AAs (and other minorities) in Optometry

SugaCane said:

Hey all,

I'm a senior in college who is thinking of taking a year off after graduation this May to pursue a career in optometry. I've tried to do a little research, but I've found that there is a serious lack of data on minorities, specifically blacks, in optometry. I was just wondering if any of you had heard any info about the black experience through the admission process, applying for scholarships, during optometry school, and life after graduation. Optimally, I'd really like to find a mentor, but at this point.. any info or experiences y'all have to share would be greatly appreciated.. thanks!

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I can't really speak to the process for black applicants/student, but my good friend from college (Thai/Chineese) went to school right out of college, and has been practicing for a while...although she's completly changing careers now. I'll see if I can get some info from her and let you know.

SugaCane said:

Hey all,

I'm a senior in college who is thinking of taking a year off after graduation this May to pursue a career in optometry. I've tried to do a little research, but I've found that there is a serious lack of data on minorities, specifically blacks, in optometry. I was just wondering if any of you had heard any info about the black experience through the admission process, applying for scholarships, during optometry school, and life after graduation. Optimally, I'd really like to find a mentor, but at this point.. any info or experiences y'all have to share would be greatly appreciated.. thanks!

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I am also very much interested in Optometry and I am African American also and a female. The Optometrist that I have worked with for the past two summers said that being female and/or being a minority in Optometry gives you a leg up in the application process since there are so few of us (although the numbers for females in optometry is starting to increase substantially). Also, according to the different optometry school websites I have been to, it seems that they are all trying to increase diversity in their schools because of the diversity of the United States population and the many ocular health disparities amongst different ethnicities and races steming from diabetes and HBP and other well known systemic diseases. But also, just because we are minorities does not mean they are lowering the standards either. We still have to be on top of our game because health-related fields are very competitive no matter who you are.

I am still trying to do research on this to find out the reality of it all and I will come back and post and also try and message you whenever I find out more info.

I hope what I have already gives you some insight, though.

God bless!

I was planning on applying this coming summer into the Fall semester, but the Lord didn't work it out that way for me. So I plan to apply during summer 2009 into Fall 2009. I think it's better for me because it will give me time to add on a minor and to improve my GPA.

and btw, I'm still working on finding out more about being a minority in Optometry so I'll hit you up as soon as I can!

I am AA and a current applicant for the Fall 2008 application cycle. Currently the process hasn't been bad. I graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2007 and sat out of school a year to recollect myself and strengthen my OAT scores. I had my first interview with ICO last week and it went really well. The staff was extremely nice. Honestly the presence of our fellow AA is very very low in numbers. I only saw maybe 3 AA students at ICO during my interview and any other AAs that I saw were all employees of the school. My next interview is in 2 weeks at SCO. I know a few AAs that are in optometry school: one is a first year student at UHCO, another is a first year student at PCO and one is a fourth year student at SCO. They all seem to love the school and the response they get from the staff and the student body. All three of these people including myself come from HBCUs. They all said they had no problem getting minority scholarships and money for school. The person at UHCO told me that these schools tend to fall in love with the AA applicants because of the fact that we are so few. She says that the AA students all seem to stick together since there are only a few of them in the school. The student that is a fourth year at SCO says that his experience was great, but he does stress that things may have been different for him because he is a light-skinned brother with hazel eyes and can practically pass being biracial or white. He did say that the staff was extremely receptive to him and his family and didn't treat him much differently than the students of other races. I have also only encountered 3 black optometrists in my life. One in particular has a successful private practice and is a graduate of SCO. I'm not really sure why many AAs don't consider optometry. One thing I can say is that many undergraduate schools that have excellent premedical programs lack the knowledge and understanding of the optometry field. They provide inaccurate information. As a graduate of XU, I can say that the school focused on placing AAs in pharmacy and medical school and lacked information about optometry schools, so I had to find out on my own. I hope something I said may have helped.

I have read through all of the posted comments and I have the same concern. I am also AA and also took a year off to regroup. Right now I'm in grad school working on raising my GPA and scores so that I can be more competitive. I've had the same concern about being underrepresented in optometry, and being a double minority. I've also noticed that you don't hear much about AA's wanting to attend optometry school but like someone else said, they are all interested in med-school,pharmacy, and dental. That has bothered me but like xulachic07 said there is a lack of knowledge in this field, that makes people shy away from it. I myself visited an optometry school recently and was shocked to see the lack of AA's with my own eyes, even though I knew the statistics. This forum was very informative for me and it has encouraged me to see the I'm not the only one that feels this way about this particular topic, and reassured me that I will make it! Please lets keep each other informed and abreast on what's going on! Bless you all!

Covered83 said:

This forum was very informative for me and it has encouraged me to see the I'm not the only one that feels this way about this particular topic, and reassured me that I will make it! Please lets keep each other informed and abreast on what's going on! Bless you all!

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I definitely agree!!!

Just to update everyone... I just got an acceptance letter to ICO and a minority scholarship. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and so can the rest of you. I interview at SCO on Friday, so I'll keep you posted.

Thanks SugaCane!!! I have no problem telling how much the scholarship is. Besides it's in the brochure for ICO. Lol! The minority scholarship is only $3K/year. Its something but you are right when you say ICO is expensive (~$35-40K per year...yikes!!). Its sad but they tell you that you will be at least $150K in debt from funding your optometry education. They do mention that the offer the most work study in comparison to all the other optometry schools.I interview with SCO on Friday so we'll see what they have to offer. BTW make sure you send off your apps early!! I completed mine in late September and early October. The earlier, the better your chances are. I initially took OAT in Nov 2006 but wasn't satisfied with my scores so I retook it Oct 2007 and scored 20 points higher. Just don't wait until the last minute. Use the summer months to study and organize your apps. Most application cycles begin Aug 1, so prep to have you apps ready by then.

I'm a AA ophthalmic tech that has been planning to get into optometry for awhile now. I'm taking my OAT in December, and well, we'll see what happens...

During the past ten years I've worked, most AA pts are happy to see an AA in the office so just imagine how happy they will be to see an AA as their optometrist!

There are precious few AA optometrists in the USA and Canada. I think the best way to get info is to find an African-American optometrist in your area and ask them questions. off the top of my head i know that Charles Comer, OD in the Chicago area would be a good person to ask. There was a black female OD (from Pacific) at the Kaiser Permanante in downtown DC 10 years ago but I don't know if she's there now.

Most optom schools have a diversity division that can help when you're ready to apply. I wish I knew how favorably adcoms look upon AA's upon application, but as sugacane and icansee already said just get the gpa and OAT as high as possible and we should be set!

I would strongly advise checking out the OD forums on this site. Other good sites include:

asco
http://www.opted.org/

nosa site:http://www.natoptassoc.org/

the american optometry student site:
http://www.theaosa.org/index.htm

This group http://www.nammenational.org/scholarships.html has a yearly convention that some optometry schools will send reps to. This past year it was in Philadelphia, so I didn't have to travel! Ohio (who has an AA male dean), SUNY and IU were there this year. Optometry is definitely not the main focus - nursing, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry were all major draws, but we know that the repetition of optometry is what we want so....I'll let those in that field do their thing, and I'll make sure they can see it clearly.

Congrats on your acceptance*s* xulachic!

Good luck everyone

I don't know if there is any preference in admissions for any race but I highly doubt there is. None of the college reps I spoke to really said anything about preference for minorities. There are scholarships which may apply to certain racial groups, but that varies by school. I don't think there is there preference for sex either. Currently many optometry schools' gender ratios are about 2 girls to 1 guy (imbalance fine by me). If you want to find out more information about optometry, here are some good resources:

http://www.opted.org !!!
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=128
http://www.optometrystudent.com

and the websites for the various optometry schools will give you even more general optometry and school-specific admissions. These are all good resources to help you find your way on to optometry school. Don't worry so much about minority resources in optometry. It's a small field (17 OD schools vs 129 MD schools) and the only thing that gets you into optometry is a strong application (you'll find entering class stats on opted.org or some school websites). Read around and you'll slowly learn about the field of optometry. Remember to take everything with a grain of salt and if you have any questions that you just can't find answers to, just give your dream school a call, they're usually willing to give out advice. It's better than making decisions based on hearsay.

Good luck all,
Jeff

Hello! Im so excited to find this post. I, like several others on here am interested in applying to optometry. I had to sit out a year because of my OAT scores. Over the summer, I took the Kaplan course and did my best to study. I plan to take the OAT this Tue on sept 16th. I have taken the OAT several times before, but any last minute advice for the gen chem and physics section is greatly appreciateD! I plan on applying to PCO, ICO, UMSL, NOVA and Ohio State so anyone else applying for the class of 09 to these schools, please let me know