Am I a Minority?

[Ahii]

I've gotten 2 emails in the past week suggesting that I might be:

"We received notification of your intention to apply to medical school based upon your decision to participate in the AAMC Medical Minority Applicant Registry. "

"Greetings! I am ... the Diversity and Inclusion Recruitment Coordinator..."

If so, how much will this impact my chance of acceptance?

Feel free to ask any questions necessary for clarification.

Thanks.

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[Mad Jack]

It's pretty simple- are you black or hispanic?

 

[pericardium]

Or Native American

 

[Mad Jack]

Or Native American

Oh, right, forgot about Native American.

 

[Goro]

or Hmong, or Cambodian?

 

[Ahii]

I am part Native American (Native Canadian?) but it's a small % and I don't know the tribe.

I thought maybe it had to do with having gone to a poor high school, receiving food stamps, my parents dropping out of college, etc.

 

[Mad Jack]

I am part Native American (Native Canadian?) but it's a small % and I don't know the tribe.

I thought maybe it had to do with having gone to a poor high school, receiving food stamps, my parents dropping out of college, etc.

If you don't have tribal papers, you're not considered Native. Generally the minimum most tribes accept is 1/4th Native, so unless one of your grandparents is a full-on Inuit, you're not going to pull the Native card.

You might be considered educationally and financially disadvantaged, but you are not a minority applicant. They are entirely separate categories.

 

[Ahii]

If you don't have tribal papers, you're not considered Native. Generally the minimum most tribes accept is 1/4th Native, so unless one of your grandparents is a full-on Inuit, you're not going to pull the Native card.

You might be considered educationally and financially disadvantaged, but you are not a minority applicant. They are entirely separate categories.

That sounds accurate.

How much does being disadvantaged help my chances?

 

[Mad Jack]

That sounds accurate.

How much does being disadvantaged help my chances?

Depends on the school. Modestly to moderately, depending on their mission.

 

[Ahii]

Depends on the school. Modestly to moderately, depending on their mission.

My Lizzy M is about 1.5 below their average for admissions, so modestly to moderately should be all I need.

Also, you know which school

 

[Stephanopolous]

I received a bunch of these e-mails as well. I think somewhere at some point we must have clicked a box stating our ethnic background and that triggered e-mails from the diversity offices of certain schools.

 

[doit4humanity]

or Hmong, or Cambodian?

Vietnamese aren't consider minority in the medical community?

 

[Goro]

I don't think that there's an official AAMC-approved list (before 2004 there was!), but after some searching, here's what JHU defines as URM:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Medicine/diversity/urm_definition.html

"Currently includes African Americans, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans (American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians), Pacific Islanders, and mainland Puerto Ricans"


The wise @gyngyn has reported that some CA schools add Hmong and Cambodians to the list, but I don't think I've ever seen Vietnamese listed as such. Some schools may indeed include them.

My own school has a fair number of Vietnamese students, but this might be a geographic thing given we're west of the St Louis and closer to the large Vietnamese populations of TX and CA.

Vietnamese aren't consider minority in the medical community?

 

[gyngyn]

Vietnamese aren't consider minority in the medical community?

They are not. 4.6% of US physicians are Vietnamese, though this community represents far less than 1% of the US population. https://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload/Diversity in the Physician Workforce Facts and Figures 2010.pdf
http://www.census.gov/

If you find a school that does consider Vietnamese UIM, could you post it?
I've been looking to find one.

 

[j4pac]

Oh, right, forgot about Native American.

Yeah...the Native Americans are pretty regularly forgotten about.

 

[Mad Jack]

Yeah...the Native Americans are pretty regularly forgotten about.

I feel like I'm going to have to do a year at the IHS just to make up for that one lol.

 

[darkeon]

I've seen graphs where osteopathic schools list stats by sex and race and only see hispanic listed with no subsets (ie. puerto rican, mexican, etc) listed. Do DO schools see all hispanic as URM?

 

[doit4humanity]

They are not.
If you find a school that does consider Vietnamese UIM, could you post it?
I've been looking to find one.

After a little search through the forum @Jennyfishy said U of Colorado and U of Wisconsin consider Vietnamese as URM.

 

[gyngyn]

After a little search through the forum @Jennyfishy said U of Colorado and U of Wisconsin consider Vietnamese as URM.

Thank you!

 

[gyngyn]

Definitely not. Hispanics of the Iberian peninsula aka Spain and Portugal and South America I.E. Brazil, Argentina, etc are generally not viewed as URM.

URM predominantly applies to Mexicans, PRs, Cubans, those from the DR and certain parts of Central America

Cubans are not generally considered UIM, though Central Americans often are.
Language skills are still a boost, though.

 

[Mad Jack]

Definitely not. Hispanics of the Iberian peninsula aka Spain and Portugal and South America I.E. Brazil, Argentina, etc are generally not viewed as URM.

URM predominantly applies to Mexicans, PRs, Cubans, those from the DR and certain parts of Central America

Realistically though, how can they tell? If you grew up in the Hispanic community and you're exactly like all of your friends in every way, what makes you stand out enough from the South American Hispanic for them to know the difference?

 

[oOKawaiiOo]

Vietnamese aren't consider minority in the medical community?

They are not, but some schools will consider Filipino as URM.

 

[gyngyn]

They are not, but some schools will consider Filipino as URM.

U of Utah and UC Irvine.

 

[Jennyfishy]

Thank you!

UWSMPH too

Edit: last poster already said that and I didn't see it. Lol..

 

[Seth Joo]

Some schools in Florida will consider people who have ancestry from Spain as minorities under "Hispanic". I knew a girl in college who did this, she told my college she was "Hispanic" and they accepted her under their AA policies but Spain is not a South American country, its fairly modern and well to do European country and she grew up in a rich suburb of Boston.

There were two girls in my neighborhood who were refugees from Iraq who tried to apply to school under AA but the schools classified them as White, I thought was a bunch of nonsense.

AA needs to be repealed and made illegal.

 

[AsianPersuasion]

@gyngyn I know I spoke with you already in the past regarding CA schools. But I noticed that UWSMPH and U of Colorado also consider Cambodian to be UIM. Is it worth a shot too? or is the IS biased too strong? This is open question to all the others too, thanks.
*sorry to hijack the thread OP, didn't want to start a new one for quick question*

 

[gyngyn]

@gyngyn I know I spoke with you already in the past regarding CA schools. But I noticed that UWSMPH and U of Colorado also consider Cambodian to be UIM. Is it worth a shot too? or is the IS biased too strong? This is open question to all the others too, thanks.
*sorry to hijack the thread OP, didn't want to start a new one for quick question*

It's worth it. There are very, very few Cambodian (or Hmong) applicants and marked evidence of health disparities.

 

[AsianPersuasion]

It's worth it. There are very, very few Cambodian (or Hmong) applicants and marked evidence of health disparities.

Thank you! Will definitely add them to the list. I figured it might be a long shot considering UWSMPH is public and IS biased is strong.

 

[jl lin]

Oh, right, forgot about Native American.

Yes, but that one gets tricky.

 

[jl lin]

They can't, that is of course if you decided to bull****. For what it's worth, if they checked your birth certificate for whatever reason, it has the nationalities and/or countries of origin of both your parents.

Not necessarily, and not necessarily accurate.

 

[RTchill]

Yes, but that one gets tricky.

Can you elaborate? Just tricky as in you need to prove it by being a registered member of a recognized tribe?

 

[hamiltonnyc]

They are not. 4.6% of US physicians are Vietnamese, though this community represents far less than 1% of the US population. https://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload/Diversity in the Physician Workforce Facts and Figures 2010.pdf
Census.gov

If you find a school that does consider Vietnamese UIM, could you post it?
I've been looking to find one.

Late reply, but as someone on another thread mentioned, the figure you posted is 4.6% of Asians, not of all physicians. So the correct number would be 4.6% x the 12.8% See more info here URM Status Question.

Also posted there is UCSF which considers Viets URM, which makes sense because it serves the CA population URM Definition | diversity.ucsf.edu

 

[NITRAS]

If you don't have tribal papers, you're not considered Native. Generally the minimum most tribes accept is 1/4th Native, so unless one of your grandparents is a full-on Inuit, you're not going to pull the Native card.

You might be considered educationally and financially disadvantaged, but you are not a minority applicant. They are entirely separate categories.

Lots of things are very tribe dependent on who they consider to be part of the tribe, and what benefits they have. I have cousins that are card carrying members of (I think Cherokee) at 126th. I am probably around to 1/10th, but as my dad's parents were both born out of wedlock. .. . no papers.

i put have always checked white. I look it, and have never never culturally identified myself with any Native American tribe. i just have a limited ability to grow facial hair.

 

[gyngyn]

Late reply, but as someone on another thread mentioned, the figure you posted is 4.6% of Asians, not of all physicians. So the correct number would be 4.6% x the 12.8% See more info here URM Status Question.

Also posted there is UCSF which considers Viets URM, which makes sense because it serves the CA population URM Definition | diversity.ucsf.edu

Though Vietnamese physicians are only about 0.65% of the US physician workforce, the Vietnamese population is only 0.5% of the total population.
A school can nevertheless identify an unmet need in a particular community and designate that population as under-represented in their community.

 

[hamiltonnyc]

Though Vietnamese physicians are only about 0.65% of the US physician workforce, the Vietnamese population is only 0.5% of the total population.
A school can nevertheless identify an unmet need in a particular community and designate that population as under-represented in their community.

I wasn't contending that Viets were underrepresented (at a broad US level), just they were not overrepresented like the figure you previously mentioned: 4.6% vs less than 1%.

Even your updated figures are a little off, it's more like 0.583% (2747/471408) vs 0.5% as of 2010. And even that is outdated, as Asians are becoming one of the fastest growing immigrant groups. Vietnam jumped from 1.5 million in 2010 to 2 million in 2016, which is roughly .6% of the population as of 2016. We don't have updated statistics on the US physicians, but I don't think it changed as much since there have been a wave of immigrants that come from Vietnam, and they are likely older and less educated. Again, not underrepresented in broad America, but not overrepresented unless you bucket them into the Asian group with Chinese, Korean, and Filipino (also underrepresented).

 

[gyngyn]

Again, not underrepresented in broad America, but not overrepresented unless you bucket them into the Asian group with Chinese, Korean, and Filipino (also underrepresented).

Unfortunately for Filipino-American applicants, the Phillipines is the second largest contributor to the IMG physician workforce in CA (India is the first).
So while distinctions in Asian communities are important, the ones with clear health disparities as well as under-representation (at least in CA) seem to be Cambodians and Hmong...