Appropriate to disagree with secondary application question ?

[real_king]

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Hello All,

I've been browsing around the school specific forums and found the statement, "Effective teams are composed of people with diverse life experiences and varying viewpoints." There are many different types of teams, and especially in a healthcare related setting I believe that this statement likely holds true. In such circumstances it is usually desirable to be able to relate to the patient / their family / whomever in some way, and thus by having a diverse team it is more statistically probable to have a member of the team have something in common with the patient. I am making a few sweeping generalizations here and perhaps leaving out some different examples of teams, but bear with me, if anything for the purpose of some healthy debate.

As someone who is very interested in science and the effectiveness of "technical" teams, i.e. those who set out with a very particular goal/research question I believe there are few things that are much more important to a team than diversity, such as motivation and resources. For some context, when I think of highly successful technical teams I imagine everything from the development of the nuclear bomb (not trying to get political, but I believe the development was an objective success), to the "space-race", to Google, to Tesla. I understand that diversity and varying viewpoints somehow contribute to the innovation that is necessary for many of these developments, but would argue that many problems that are faced by these sorts of teams are much more practical and could not necessarily be solved by a group with more diverse life experiences. Diversity is no guarantee of innovation, nor does adding more people to a team / problem necessarily help solve it.


TL;DR: A secondary application question implies effective teams must be diverse. I believe effective teams are motivated and have the proper resources, and do not have to be diverse. Is it appropriate to disagree with a secondary question in the context of a medical school application? Or should I just play it safe and tell them what they want to hear? Also I'm interested to see what everyone's thoughts are regarding these arguments.


P.S. In no way am I trying to devalue the importance of diversity, especially in a health care setting, I am simply interested in understanding whether or not it is okay to provide an alternate viewpoint to a question provided by a school and hear other's thoughts on this question.

 

[gyngyn]

You are free to give any response.

 

[mdapp2021]

If the school values diversity they should value people who both agree and disagree with them on that no? From my debate understanding you can pull off a ton of unconventional arguments if you word them correctly (i.e., don't say the other side is stupid and that you're 100% right).

 

[CoffeeMug13]

No.

 

[deleted781806]

You're definitely free to give any kind of response as long as you argue it well, but if you're sending that secondary to a school that prints material about themselves that talk about the importance of diversity on every page of every handout, you might want to reconsider disagreeing with that standpoint. It's a toss-up though, you can't always tell what AdComs "want" to hear from these essays. Do whatever you think is best!

 

[deleted480308]

You're definitely free to give any kind of response as long as you argue it well, but if you're sending that secondary to a school that prints material about themselves that talk about the importance of diversity on every page of every handout, you might want to reconsider disagreeing with that standpoint. It's a toss-up though, you can't always tell what AdComs "want" to hear from these essays. Do whatever you think is best!

Telling them what they want is always the right option if you actually know what they want...."diversity isn't necessary" is true but not at all something you touch in an application

 

[deleted781806]

Telling them what they want is always the right option if you actually know what they want...."diversity isn't necessary" is true but not at all something you touch in an application

I had misread a little bit of what OP had posted, if there was a way to include the diversity comment alongside some other aspects that OP thought would make a good team, I think it would be an acceptable answer. But flat-out disagreeing with "diversity is better for teams" would probably lead down a poor road for your application. There's sometimes a way to make it work where you can agree with extra qualifiers, but disagreeing entirely is a bad decision.

 

[Goro]

What is your definition of diversity?

Hello All,

I've been browsing around the school specific forums and found the statement, "Effective teams are composed of people with diverse life experiences and varying viewpoints." There are many different types of teams, and especially in a healthcare related setting I believe that this statement likely holds true. In such circumstances it is usually desirable to be able to relate to the patient / their family / whomever in some way, and thus by having a diverse team it is more statistically probable to have a member of the team have something in common with the patient. I am making a few sweeping generalizations here and perhaps leaving out some different examples of teams, but bear with me, if anything for the purpose of some healthy debate.

As someone who is very interested in science and the effectiveness of "technical" teams, i.e. those who set out with a very particular goal/research question I believe there are few things that are much more important to a team than diversity, such as motivation and resources. For some context, when I think of highly successful technical teams I imagine everything from the development of the nuclear bomb (not trying to get political, but I believe the development was an objective success), to the "space-race", to Google, to Tesla. I understand that diversity and varying viewpoints somehow contribute to the innovation that is necessary for many of these developments, but would argue that many problems that are faced by these sorts of teams are much more practical and could not necessarily be solved by a group with more diverse life experiences. Diversity is no guarantee of innovation, nor does adding more people to a team / problem necessarily help solve it.


TL;DR: A secondary application question implies effective teams must be diverse. I believe effective teams are motivated and have the proper resources, and do not have to be diverse. Is it appropriate to disagree with a secondary question in the context of a medical school application? Or should I just play it safe and tell them what they want to hear? Also I'm interested to see what everyone's thoughts are regarding these arguments.


P.S. In no way am I trying to devalue the importance of diversity, especially in a health care setting, I am simply interested in understanding whether or not it is okay to provide an alternate viewpoint to a question provided by a school and hear other's thoughts on this question.

 

[NotASerialKiller]

You are free to give any response.

The school is also free to reject someone who uses a diversity secondary prompt to explain why diversity isn't that important.

Q: "How do you intend to demonstrate professionalism as a medical student?"

A: f*** professionalism and f*** you 2 rofl!

 

[gyngyn]

The school is also free to reject someone who uses a diversity secondary prompt to explain why diversity isn't that important.

Q: "How do you intend to demonstrate professionalism as a medical student?"

A: f*** professionalism and f*** you 2 rofl!

I have seen my share of secondary responses that questioned the premise of the prompt.
I can't recall one adroit enough to pull it off. It could happen, though...

 

[real_king]

I have seen my share of secondary responses that questioned the premise of the prompt.
I can't recall one adroit enough to pull it off. It could happen, though...

This was the answer I was looking for. Thank you everyone for your responses.

Reading through my post after an hour or two and reading the responses it is clear to me now that were I to take this path I would have to be extremely careful in my phrasing and even then, it could still potentially rub people the wrong way and thus the potential "reward" (i.e. uniqueness) of a contrary answer isn't worth the risk. I will keep this in mind moving forward.