixed race school in Denver.[7] At the age of fourteen, Baker moved to his now hometown Cleveland, where he attended Shaker Heights High School and graduated in 2008."

"According to a 2004 survey by The Wall Street Journal, Shaker Heights High School is one of the top feeder schools in the nation for admission to the most selective colleges and universities.[6]
The high school has also been recognized by Money and Redbook magazines.[2] In 1998, the school was named a Grammy Signature School by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Foundation in recognition of its outstanding music programs."

 

[235788]

"Richard Colson Baker was born in April 22, 1990, in Texas to missionary parents and took up residence in Egypt, Germany, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver and Ohio.[1] Since he lived the first four years of his life in Egypt, he spoke Arabic before English.[7] He started listening to rap in the sixth/seventh grade when he went to Hamilton Middle School, a mixed race school in Denver.[7] At the age of fourteen, Baker moved to his now hometown Cleveland, where he attended Shaker Heights High School and graduated in 2008."

"According to a 2004 survey by The Wall Street Journal, Shaker Heights High School is one of the top feeder schools in the nation for admission to the most selective colleges and universities.[6]
The high school has also been recognized by Money and Redbook magazines.[2] In 1998, the school was named a Grammy Signature School by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Foundation in recognition of its outstanding music programs."

smart kid. I know shakur, its like many other high schools that have ultra wealthy, weathy, middle class, and some (<10%) poor

 

[qtipp]

The AAMC statistics can't tell you why Blacks are applying with lower MCAT scores than there counterparts. However, basing your argument on overall acceptance percentages is completely flawed.

Why?

If Blacks had an advantage wouldn't it be evident in that statistic? Are you saying it is flawed because you don't like the statistic?

Black applicants apply with lower stats. White applicants apply with higher stats. The higher your stats the greater your advantage.

You feed and train horse A to run 5 miles. You feed a meager diet to horse B and train it such that it can only run 3 miles. You then test whether they can complete a 5 course. Since horse B is having trouble doing 5 miles you reduce it to 4 while horse A still runs 5.

What you all are saying is that the fact that horse B only has to run 4 miles is an advantage even though it has been fed and trained to reach a Max of 3.

Baloney.

An advantage would be horse B running a 2 mile course.

A measure of applicant stats by ethnicity and acceptance rated by ethnicity illustrates this scenario. If Blacks had an advantage their acceptance stats would exceed other groups. This is not the case.

 

[zwitterion34]

Why?

If Blacks had an advantage wouldn't it be evident in that statistic? Are you saying it is flawed because you don't like the statistic?

Black applicants apply with lower stats. White applicants apply with higher stats. The higher your stats the greater your advantage.

You feed and train horse A to run 5 miles. You feed a meager diet to horse B and train it such that it can only run 3 miles. You then test whether they can complete a 5 course. Since horse B is having trouble doing 5 miles you reduce it to 4 while horse A still runs 5.

What you all are saying is that the fact that horse B only has to run 4 miles is an advantage even though it has been fed and trained to reach a Max of 3.

Baloney.

An advantage would be horse B running a 2 mile course.

A measure of applicant stats by ethnicity and acceptance rated by ethnicity illustrates this scenario. If Blacks had an advantage their acceptance stats would exceed other groups. This is not the case.

Among the horse A group there are several horses that are fed a meager diet that they are only capable of running 2 miles (referring to disadvantaged White and Asian students). You are saying that it is only fair for the horse B group to run 4 miles even the horses that are fed the best meal that just simply happen to belong in the B group (referring to wealthy Blacks and Hispanics along with people who claim URM status despite having no affiliation with the URM group in real life).

Rather you should gather all the horses that are poorly fed in one group and let them compete among this group.

 

[jessiemsy]

I'd like to know how many blacks and hispanics are in your class - for everyone complaining. Let's talk reality here... how many are in your class? And if you are still un undergrad, how bout you just wait and see before you chim in with an opinion.

 

[qtipp]

With a huge chunk of black applicants applying with stats far below the expectations of med school adcomms, we shouldn't be surprised that they have a low total acceptance rate. That doesn't mean that they don't have an advantage in admissions though).

These two sentences placed side by side don't make sense to me unless they are further explained (and I read the entire post). The whole point of evaluating the advantage is explaining why Black applicants apply with lower stats, faced with a lower "bar" and still have lower acceptance rates.

2 basketball players are standing under separate 10ft rims. Player A can only jump 10ft +/- 1ft. Player B can jump 8ft +/- 1ft.

People who believe in the URM advantage believe that lowering the rim to 9ft for Player B while keeping it at 10 ft for player A gives B an "unfair" advantage despite the lower probability that B will touch the rim when compared to A.

People who DO NOT believe in the URM advantage believe that lowering the rim to 9ft for Player B while keeping it at 10ft for player A still results in an unfair advantage for player A and NONE for player B since they are still more or less incapable of touching the rim.

The acceptance rate discrepancy is this exact scenario borne out in the medical school admissions. Weaker Black applicants (even thought he proverbial "bar" has been lowered) are getting accepted at a LOWER RATE compared to those ethnicities for which the bar has not been lowered. This does not mean there is an advantage for Black applicants

The ideal proposal to remedy this problem would be to find out why Player B is not jumping high enough and work on getting them up (i.e. increasing their stats when they apply) rather than lowering the rim.

qtipp is making a mistake in his/her logic by saying that blacks don't have an advantage in med school admissions. The analysis is not well designed. If you wanted to make a better analysis, you have to start looking at other factors. The easiest factors to compensate for are MCAT and cGPA since the AAMC releases those stats for free. An example of how to do that would be to take the percentage of ORM's accepted for each MCAT and cGPA combination and multiply it by the number of black applicants for that same MCAT/cGPA combo. You would then have the number of black applicants you would expect to be accepted if blacks were treated the same as ORMs in the admissions process.

Look at the following graph and ask yourself this question: "In general is the avg Black applicant the same as the avg White or Asian applicant?"

Your final step is to compare your "expected" number with the actual number of Blacks accepted. I have done a similar thing in my thread stickied in WAMC although I was comparing the ORM races (White and Asian) with the URM races (Blacks, Hispanics, etc).

I've looked carefully at this proposal and it is missing one important factor. It is assuming that the ACCEPTED students are equal in their abilities. In other words, to borrow from my (probably stupid) analogy above, you're comparing applicants AFTER they have touched the rim and assuming they are equal, then claiming "advantage" when you measure the heights they had to jump for success. But they are not equal in their abilities and so you can't use that data to claim advantage.

To measure if there is an advantage you have to force the APPLICANTS to be equal and then measure the probability of success. There are probably several ways to do this. Since we are dealing with fairly normal curves (MCAT for example) it's possible to just compare the success of each %-tile for the applicants. For example, compare the 90th percentile of Black applicants with the 90th percentile of White and Asian counterparts for a given metric like GPA or MCAT. Then do 80th to 90th, 70th to 80th and so on... Basically you're superimposing the curves on each other and then looking at success.

Ok... so let's assume we've done that. Is there a statistic that will give us the overall advantage for each applicant? Yes. It's this table:

 

[plumazul]

I'll take that as a no.

Allow me to give a recap as I don't think you are following along in the discussion:

Do you think it's possible to engage in debate without cheap shots and ad hominen attacks? Why don't you try to be an example of what SDN should be?

Minitor starts out with: <snip>

??? I didn't ask for an "instant replay"? I asked you to explain your position! Can you do that please?

qtipp responds to Minitor with his misleading table. His table is showing TOTAL acceptance percentages for different races. qtipp is trying to say minitor is wrong by pointing to the TOTAL acceptance percentage for blacks being lower than other races.

YES, and you claim this is "misleading"? WHY? Explain yourself. Are you saying the data is false?

I responded to qtipp by telling him that blacks do have an advantage in med school admissions and that the reason for the low TOTAL acceptance percentage is because blacks are applying with lower stats (36.3% of black applicants applied with under a 21 on the MCAT, which we can all agree is uncompetitive for MD schools. By comparison, only 6.2% of white applicants are applying with less than a 21. With a huge chunk of black applicants applying with stats far below the expectations of med school adcomms, we shouldn't be surprised that they have a low total acceptance rate. That doesn't mean that they don't have an advantage in admissions though).

?? You are not defending your conclusion. You are simply repeating statistics which do NOT support your conclusion.

qtipp is making a mistake in his/her logic by saying that blacks don't have an advantage in med school admissions. The analysis is not well designed.

WHY?

If you wanted to make a better analysis, you have to start looking at other factors. The easiest factors to compensate for are MCAT and cGPA since the AAMC releases those stats for free. An example of how to do that would be to take the percentage of ORM's accepted for each MCAT and cGPA combination and multiply it by the number of black applicants for that same MCAT/cGPA combo. You would then have the number of black applicants you would expect to be accepted if blacks were treated the same as ORMs in the admissions process. Your final step is to compare your "expected" number with the actual number of Blacks accepted. I have done a similar thing in my thread stickied in WAMC although I was comparing the ORM races (White and Asian) with the URM races (Blacks, Hispanics, etc).

NO, no, no. You are saying nothing here. All the metrics you mention are tainted with the socioeconomic realities in our country. The OPs data is PURE. It is a reflection of what it means to be BORN Black in America. Please explain those numbers.

It's fine if you want to speculate about why blacks are applying with low stats. Unless someone has conducted a study on it, then any opinions remain an interesting conjecture.

Have you ever interacted with minority mentors/advisers? Do you have knowledge on this? Please share. That's what I did.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't stated a single reason WHY blacks are applying with uncompetitive stats.

Exactly

I'm just saying that they ARE applying with them and that blacks applying with lower stats accounts for the lower total acceptance percentage that qtipp is propping up as some groundbreaking revelation proving that URMs really aren't at an advantage.

Your ENTIRE argument is simply "begging the question". The OP's premise was simple and well stated. It was a comment on what it means to be born Black and your potential to become an MD.

Can you, without cheap shots and without begging the question, explain what if anything is wrong with the OP's observations? Do you believe that there is something inherent with being Black that explains the outcomes? Because unless you do, then the ONLY logical conclusion is what the OP stated.

 

[k2on3hru]

I don't think you need statistics to understand the logic behind this:

"If you wanted to make a better analysis, you have to start looking at other factors. The easiest factors to compensate for are MCAT and cGPA since the AAMC releases those stats for free. An example of how to do that would be to take the percentage of ORM's accepted for each MCAT and cGPA combination and multiply it by the number of black applicants for that same MCAT/cGPA combo. You would then have the number of black applicants you would expect to be accepted if blacks were treated the same as ORMs in the admissions process. Your final step is to compare your "expected" number with the actual number of Blacks accepted. I have done a similar thing in my thread stickied in WAMC although I was comparing the ORM races (White and Asian) with the URM races (Blacks, Hispanics, etc)."


"You are simply repeating statistics which do NOT support your conclusion." ...If you understood ^ then you would understand why it supports his conclusion.

"Have you ever interacted with minority mentors/advisers? Do you have knowledge on this? Please share. That's what I did" You are the one speculating on why blacks have lower stats? All he said was that they have an advantage.

"Exactly"..So let me get this straight. You think that all URMs should have lower bars when it comes to medical school admissions? Don't you think this is a bit unfair for the URMs that are URMs and ACTUALLY come from low income families? They face way more difficulties than URMs that come from high income families. So if you don't want to believe that URMs have an advantage over other applicants at getting into medical school...at least consider ^

 

[k2on3hru]

(continued) when you are trying to argue the point that race should be considered when setting the bars for medical school*

 

[plumazul]

I don't think you need statistics to understand the logic behind this:

"If you wanted to make a better analysis, you have to start looking at other factors. The easiest factors to compensate for are MCAT and cGPA since the AAMC releases those stats for free. An example of how to do that would be to take the percentage of ORM's accepted for each MCAT and cGPA combination and multiply it by the number of black applicants for that same MCAT/cGPA combo. You would then have the number of black applicants you would expect to be accepted if blacks were treated the same as ORMs in the admissions process. Your final step is to compare your "expected" number with the actual number of Blacks accepted. I have done a similar thing in my thread stickied in WAMC although I was comparing the ORM races (White and Asian) with the URM races (Blacks, Hispanics, etc)."


"You are simply repeating statistics which do NOT support your conclusion." ...If you understood ^ then you would understand why it supports his conclusion.

"Have you ever interacted with minority mentors/advisers? Do you have knowledge on this? Please share. That's what I did" You are the one speculating on why blacks have lower stats? All he said was that they have an advantage.

"Exactly"..So let me get this straight. You think that all URMs should have lower bars when it comes to medical school admissions? Don't you think this is a bit unfair for the URMs that are URMs and ACTUALLY come from low income families? They face way more difficulties than URMs that come from high income families. So if you don't want to believe that URMs have an advantage over other applicants at getting into medical school...at least consider ^

What do the metrics mentioned above have to do with being BORN Black? Are these scores "preordained"?
Please read the thread. You are claiming I made statements where I posted the opposite. Read the OP's post. Let's debate THAT.

 

[Double Trouble]

I don't understand why Blacks are required to take the MCAT, have a high GPA, or even apply to medical school to gain admission... it's absolutely sickening.

 

[qtipp]

An excerpt from a great article. The author works with medical school admissions. Emphasis mine:

The URM myth
Both of my medical schools have about 1% URM representation in any given class. It is entirely a myth that being an Underrepresented Minority in Medicine is an automatic entry into medical school no matter what is on your application. We just don't "hand out" seats in our freshman medical class for having a certain ethnicity. One of the prime forces for us is making sure that every student who is admitted will successfully get through four years of a very tough curriculum. The material to be mastered knows no color or ethnicity. In the past, with our admissions formula, we have been pretty fortunate in that our graduation rate in four or five years is greater than 99%. In general, those people who graduate in five rather than four years have some extenuating circumstances that have prevented them for continuing with their class not because they were not well-qualified in the first place. Some of the five-year graduates have been URM but are not. The greatest thing that URM confers is that URM physicians are likely to work with URM communities which in today's world, is a good investment. Make no mistake, while some URM acceptees may have lower uGPAs and MCAT scores, they generally have "smoked" other applicants in things like personal statement, letters of recommendation and volunteer experience. With few exceptions, our URM graduates have gone on to distinguished medical careers and strong service to their communities.

There is probably nothing else I can write to convince those who refuse to look at the numbers or the words of those who know what they are actually talking about (like the individual above). If you want to believe that your spot is being taken by an URM, go ahead. Just don't pretend it's backed up by sound and unbiased analysis, actual data or reality.

There is no URM advantage.

 

[Chrome19]

An excerpt from a great article. The author works with medical school admissions. Emphasis mine:

There is probably nothing else I can write to convince those who refuse to look at the numbers or the words of those who know what they are actually talking about (like the individual above). If you want to believe that your spot is being taken by an URM, go ahead. Just don't pretend it's backed up by sound and unbiased analysis, actual data or reality.

There is no URM advantage.

I applied very late and everyone said, "You are a very strong applicant and you'll have your pick of schools, especially as a URM who is interested in a research career." How did that turn out? I'm still not sure where I am going to end up this fall.

Sure, I most likely would've received more interviews if I applied early, but going by my overall application you would think I would be getting interviews everywhere no matter how late I applied.

I met only two Hispanics, and one black male (at Howard) throughout my interview run. I no longer believe in the URM advantage. And most of the URMs( >90%) I see at the medical school (a top program) with which my university is affiliated did very well on the MCAT/have good GPAs.

 

[Double Trouble]

I applied very late and everyone said, "You are a very strong applicant and you'll have your pick of schools, especially as a URM who is interested in a research career." How did that turn out? I'm still not sure where I am going to end up this fall.

Sure, I most likely would've received more interviews if I applied early, but going by my overall application you would think I would be getting interviews everywhere no matter how late I applied.

I met only two Hispanics, and one black male (at Howard) throughout my interview run. I no longer believe in the URM advantage. And most of the URMs( >90%) I see at the medical school (a top program) with which my university is affiliated did very well on the MCAT/have good GPAs.

What was your MCAT, sGPA, cGPA, and ECs? any publications?

Edit: saw mdapps link

Edit: You're an international student

 

[sector9]

An excerpt from a great article. The author works with medical school admissions. Emphasis mine:

There is probably nothing else I can write to convince those who refuse to look at the numbers or the words of those who know what they are actually talking about (like the individual above). If you want to believe that your spot is being taken by an URM, go ahead. Just don't pretend it's backed up by sound and unbiased analysis, actual data or reality.

There is no URM advantage.

It would help if you posted actual data to support your claim rather than trumped-up simplified stats that don't support your conclusions

 

[sector9]

These two sentences placed side by side don't make sense to me unless they are further explained (and I read the entire post). The whole point of evaluating the advantage is explaining why Black applicants apply with lower stats, faced with a lower "bar" and still have lower acceptance rates.
Blacks don't have lower acceptance rates when you compare a black applicant with a white applicant with the same stats.

2 basketball players are standing under separate 10ft rims. Player A can only jump 10ft +/- 1ft. Player B can jump 8ft +/- 1ft.

People who believe in the URM advantage believe that lowering the rim to 9ft for Player B while keeping it at 10 ft for player A gives B an "unfair" advantage despite the lower probability that B will touch the rim when compared to A.

People who DO NOT believe in the URM advantage believe that lowering the rim to 9ft for Player B while keeping it at 10ft for player A still results in an unfair advantage for player A and NONE for player B since they are still more or less incapable of touching the rim.

The acceptance rate discrepancy is this exact scenario borne out in the medical school admissions. Weaker Black applicants (even thought he proverbial "bar" has been lowered) are getting accepted at a LOWER RATE compared to those ethnicities for which the bar has not been lowered. This does not mean there is an advantage for Black applicants

The ideal proposal to remedy this problem would be to find out why Player B is not jumping high enough and work on getting them up (i.e. increasing their stats when they apply) rather than lowering the rim.



Look at the following graph and ask yourself this question: "In general is the avg Black applicant the same as the avg White or Asian applicant?"

I've looked carefully at this proposal and it is missing one important factor. It is assuming that the ACCEPTED students are equal in their abilities. In other words, to borrow from my (probably stupid) analogy above, you're comparing applicants AFTER they have touched the rim and assuming they are equal, then claiming "advantage" when you measure the heights they had to jump for success. But they are not equal in their abilities and so you can't use that data to claim advantage.
Actually, it makes perfect sense because the goal of medical school applications is to be accepted not to just apply.

To measure if there is an advantage you have to force the APPLICANTS to be equal and then measure the probability of success. There are probably several ways to do this. Since we are dealing with fairly normal curves (MCAT for example) it's possible to just compare the success of each %-tile for the applicants. For example, compare the 90th percentile of Black applicants with the 90th percentile of White and Asian counterparts for a given metric like GPA or MCAT. Then do 80th to 90th, 70th to 80th and so on... Basically you're superimposing the curves on each other and then looking at success.

Ok... so let's assume we've done that. Is there a statistic that will give us the overall advantage for each applicant? Yes. It's this table:

And your little table is not taking into account percentiles at all. Do you know what a percentile is?

Responses to some of your comments in red above

 

[sector9]

Do you think it's possible to engage in debate without cheap shots and ad hominen attacks? Why don't you try to be an example of what SDN should be?



??? I didn't ask for an "instant replay"? I asked you to explain your position! Can you do that please?



YES, and you claim this is "misleading"? WHY? Explain yourself. Are you saying the data is false?



?? You are not defending your conclusion. You are simply repeating statistics which do NOT support your conclusion.



WHY?



NO, no, no. You are saying nothing here. All the metrics you mention are tainted with the socioeconomic realities in our country. The OPs data is PURE. It is a reflection of what it means to be BORN Black in America. Please explain those numbers.



Have you ever interacted with minority mentors/advisers? Do you have knowledge on this? Please share. That's what I did.



Exactly



Your ENTIRE argument is simply "begging the question". The OP's premise was simple and well stated. It was a comment on what it means to be born Black and your potential to become an MD.

Can you, without cheap shots and without begging the question, explain what if anything is wrong with the OP's observations? Do you believe that there is something inherent with being Black that explains the outcomes? Because unless you do, then the ONLY logical conclusion is what the OP stated.

There is no where to even start responding to this post. It appears that you didn't read what I wrote.

 

[seracus]

OP, it seems you're committing a pretty severe statistical error in your analysis of the data you've dredged up. You claim that Black applicants ought to receive more leeway in GPA and MCAT standards because the average household income of Black families is significantly less than the average household income of White families. As GPA and MCAT scores reflect not just one's intelligence but also their academic background, comparison between the two groups generally proves to be unfair, as White students on average have available better educational opportunities both in the classroom and at home than Black students. Furthermore, Black students who apply to medical school still see either the same or lower acceptance rates as White students on average.

Admittedly a confusing area, this argument does not support the points you wish to make due to an egregious error: you equate being Black with being poor. I seriously doubt you want to argue that a Black person is intrinsically poor by way of African ancestry. I assume you want to argue that, statistically, if you're Black, then it's more likely you will also be poor. This speculation is probably true, but correlation does not equal causation, and so your earlier argument must be changed. Arguments concerning inadequate education and resources apply to poor people, not Black people, even if Black people are more often poor than other racial groups.

Unfortunately, similarly structured arguments like yours have been used to support the use of stereotypes for generations. However, I am sure that you would be the last person to contend that "all Mexicans love tacos" or "all Black people are rap-guzzling, acid-tripping gangsters" even if a higher proportion of Mexicans enjoy Latin food and a higher proportion of Black people enjoy rap, abuse drugs, or join gangs than White people on average (and you have to realize that equating race to poverty is just as offensive as either of these examples).

So, your initial argument supports a need for allowances given to people from low-income families in admission to universities and professional schools. I think most people in this thread agree with that proposition, and if it is true that more Black applicants than White applicants on average are from low-income families, then more Black applicants than White applicants on average will benefit from a program of this type. But Black does not equal poor, and White does not equal rich.

I do not think I am the first to make this point. I believe in response to this counterargument the first time around, you responded by reiterating that the percentage of matriculants to medical school who happen to be Black is lower than the percentage of people who live in America who happen to be Black (and, though I haven' t seen the data, that acceptance rates for Black students is lower than acceptance rates for White students). Thus, Black people have no advantage in admissions! If they did, their acceptance rate at the very least would be greater than the acceptance rate of Whites.

While tempting, another logical fallacy appears in this line of reasoning. In statistics, if you want to control for one factor, like race, you must compare two individuals who are otherwise the same. The best we can do for medical school admissions is to compare groups of individuals who have similar GPAs and MCAT scores but who differ in race. The data supplied earlier shows here that Black students with similar GPAs and MCAT scores to White students have better odds at acceptance into medical school.

But wait!, you object, this difference is due to the fact that Black students are generally from economically disadvantaged families. Their lower scores are reflected in the fact that they come from poor backgrounds with fewer opportunities for intellectual enrichment, and so they deserve the boost. However, not all Black students are poor just as not all White students are rich. If someone wished to prove to you that Black students still had an advantage, they would need to crunch the numbers with an additional restraint: each Black or White person in the comparison must also come from a low-income family. If low-income Black students still have higher odds than low-income White students with similar GPAs and MCAT scores, then one could more reasonably speculate that they have an "advantage" incurred by their racial designation. As affirmative action programs exist to exclusively achieve the goal of better racial mixtures in medical school classes, I would guess that this advantage does exist, but I do not have the statistics to back this theory up.

A reasonable objection even to this pairing of groups is one you mentioned earlier on this page: Black applicants may have better LoRs, personal statements, and activities on average than White applicants. As we have no evidence that this is the case aside from the personal opinion of one journalist, we cannot test whether or not this statement is true. If we could quantify the quality levels of these other variables, with a large enough batch of data we could theoretically compare a group of low-income White applicants to a group of low-income Black applicants with similar quality applications. While this comparison would be more ideal than the comparisons already mentioned, the process to collect the data is currently impossible and, even if we could collect it, there would likely not be a large enough 'n' value to form adequately tight confidence intervals.

I think it is reasonable to assume that if such a study were done, and there were enough data, you would find that on average Black applicants fare better than White applicants in medical school admissions. Thus, Black applicants indeed have a URM advantage. The more important question is whether this advantage is justified. I personally believe that the sociopolitical arguments of Black representation in the medical community have some merit. I also believe that cultural, economic, and social diversity in a medical school class will benefit all the students enrolled with an enhanced range of perspective and opinion. Here we run into a similar problem, though: do all Black applicants represent the average Black experience? If we accept Black applicants for their unique cultural experiences, should the check mark on "Race: Black" incur an advantage for every applicant who can do so justly? Should a Black student raised by rich white parents in an upscale community be given the same boost as a Black student who spent her life clawing her way out of the Projects? I think most people would say 'no, that does not seem fair,' and I have read that medical school admissions hold the same opinion and will often attempt to uncover an applicant's full profile during interviews and in personal statements and LoRs.

Regardless, the data you've shown does not support the statements you wish to make. If anything, your best argument would be to say that although the data does not exist to prove your points, the data also does not exist to indisputably demonstrate that having Black skin ups your chances when it comes to admissions. Given that multiple medical schools proudly admit to programs of racially based affirmative action in their admissions protocol, I personally think there exists enough evidence to overcome the admittedly incomplete statistical data and to state that an advantage is currently incurred to Black applicants regardless of economic background.

 

[qtipp]

And your little table is not taking into account percentiles at all. Do you know what a percentile is?

Yes, I know what a percentile is. But what I don't know is if you are understanding the relationship between percentiles and the mean. Here is why my "little" table approximates (should have been exact if I used the same data) the final result.

Here is the raw data of Applicants and Acceptances by ethnicity. We'll look at GPA since I already had this in a spreadsheet but you can do the same thing for MCAT scores.

The easy calculation (which everyone is actually doing and claiming that there is an advantage) is to just take these raw numbers and say:

ACCEPTED / APPLIED * 100% = AcceptanceRate

If we did that we would get these results:

"AHA!!!!! Advantage."

Wrong. Let's pretend that this table meant something (It doesn't for the purpose of this topic). Look at the scores for 3.8-4.0. Who has the advantage? It's not Blacks. Those who use just this table will be forced to the conclusion that Black only have an advantage at GPAs below 3.8. Incidentally only 8% of Blacks have a GPA over 3.8 compared to 27% of Whites. This is also meaningless because it does not give you the probability of the Average Black/White/Asian student being accepted. It only gives the probability at each GPA interval.

Consider this extreme to prove the point.

There are 1200 White applicants and 1200 Black Applicants.

1000 Black applicants have a GPA of 3.0
200 Black applicants have a GPA of 3.5

200 White applicants have a GPA of 3.0
1000 White applicants have a GPA of 3.5

The probability of getting accepted for Blacks at 3.0 is 30% vs White at 20%
The probability of Getting accepted for Blacks at 3.5 is 60% vs White at 50%.

Blacks have a better chance at both GPAs. That said, the result will be 300 +120 = 420 Blacks admitted
40 + 500 = 540 Whites admitted
The Average White student has a greater probability of being accepted.

The problem is that there are more Blacks applying in the ranges where the odds aren't that great vs Whites/Asians. 90%+ of Whites/Asians apply with GPA > 3.0 vs ~75% of Blacks.

The data is not provided to us in percentiles. This is not a big deal. To accomplish the effect of evaluating the percentiles for GPA we can just weight each data point. Calculating the weight is easy.

Formula for each ethnicity:
[#of applicants in GPA range]/[Sum of all applicants]= [Weight for GPA range]

The resulting table will look like this:

What this table is telling us is that the top 74th percentile GPA for Whites is 3.8. The 50th percentile GPA for Whites is 3.6. In other words, 50% of White apply with a GPA above 3.6. only 22% of Blacks apply with a GPA above 3.6.

I'm not very good at explaining things so if you don't get the relationship between percentiles and weighting let me know and I'll try harder. The take-away is that we get around the percentile problem by using weights.

The fallacy you and others are making is comparing a subset of Blacks (the top performers) with a subset of Whites and then claiming that these skewed subsets represent the average applicant.

My original premise is that the >>>AVERAGE<<< URM has no advantage over the >>>AVERAGE<<<< ORM when it comes to medical school admissions.

Ok, so we weighted the applicants. Now we can apply those weights to the Acceptance rates to determine what is happening to the AVERAGE applicant.

Formula:

[Raw Acceptance Rate for GPA Range] * [Weight for GPA Range] = [Weighted Acceptance Rate]

When you sum the weighted acceptance rate you will get some numbers that look surprisingly close to my "little table" (They should have matched exactly so there are probably some rounding errors somewhere):

(Using my old numbers)

From this we can conclude that the Average Black Applicant has a 38.06% chance of being admitted to medical school once they apply.

We can also conclude that the Average White Applicant has a 45.15% chance of being admitted to medical school.

I hope that made sense.

 

[qtipp]

Firstly, thanks for your thoughtful response. It's encouraging to see others at least thinking about the issue instead of trying to be jerks about it [not saying anyone else has been]. My responses below.

OP, it seems you're committing a pretty severe statistical error in your analysis of the data you've dredged up. You claim that Black applicants ought to receive more leeway in GPA and MCAT standards because the average household income of Black families is significantly less than the average household income of White families.

I don't think I made any such claim. Please find the quote and put it here. My only claim is that the average URM applicant is accepted at a lower rate than the average ORM applicant. If that is the case then there is no advantage.

As GPA and MCAT scores reflect not just one's intelligence but also their academic background, comparison between the two groups generally proves to be unfair, as White students on average have available better educational opportunities both in the classroom and at home than Black students. Furthermore, Black students who apply to medical school still see either the same or lower acceptance rates as White students on average.

Your assessment here is fair. I am starting from the premise that one race is not more intelligent than another Racists will disagree with me on that point but I'm willing to disagree with racists. "All men created equal."

Admittedly a confusing area, this argument does not support the points you wish to make due to an egregious error: you equate being Black with being poor.

No. I don't.

I seriously doubt you want to argue that a Black person is intrinsically poor by way of African ancestry.

No. That would be silly. I will not only argue, but support by way of statistics that the probability that a Black person is poor is greater than it is for a White person. Randomly pick 1000 Black people from the population and 1000 White people from the population and you will come up with more poor Blacks that Whites. I'm not inferring causality between race and income. I'm only noting the correlation.

I assume you want to argue that, statistically, if you're Black, then it's more likely you will also be poor. This speculation is probably true, but correlation does not equal causation, and so your earlier argument must be changed.

Precisely. But the argument you thought that I was trying to make is one that I wasn't trying to make.

Arguments concerning inadequate education and resources apply to poor people, not Black people, even if Black people are more often poor than other racial groups.

By extension you are admitting that Blacks, more often than other racial groups, experience inadequate education. In addition to income, there are regional differences, gender differences and other factors that contribute to inadequate education. Income is a big one though.

...and you have to realize that equating race to poverty is just as offensive as either of these examples).

I am not offended by someone saying I'm likely to be broke... because I am. Are there any URMs offended by someone equating that you have a higher chance of being broke?

...
While tempting, another logical fallacy appears in this line of reasoning. In statistics, if you want to control for one factor, like race, you must compare two individuals who are otherwise the same. The best we can do for medical school admissions is to compare groups of individuals who have similar GPAs and MCAT scores but who differ in race. The data supplied earlier shows here that Black students with similar GPAs and MCAT scores to White students have better odds at acceptance into medical school.

So you are going to take a non-random subset of applicants, compare them and then make an inference on the entire group and not account for population stratification? This is not a sound design. It's convenient for your point but it leads to no conclusions about the average student for any ethnicity.

But wait!, you object, this difference is due to the fact that Black students are generally from economically disadvantaged families. Their lower scores are reflected in the fact that they come from poor backgrounds with fewer opportunities for intellectual enrichment, and so they deserve the boost. However, not all Black students are poor just as not all White students are rich. If someone wished to prove to you that Black students still had an advantage, they would need to crunch the numbers with an additional restraint: each Black or White person in the comparison must also come from a low-income family. If low-income Black students still have higher odds than low-income White students with similar GPAs and MCAT scores, then one could more reasonably speculate that they have an "advantage" incurred by their racial designation.

You would still be unable to say "The Average Student". Why? Because you are subsetting in a skewed manner to make an inference about a normal distribution. You can't take the bottom of two separate populations that are not distributed in the same way and make a comparison about the average for each.

As affirmative action programs exist to exclusively achieve the goal of better racial mixtures in medical school classes, I would guess that this advantage does exist, but I do not have the statistics to back this theory up.

That's a reasonable statement. I don't think AA works and I don't think the way it is done is "fair" (whatever that means to me since that word is indeed highly subjective).

A reasonable objection even to this pairing of groups is one you mentioned earlier on this page: Black applicants may have better LoRs, personal statements, and activities on average than White applicants. As we have no evidence that this is the case aside from the personal opinion of one journalist, we cannot test whether or not this statement is true. If we could quantify the quality levels of these other variables, with a large enough batch of data we could theoretically compare a group of low-income White applicants to a group of low-income Black applicants with similar quality applications. While this comparison would be more ideal than the comparisons already mentioned, the process to collect the data is currently impossible and, even if we could collect it, there would likely not be a large enough 'n' value to form adequately tight confidence intervals.

Great points. Nothing to add except to say that I'm not even sure that the blogger I quoted is that reliable as they only speak for 2 schools. That said, Medical Schools aren't in the business of taking in students who won't make it.

I think it is reasonable to assume that if such a study were done, and there were enough data, you would find that on average Black applicants fare better than White applicants in medical school admissions.Thus, Black applicants indeed have a URM advantage.

That's your hypothesis!

The more important question is whether this advantage is justified.

Great question. I'm not gonna go there! Perhaps another thread and another time.

I personally believe that the sociopolitical arguments of Black representation in the medical community have some merit. I also believe that cultural, economic, and social diversity in a medical school class will benefit all the students enrolled with an enhanced range of perspective and opinion. Here we run into a similar problem, though: do all Black applicants represent the average Black experience? If we accept Black applicants for their unique cultural experiences, should the check mark on "Race: Black" incur an advantage for every applicant who can do so justly? Should a Black student raised by rich white parents in an upscale community be given the same boost as a Black student who spent her life clawing her way out of the Projects? I think most people would say 'no, that does not seem fair,' and I have read that medical school admissions hold the same opinion and will often attempt to uncover an applicant's full profile during interviews and in personal statements and LoRs.

Great points.

Regardless, the data you've shown does not support the statements you wish to make. If anything, your best argument would be to say that although the data does not exist to prove your points, the data also does not exist to indisputably demonstrate that having Black skin ups your chances when it comes to admissions. Given that multiple medical schools proudly admit to programs of racially based affirmative action in their admissions protocol, I personally think there exists enough evidence to overcome the admittedly incomplete statistical data and to state that an advantage is currently incurred to Black applicants regardless of economic background.

We'll agree to disagree here. There is going to be a Black baby born somewhere in the U.S. And, at the same time, there is a White baby born somewhere in the US. As it stands, the AAMC data shows that the Black baby has a lower chance of applying to medical school than the White baby. The Black baby also has a 38% chance of getting in to medical school once she has applied. The White baby has a 45% chance once she has applied.

I can't, in all honesty and despite your thoughtful, reasonable and eloquent response, say that the Black baby has an advantage over the White baby. I just can't.

 

[ranson]

URMs getting into med school with lower MCAT/GPA than others = having an advantage.

 

[kpcrew]

I'm not sure that I follow the justification for your weighting system but I had a question while I was reading through your post. Why are you concentrating so much on the average applicant? Why not focus more on the top students? Also you compare GPA but MCAT scores are readily available from the AAMC. Having a high GPA doesn't mean that the applicant's MCAT score would be high as well. although there is probably a correlation there as well.

 

[eHombre]

The problem with qtipp's latest analysis (which I thought was quite good), for the purpose of this discussion, is that it's not going to penetrate the mindset of the people on this board who view GPA/MCAT as the nearly sole contributors to an applicant's qualification for medical school. They can't fathom that a school might have an interest in recruiting the top URM applicants, whatever their stats may be.

They don't appreciate that the MCAT was meant as a pass/fail exam, and that significant drop-offs in medical school performance aren't observed until you get below, say, 26.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=11711303#post11711303

They don't account for the special mission of HBCUs to train black doctors and for their ability to get their struggling students up to speed. Their students' step 1 performance (comparable enough to other MD schools to stay accredited) shows that they are in fact turning out competent doctors, whatever the entering stats of their class. In fact, if you leave out the HBCU and Puerto Rican schools, and look only at the admission rates at traditional schools, you'll find the overall admission rates for black and Hispanic applicants to be even lower than in qtipp's analysis.

Obsessing over GPA/MCAT ignores other equally important aspects of an application. Yes, those other aspects aren't as quantifiable, but who cares; are you going to argue that they're therefore unimportant? It's like looking for your keys under the streetlight 'cause that's where the light is.

Let's stipulate that a medical school has an interest in assembling a racially diverse class of students and that they're going to pick the best students they can get that fit their school's mission.

Your job as an applicant is to make yourself stand out from other applicants like you, whether it's by way of your GPA/MCAT or otherwise.

 

[sibitrum]

Obsessing over GPA/MCAT ignores other equally important aspects of an application. Yes, those other aspects aren't as quantifiable, but who cares; are you going to argue that they're therefore unimportant? It's like looking for your keys under the streetlight 'cause that's where the light is.

Yes, there are other important aspects to an application. However, as you say, they are hard to quantify and therefore can't really be used as a metric to determine how big of a difference AA makes in lowering admissions standards. In addition, you seem to be implying that URMs inherently have better LORs, ECs, etc., but you have no proof and to assume it's true is kind of a "racist" statement.

Further, in my experience, if anything those with higher stats tend to have better LORs and ECs. Just to provide an example of how these might be connected, if a student does very well academically in a class (thereby securing a stronger gpa), then the professor of that class is likely to write a better letter for them. Another mechanism for this correlation is that those who have better study skills will have more free time to pursue ECs and LORs, while having a high gpa.

 

[V5RED]

Ok. Can you or someone else "present" the data in a way to find the truth? As far as I can see it is fairly obvious that being Black, all other factors aside, is not an advantage when compared to the rates of acceptance for Whites or Asians. How do I know that? Because the data shows that the rates of acceptance for Blacks is lower than it is for Whites and Asians. <--- This is a true statement. If it is true, then being White or Asian is an advantage. Why are Blacks disadvantaged? Probably because their HHI and other social factors are more likely to be unfavorable than their counterparts. Should we do something about it? I think so... but not necessarily at the admissions level.

Here is another true statement. Whites are accepted at a rate that is higher than the acceptance rate for the average applicant, ignoring all other factors. Here is my interpretation: That would suggest that whites have an advantage. What's the advantage? I don't know. Should we do something about it? No.



Agreed. But to a certain extent. Being Black is not a walk in the park at any income level. Being Hispanic in Arizona and/or Alabama right now could be a pain at any income level. It could even be a problem in Montana (Looking at you Judge Cebull)



I would LOVE to see that data. I don't think it exists but it would answer a lot of questions. I think you're cherry picking a bit but looking at that data would be great.



???? Here is HHI for 2006 (I've posted it before).
Median Household income 2006
White $50,673
Black or African American $31,969

The Black applicant is more likely to suffer from poverty than the White applicant. You are suggesting substituting HHI for Ethnicity when they are proxies for each other (you can argue about the r^2). I don't see the gaping hole you're talking about... perhaps you could elaborate.

The gaping hole in your logic is that your entire argument rests on the premise that URMs are more likely to be poor, so the advantage of lowered standards is simply a way to balance out their suffering.

The data shows that poor URMs are unlikely to go to medical school, so it is possible that their skin hurts their chances.

The data shows that the lowering of standards does bring in more URMs, but not the poor ones. It shows that URMs that are not disadvantaged get a boost over Asians and whites because of their skin.

Your only arguments have been about poor URMs, but they are not relevant when speaking of non impoverished URMs. For a non impoverished URM, the standards are lower while there is no evidence that they have some severe disadvantage to deal with like poor people do.

It is not possible to prove or disprove a URM advantage for poor URMs, but the data shows a clear advantage for non poor URMs.

Whether this is a good or bad thing has nothing to do with your argument that no advantage exists.

 

[Chrome19]

In 1968 (just about a generation and a half ago), Gov. George Wallace stood in front of an Auditorium at the University of Alabama to inhibit the entrance of two black students (Vivian Malone and James Hood) into the university. He did this again at the elementary school level. Clearly, URMs (especially blacks) have had to work harder to combat other barriers besides socioeconomics in achieving their goals and hardly enough time has passed for them to be on equal footing.

In the justice system, despite the vast majority of crack cocaine users being white, over 80% of convicted defendants are black. Sure, it is possible that blacks can't afford better lawyers and this leads to the disparity, however the difference in conviction rates is too large for the aforementioned premise to be the underlying cause.

I grew up in a country where I knew nothing of/experienced racism. It is when I moved to the United States at age 14 that I realized American society tagged social consequences to one's racial class. Thankfully this doesn't affect me mentally and I will let my results speak for me. For minorities affected by this construct, the effects can permeate socioeconomic classes, leading to lower test performances. Studies at Stanford have demonstrated a phenomenon termed the "stereotype threat" which negatively affects women and minorities. So it is simply not true whites and blacks face even pseudo-equivalent social states and resources for success.

I remember when a cop pulled me over and I told him I attended a particular school, he looked at me with incredulity and asked, "You mean this XYZ school?" He later summoned for my student ID. I guarantee if I were white I wouldn't experience the same treatment.

I used to be one of the most ardent critics of affirmative action, but after having worked with under-served students and experienced American culture, I would be a hypocrite to oppose AA even though I'm confident I can thrive without this program. Strangely, it is my experience that many people in medicine/science are pretty sheltered and have little real practical experience or have merely intellectual experience of the issues minorities face.

 

[management]

In 1968 (just about a generation and a half ago), Gov. George Wallace stood in front of an Auditorium at the University of Alabama to inhibit the entrance of two black students (Vivian Malone and James Hood) into the university. He did this again at the elementary school level. Clearly, URMs (especially blacks) have had to work harder to combat other barriers besides socioeconomics in achieving their goals and hardly enough time has passed for them to be on equal footing.

In the justice system, despite the vast majority of crack cocaine users being white, over 80% of convicted defendants are black. Sure, it is possible that blacks can't afford better lawyers and this leads to the disparity, however the difference in conviction rates is too large for the aforementioned premise to be the underlying cause.

I grew up in a country where I knew nothing of/experienced racism. It is when I moved to the United States at age 14 that I realized American society tagged social consequences to one's racial class. Thankfully this doesn't affect me mentally and I will let my results speak for me. For minorities affected by this construct, the effects can permeate socioeconomic classes, leading to lower test performances. Studies at Stanford have demonstrated a phenomenon termed the "stereotype threat" which negatively affects women and minorities. So it is simply not true whites and blacks face even pseudo-equivalent social states and resources for success.

I remember when a cop pulled me over and I told him I attended a particular school, he looked at me with incredulity and asked, "You mean this XYZ school?" He later summoned for my student ID. I guarantee if I were white I wouldn't experience the same treatment.

I used to be one of the most ardent critics of affirmative action, but after having worked with under-served students and experienced American culture, I would be a hypocrite to oppose AA even though I'm confident I can thrive without this program. Strangely, it is my experience that many people in medicine/science are pretty sheltered and have little real practical experience or have merely intellectual experience of the issues minorities face.

This. Right Here. That's why I don't get too involved in discussing racial matters with pre-meds/medical students that haven't had much real world experience. Very wise words my friend.

And I had the same thing happen to me when I was pulled over once. Glad I had the parking decal on my car.......

 

[eHombre]

In 1968 (just about a generation and a half ago), Gov. George Wallace stood in front of an Auditorium at the University of Alabama to inhibit the entrance of two black students (Vivian Malone and James Hood) into the university. He did this again at the elementary school level. Clearly, URMs (especially blacks) have had to work harder to combat other barriers besides socioeconomics in achieving their goals and hardly enough time has passed for them to be on equal footing.

In the justice system, despite the vast majority of crack cocaine users being white, over 80% of convicted defendants are black. Sure, it is possible that blacks can't afford better lawyers and this leads to the disparity, however the difference in conviction rates is too large for the aforementioned premise to be the underlying cause.

I grew up in a country where I knew nothing of/experienced racism. It is when I moved to the United States at age 14 that I realized American society tagged social consequences to one's racial class. Thankfully this doesn't affect me mentally and I will let my results speak for me. For minorities affected by this construct, the effects can permeate socioeconomic classes, leading to lower test performances. Studies at Stanford have demonstrated a phenomenon termed the "stereotype threat" which negatively affects women and minorities. So it is simply not true whites and blacks face even pseudo-equivalent social states and resources for success.

I remember when a cop pulled me over and I told him I attended a particular school, he looked at me with incredulity and asked, "You mean this XYZ school?" He later summoned for my student ID. I guarantee if I were white I wouldn't experience the same treatment.

I used to be one of the most ardent critics of affirmative action, but after having worked with under-served students and experienced American culture, I would be a hypocrite to oppose AA even though I'm confident I can thrive without this program. Strangely, it is my experience that many people in medicine/science are pretty sheltered and have little real practical experience or have merely intellectual experience of the issues minorities face.

Eloquently put.

 

[seracus]

Firstly, thanks for your thoughtful response. It's encouraging to see others at least thinking about the issue instead of trying to be jerks about it [not saying anyone else has been]. My responses below.


I don't think I made any such claim. Please find the quote and put it here. My only claim is that the average URM applicant is accepted at a lower rate than the average ORM applicant. If that is the case then there is no advantage.




Your assessment here is fair. I am starting from the premise that one race is not more intelligent than another Racists will disagree with me on that point but I'm willing to disagree with racists. "All men created equal."



No. I don't.



No. That would be silly. I will not only argue, but support by way of statistics that the probability that a Black person is poor is greater than it is for a White person. Randomly pick 1000 Black people from the population and 1000 White people from the population and you will come up with more poor Blacks that Whites. I'm not inferring causality between race and income. I'm only noting the correlation.



Precisely. But the argument you thought that I was trying to make is one that I wasn't trying to make.



By extension you are admitting that Blacks, more often than other racial groups, experience inadequate education. In addition to income, there are regional differences, gender differences and other factors that contribute to inadequate education. Income is a big one though.



I am not offended by someone saying I'm likely to be broke... because I am. Are there any URMs offended by someone equating that you have a higher chance of being broke?



So you are going to take a non-random subset of applicants, compare them and then make an inference on the entire group and not account for population stratification? This is not a sound design. It's convenient for your point but it leads to no conclusions about the average student for any ethnicity.



You would still be unable to say "The Average Student". Why? Because you are subsetting in a skewed manner to make an inference about a normal distribution. You can't take the bottom of two separate populations that are not distributed in the same way and make a comparison about the average for each.



That's a reasonable statement. I don't think AA works and I don't think the way it is done is "fair" (whatever that means to me since that word is indeed highly subjective).



Great points. Nothing to add except to say that I'm not even sure that the blogger I quoted is that reliable as they only speak for 2 schools. That said, Medical Schools aren't in the business of taking in students who won't make it.



That's your hypothesis!



Great question. I'm not gonna go there! Perhaps another thread and another time.



Great points.



We'll agree to disagree here. There is going to be a Black baby born somewhere in the U.S. And, at the same time, there is a White baby born somewhere in the US. As it stands, the AAMC data shows that the Black baby has a lower chance of applying to medical school than the White baby. The Black baby also has a 38% chance of getting in to medical school once she has applied. The White baby has a 45% chance once she has applied.

I can't, in all honesty and despite your thoughtful, reasonable and eloquent response, say that the Black baby has an advantage over the White baby. I just can't.

I think I understand your argument better now. The main issue at hand appears to be an equivocation on the term 'advantage.' Like in many passionate arguments, both sides appear to be using different definitions for a key term essential to the understanding of the debate. And, like in many passionate arguments, I would bet both parties will realize they agree with each other once we have figured out what each party means when they say 'advantage.'

When I use 'advantage,' I mean a boost given to someone for a difference in a specific category, everything else being equal. For example, I would say someone with a 38 MCAT has an advantage over someone with a 30 MCAT in admissions because in the category of MCATs a higher score is more desirable than a lower score to most ADCOMs, everything else being equal. Similarly, I would say that someone who is an URM has an advantage over someone who is White or Asian in admissions because in the category of race, due to affirmative action programs, an URM is more desirable than White or Asian to most ADCOMs, everything else being equal.

What is important to realize here is that nowhere in this argument do I judge whether or not these 'advantages' are fair or unfair. I am aiming for objectivity only.

When you use 'advantage,' you mean better odds for the achievement of some goal in the comparison of two groups. For example, applicants with 3.00 - 3.19 GPAs (19.8% acceptance rate) do not have an advantage over applicants with 3.80 - 4.00 GPAs (72.2% acceptance rate) in medical school admissions. Importantly, applicants from these groups may have other differences in application components not defined by the group. For example, one could contend that a higher GPA is correlated with a higher MCAT score. Regardless, the percentages are as they are. Now, if for whatever reason ADCOMs decided this cycle that those with a GPA from 3.00 - 3.19 were more desirable than those with a GPA from 3.80 - 4.00, everything else not being equal, the acceptance rate for the lower GPA group would rise. The lower GPA group, however, also has a lower average MCAT score than the higher GPA group, and the ADCOMs still prefer higher MCAT scores. Due to the interaction of these two different factors, among others, the overall acceptance rate for the 3.00 - 3.19 GPA group might only rise to 60.0%, still lower than the acceptance rate of the 3.80 - 4.00 GPA group.

By your definition, this group would still not have an advantage over the 3.80 - 4.00 group because their odds of admission are still lower than the other group's. By my definition, an abstract member of the lower GPA group, everything else being equal, would have an advantage over an abstract member of the higher GPA group, everything else being equal, because the members of the lower GPA group have given a boost over the high GPA group by ADCOMs. Again, the judgement over whether this boost is deserved or not is irrelevant to the definition of the terms.

With that being said, I think everyone will agree that with your definition of 'advantage' URM applicants certainly do not have an advantage over White or Asian applicants. With my definition of advantage, I think it is reasonable given affirmative action programs (complete with their flaws) to say that URM applicants do indeed have an advantage over White applicants (again, everything else being equal). Aside from your argument where you speculate that URM applicants on average have better activities, LoRs, personal statements, and interviews, I think you agree with me on this point given this quotation in response to what I previously said about the existence of racially based affirmative action programs:

That's a reasonable statement. I don't think AA works and I don't think the way it is done is "fair" (whatever that means to me since that word is indeed highly subjective).

So maybe we all agree after all once terms have been elucidated. However, I still cringe at your definition of 'advantage,' especially if you are trying to use it to justify affirmative action policy. Though I think plenty of good arguments exist for AA, I do not think this maneuvering of statistics is one of them. You could use the same argument to justify any boost given to any group whose acceptance rate is lower than some other group's, so long as their acceptance rate remains lower afterwards due to differences in other correlated categories which factor into admissions. As already illustrated, you could justify a boost given to a group with low GPAs agove a group with high GPAs in this way, assuming other factors like average MCAT scores restrained their acceptance rate to one still under the high GPA group.

You can quickly see how this type of argumentation becomes absurd, so I will not barrage you with more examples. Maybe you never even intended the argument I have credited to you. If not, the thread states nothing more than what you yourself simplified:

My only claim is that the average URM applicant is accepted at a lower rate than the average ORM applicant.

I doubt anyone disagrees with this statement, but I do not see how it contributes to a discussion on affirmative action aside from being a casual observation that even with racially based preferences in admissions URM applicants still do not achieve similar acceptance rates to medical schools as their peers, presumably due to significantly lower statistics on average.

These lower scores might be purely explained away given biases introduced from higher representations of low-income families within the URM pool. To determine whether this is the case, a statistical comparison between low-income ORM and low-income URM would need to be displayed. Even then, other factors like racism, written and verbal components of the applications, and psychological patterns might contribute to the discrepancies. However, given that medical schools do not claim to equalize due to these factors, but rather to equalize based on racial proportions (perhaps as an imperfect and easily executed compromise), the statement that URM applicants have an advantage of the type I defined is probably true, even if these same applicants do not appreciate an advantage of the type you defined.

Regardless, explaining why a certain group ought to have an advantage and explaining whether a certain group has an advantage are two very different things. Even referencing socioeconomics as an explanatory tool contains within it the assumption that applicants from low-income families ought to received a justified boost in admissions. Do low-income applicants have an advantage over high-income applicants, everything else being equal, if ADCOMs have indeed adopted this philosophy? The answer, again, is 'yes' if you use my definition. Perhaps 'no' with yours.

 

[Neurosis]

Wow! People are still bitching about the two black students in med school?

is this for real? I knew there was a shortage but that's just sad...

 

[kpcrew]

nice post seracus

 

[qtipp]

Eloquently put.

Agreed.

 

[jessiemsy]

http://www.hrsa.gov/advisorycommittees/bhpradvisory/cogme/Reports/seventeenthrpt.pdf

% of blacks in med school 1998-2003, about 7.5% consistently
% if latinos in med school 1998-2003, about 3.5% consistently

Let's just stop pretending that minorities are "taking your spot". And no one but one person responded to my last post. Tell me how many blacks/hispanics are actually in your med school? Reality.

 

[plumazul]

In 1968 (just about a generation and a half ago), Gov. George Wallace stood in front of an Auditorium at the University of Alabama to inhibit the entrance of two black students (Vivian Malone and James Hood) into the university. He did this again at the elementary school level. Clearly, URMs (especially blacks) have had to work harder to combat other barriers besides socioeconomics in achieving their goals and hardly enough time has passed for them to be on equal footing.

In the justice system, despite the vast majority of crack cocaine users being white, over 80% of convicted defendants are black. Sure, it is possible that blacks can't afford better lawyers and this leads to the disparity, however the difference in conviction rates is too large for the aforementioned premise to be the underlying cause.

I grew up in a country where I knew nothing of/experienced racism. It is when I moved to the United States at age 14 that I realized American society tagged social consequences to one's racial class. Thankfully this doesn't affect me mentally and I will let my results speak for me. For minorities affected by this construct, the effects can permeate socioeconomic classes, leading to lower test performances. Studies at Stanford have demonstrated a phenomenon termed the "stereotype threat" which negatively affects women and minorities. So it is simply not true whites and blacks face even pseudo-equivalent social states and resources for success.

I remember when a cop pulled me over and I told him I attended a particular school, he looked at me with incredulity and asked, "You mean this XYZ school?" He later summoned for my student ID. I guarantee if I were white I wouldn't experience the same treatment.

I used to be one of the most ardent critics of affirmative action, but after having worked with under-served students and experienced American culture, I would be a hypocrite to oppose AA even though I'm confident I can thrive without this program. Strangely, it is my experience that many people in medicine/science are pretty sheltered and have little real practical experience or have merely intellectual experience of the issues minorities face.

 

[qtipp]

I think I understand your argument better now. The main issue at hand appears to be an equivocation on the term 'advantage.' Like in many passionate arguments, both sides appear to be using different definitions for a key term essential to the understanding of the debate. And, like in many passionate arguments, I would bet both parties will realize they agree with each other once we have figured out what each party means when they say 'advantage.'

When I use 'advantage,' I mean a boost given to someone for a difference in a specific category, everything else being equal. For example, I would say someone with a 38 MCAT has an advantage over someone with a 30 MCAT in admissions because in the category of MCATs a higher score is more desirable than a lower score to most ADCOMs, everything else being equal. Similarly, I would say that someone who is an URM has an advantage over someone who is White or Asian in admissions because in the category of race, due to affirmative action programs, an URM is more desirable than White or Asian to most ADCOMs, everything else being equal.

What is important to realize here is that nowhere in this argument do I judge whether or not these 'advantages' are fair or unfair. I am aiming for objectivity only.

When you use 'advantage,' you mean better odds for the achievement of some goal in the comparison of two groups. For example, applicants with 3.00 - 3.19 GPAs (19.8% acceptance rate) do not have an advantage over applicants with 3.80 - 4.00 GPAs (72.2% acceptance rate) in medical school admissions. Importantly, applicants from these groups may have other differences in application components not defined by the group. For example, one could contend that a higher GPA is correlated with a higher MCAT score. Regardless, the percentages are as they are. Now, if for whatever reason ADCOMs decided this cycle that those with a GPA from 3.00 - 3.19 were more desirable than those with a GPA from 3.80 - 4.00, everything else not being equal, the acceptance rate for the lower GPA group would rise. The lower GPA group, however, also has a lower average MCAT score than the higher GPA group, and the ADCOMs still prefer higher MCAT scores. Due to the interaction of these two different factors, among others, the overall acceptance rate for the 3.00 - 3.19 GPA group might only rise to 60.0%, still lower than the acceptance rate of the 3.80 - 4.00 GPA group.

By your definition, this group would still not have an advantage over the 3.80 - 4.00 group because their odds of admission are still lower than the other group's. By my definition, an abstract member of the lower GPA group, everything else being equal, would have an advantage over an abstract member of the higher GPA group, everything else being equal, because the members of the lower GPA group have given a boost over the high GPA group by ADCOMs. Again, the judgement over whether this boost is deserved or not is irrelevant to the definition of the terms.

With that being said, I think everyone will agree that with your definition of 'advantage' URM applicants certainly do not have an advantage over White or Asian applicants. With my definition of advantage, I think it is reasonable given affirmative action programs (complete with their flaws) to say that URM applicants do indeed have an advantage over White applicants (again, everything else being equal). Aside from your argument where you speculate that URM applicants on average have better activities, LoRs, personal statements, and interviews, I think you agree with me on this point given this quotation in response to what I previously said about the existence of racially based affirmative action programs:



So maybe we all agree after all once terms have been elucidated. However, I still cringe at your definition of 'advantage,' especially if you are trying to use it to justify affirmative action policy. Though I think plenty of good arguments exist for AA, I do not think this maneuvering of statistics is one of them. You could use the same argument to justify any boost given to any group whose acceptance rate is lower than some other group's, so long as their acceptance rate remains lower afterwards due to differences in other correlated categories which factor into admissions. As already illustrated, you could justify a boost given to a group with low GPAs agove a group with high GPAs in this way, assuming other factors like average MCAT scores restrained their acceptance rate to one still under the high GPA group.

You can quickly see how this type of argumentation becomes absurd, so I will not barrage you with more examples. Maybe you never even intended the argument I have credited to you. If not, the thread states nothing more than what you yourself simplified:



I doubt anyone disagrees with this statement, but I do not see how it contributes to a discussion on affirmative action aside from being a casual observation that even with racially based preferences in admissions URM applicants still do not achieve similar acceptance rates to medical schools as their peers, presumably due to significantly lower statistics on average.

These lower scores might be purely explained away given biases introduced from higher representations of low-income families within the URM pool. To determine whether this is the case, a statistical comparison between low-income ORM and low-income URM would need to be displayed. Even then, other factors like racism, written and verbal components of the applications, and psychological patterns might contribute to the discrepancies. However, given that medical schools do not claim to equalize due to these factors, but rather to equalize based on racial proportions (perhaps as an imperfect and easily executed compromise), the statement that URM applicants have an advantage of the type I defined is probably true, even if these same applicants do not appreciate an advantage of the type you defined.

Regardless, explaining why a certain group ought to have an advantage and explaining whether a certain group has an advantage are two very different things. Even referencing socioeconomics as an explanatory tool contains within it the assumption that applicants from low-income families ought to received a justified boost in admissions. Do low-income applicants have an advantage over high-income applicants, everything else being equal, if ADCOMs have indeed adopted this philosophy? The answer, again, is 'yes' if you use my definition. Perhaps 'no' with yours.

Nice response. No time to reply right now but I will later. Very interesting thoughts.

 

[TriagePreMed]

URMs getting into med school with lower MCAT/GPA than others = having an advantage.

White/Asian having a cushier life in general in middle to upper class neighborhoods with good schools, tutors, attending better universities, affording MCAT prep courses, and not dealing with racial animosity = advantage ++ (and yes, I expect the reply of how not all white/asian kids are that way. You don't say? It's called exceptions and having the disadvantaged box for them)

I seriously can't believe all this complaining over a few black kids in a few medical schools. The bulk of black kids go to Howard, Morehouse, and Meharry (all historically black universities), so stop complaining. What do you want? Take their colleges?

 

[StBernardsRule]

We need affirmative action in college sports. Asians are at a very big disadvantage since they are always being forced to study and learn music. We should try harder to make sure college basketball teams accurately reflect the population. Blacks are consistently over represented in college basketball, why is no one crying foul?!

Right now Asians only get punished for being such a successful minority which is absolutely ridiculous. Either end affirmative action or apply it everywhere in public schools.

 

[StBernardsRule]

Also while we're at it, why do people assume all the races are equal in every aspect? This doesn't mean a race is better, but clearly most people not trying super hard to be politically correct are going to know blacks have a pretty natural advantage in some areas compared to Asians (such as basketball as they're taller etc). Why is it so hard to believe Asians have agenetic advantages in academics? That would also explain why Asians continue to do well academically as they've just got good genetics for it (obviously other factors also matter a ton, that's extremely obvious).

Very good read about data regarding race and intelligence that for some reason isn't politically correct to talk about.

http://www.iapsych.com/wj3ewok/LinkedDocuments/Murray2005.pdf

 

[Joe the Plumber]

Also while we're at it, why do people assume all the races are equal in every aspect? This doesn't mean a race is better, but clearly most people not trying super hard to be politically correct are going to know blacks have a pretty natural advantage in some areas compared to Asians (such as basketball as they're taller etc). Why is it so hard to believe Asians have agenetic advantages in academics? That would also explain why Asians continue to do well academically as they've just got good genetics for it (obviously other factors also matter a ton, that's extremely obvious).

Very good read about data regarding race and intelligence that for some reason isn't politically correct to talk about.

http://www.iapsych.com/wj3ewok/LinkedDocuments/Murray2005.pdf

I think all the little things that happen during our early years matter, a lot, and this article glosses over them. It's not hard to imagine that upper-middle class and upper-class parents talk to each other and to their kids more. They're using better English, a wider variety of words, and more complicated sentence structure. That probably stimulates something in a growing child's brain. Likewise, maybe reading to the child, playing certain types of music, etc. all play a role very early on. You can also imagine how a child who's building with blocks and legos (or Lincoln Logs!), and learning about different shapes and colors, will benefit compared to a kid plopped down in front of the T.V. for hours on end. I really think these tiny things add up.

The point is, the article claims we can definitively say certain things (like the ability to recite a string of numbers backwards) are not related to environment and are purely biological. But, even if you're testing kindergarteners, the experiences they have encountered are so different by age five that biology alone really can't explain the differences. Or at least that's what I tell myself to fall asleep at night.

Note also that the activities I mentioned bridge race and class. The article cited investigates why blacks in affluent areas are, on the whole, academically inferior to their white counterparts. I don't know the answer. But what is encouraging is the fact that just because you're rich, that doesn't mean your child is going to grow up to be a doctor. If you use the T.V. as a babysitter, well, that will have a deleterious effect. Also, importantly, this means if you're poor, your kid won't necessarily be a dunce. There's hope for all of us.

 

[Narmerguy]

Also while we're at it, why do people assume all the races are equal in every aspect? This doesn't mean a race is better, but clearly most people not trying super hard to be politically correct are going to know blacks have a pretty natural advantage in some areas compared to Asians (such as basketball as they're taller etc). Why is it so hard to believe Asians have agenetic advantages in academics? That would also explain why Asians continue to do well academically as they've just got good genetics for it (obviously other factors also matter a ton, that's extremely obvious).

Very good read about data regarding race and intelligence that for some reason isn't politically correct to talk about.

http://www.iapsych.com/wj3ewok/LinkedDocuments/Murray2005.pdf

Let's just say that Charles Murray is not considered a legitimate scientist in the world of Social Science. The work he does is not "good" science. If you want to understand why Asians do better than Blacks in school, there are many layers of answers to that question. Much of it has to do with poverty, though not all. Race is a complicated creature, but almost everyone that studies this agrees that we've seen no evidence for a "genetic" academic/intellectual advantage for any one group.

The recruitment of URM is well known and not even hidden. Why is there a need to debate this? URM can get in with lower stats so long as they are above the threshold that schools deem necessary to produce excellent physicians. Just as SAT and HSGPA are not a predictor of one's ability to be a good doctor, College GPA and MCAT are similarly unable to predict this above a certain level. That's why US Medical Schools look at entire applications and do not just skim off the top MCAT/GPA from their applicant pile.

Race is just another of many different non MCAT/GPA criteria that they may use to recruit a student that they want. Perhaps they want students fluent in a useful language, perhaps they want students with significant international experience, perhaps they want students with extensive research experience, maybe they want students who will become famous in some capacity after they graduate. It really doesn't matter, they give "preferential treatment" for various things that we know and do not know about. It's surprising the amount of vitriol that race-based recruitment provoke, but like I said before, race is a tricky beast in this country and people tend to behave and speak in ways that they normally wouldn't when race is involved.

 

[sibitrum]

Much of it has to do with poverty, though not all. Race is a complicated creature, but almost everyone that studies this agrees that we've seen no evidence for a "genetic" academic/intellectual advantage for any one group.

While I would predict that the genetic contribution is very limited, the topic hasn't been well-studied at all. This is partly for political reasons and partly because it's a difficult scientific question to tackle.

 

[music2doc]

Anyone else suddenly regret their decision to not bother claiming URM status despite being technically eligible for the advantage it lends?

Having gone through this cycle and gotten multiple acceptances but also not having been accepted at other schools, I cannot help but wonder whether certain top-ranking schools would have given more consideration if I'd marked myself as the other part of my background.

While the OP, does not feel it is an "advantage" to be marked as URM, this is clearly not the case. If we have two applicants with equal accomplishments, MCAT, GPA, ECs, LORs, etc., the data appear to indicate a reasonable bias toward the URM students. Could the 0.89<1.00 issue be that AAs are simply [almost] never discouraged from applying (vs. white and Asian students who are often discouraged at much higher numbers)? Further, many URMs like myself can get in just fine without accepting that advantage. I doubt most would have foregone the advantage (and I honestly sort of wonder why I chose to; I guess I had on my mind that I intended to work with a different people group, so I felt bad claiming a school preference I did not feel was mine to claim...). Perhaps, another measure of "privilege" should be used. Or, perhaps, we should attempt to identify why URM students score lower in the first place and begin to solve the underlying problem instead of trying to "fix" it with a bandaid.

 

[Morsetlis]

Perhaps we should move forward as a society.

Oh wait we can't.

 

[mipp0]

Anyone else suddenly regret their decision to not bother claiming URM status despite being technically eligible for the advantage it lends?

Having gone through this cycle and gotten multiple acceptances but also not having been accepted at other schools, I cannot help but wonder whether certain top-ranking schools would have given more consideration if I'd marked myself as the other part of my background.

While the OP, does not feel it is an "advantage" to be marked as URM, this is clearly not the case. If we have two applicants with equal accomplishments, MCAT, GPA, ECs, LORs, etc., the data appears to indicate a reasonable bias toward the URM students. Could the 0.89<1.00 issue be that AAs are simply [almost] never discouraged from applying (vs. white and Asian students who are often discouraged at much higher numbers)? Further, many URMs like myself can get in just fine without accepting that advantage. I doubt most would have foregone the advantage (and I honestly sort of wonder why I chose to; I guess I had on my mind that I intended to work with a different people group, so I felt bad claiming a school preference I did not feel was mine to claim...). Perhaps, another measure of "privilege" should be used. Or, perhaps, we should attempt to identify why URM students score lower in the first place and begin to solve the underlying problem instead of trying to "fix" it with a bandaid.

Yes, there are many lurking variables that qtipp doesn't consider when interpreting the data. Yes, we should focus on correcting the problem (which I commented on); race based AA or any kind of AA does not address the underlying problems that lead to under-representation in medicine.