Are Asian Indians at a disadvantage?

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What are medical schools supposed to do? Let in all asians and white people and not let any black or mexican people into medical school? What about black and mexican patients?

Personally I support weeding down indian asians.... the sharpest will get into medical school, and don't cut it wont. simple as that.
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What are medical schools supposed to do? Let in all asians and white people and not let any black or mexican people into medical school? What about black and mexican patients?

Personally I support weeding down indian asians.... the sharpest will get into medical school, and don't cut it wont. simple as that.[/QUOTE]

Easily said if you are URM. :cool:

Except I'm indian asian
 
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Easy thing to say online. I'm alien. Or maybe you don't want to compete with other Asians and want to compete with people that have lower scores. Tsk tsk tsk

....... what ??

I said that the sharpest indians should make it to medical schools...

How is that competing with people with lower scores?

Your post makes no sense... I would click the edit button on the bottom of it and mop up the mess you typed into existence.
 
So being Asian means that my life experience and viewpoints are already overrepresented in America and my existence represents a decrease in diversity. My status as an individual is irrelevant compared to my supposed identity as a member of a certain group. I'm not sure how the percentages of a population entail the necessity of some people being held to a higher standard for circumstances that had absolutely nothing to do with them.


The fact of the matter is that Asian-Americans are minorities as defined by the Census Bureau, but are not afforded diversity considerations because they are overrepresented in higher education. It has nothing to do with you personally, but rather the primary and secondary effects of historical events that continue to plague certain groups.
 
The fact of the matter is that Asian-Americans are minorities as defined by the Census Bureau, but are not afforded diversity considerations because they are overrepresented in higher education. It has nothing to do with you personally, but rather the primary and secondary effects of historical events that continue to plague certain groups.

And plus I don't know any Indians people who want to only see Indian docs when they get sick
 
Thanks everyone for the input. I think I've "won" the argument with my friend. But like LizzyM said, it's always a "toss up"!
 
What are medical schools supposed to do? Let in all asians and white people and not let any black or mexican people into medical school? What about black and mexican patients?

Personally I support weeding down indian asians.... the sharpest will get into medical school, and don't cut it wont. simple as that.

Yea, what about black and mexican patients? Being of the same race as a patient does not mean you can relate to them any better than a person of a different race. Adcoms preaching this are doing so for sake of supporting the flawed AA that is rampant in school admissions. Whoever said that getting rid of AA will not let black and mexican people into medical school? Like you said, "the sharpest will get into medical."
 
Yea, what about black and mexican patients? Being of the same race as a patient does not mean you can relate to them any better than a person of a different race. Adcoms preaching this are doing so for sake of supporting the flawed AA that is rampant in school admissions. Whoever said that getting rid of AA will not let black and mexican people into medical school? Like you said, "the sharpest will get into medical."

There's a difference between AA and URM
 
So being Asian means that my life experience and viewpoints are already overrepresented in America and my existence represents a decrease in diversity. My status as an individual is irrelevant compared to my supposed identity as a member of a certain group. I'm not sure how the percentages of a population entail the necessity of some people being held to a higher standard for circumstances that had absolutely nothing to do with them.

Maybe this when change when you see more Asian-American deans of medicine or Asian-American deans of admission.

Until then, you play by the current rules put forth by overwhelmingly Caucasian admissions committees.
 
Maybe this when change when you see more Asian-American deans of medicine or Asian-American deans of admission.

Until then, you play by the current rules put forth by overwhelmingly Caucasian admissions committees.

How do you know this?
 
How do you know this?

Ever open up a school directory?

http://www.oakland.edu/medicine/admissions/team

That's just an example of a school off the top of my head.

I am not implying they are racists or anything. I am stating that for all these higher standards placed on Asians in admissions since they are supposedly over-represented in medicine, you would think there would be a consistent amount working at the admissions level.
 
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Ever open up a school directory?

http://www.oakland.edu/medicine/admissions/team

That's just an example of a school off the top of my head.

I am not implying they are racists or anything. I am stating that for all these higher standards placed on Asians in admissions since they are supposedly over-represented in medicine, you would think there would be a consistent amount working in admissions.

Well not every school has that.... So they might be all white or they might be mixed (for the most part among medical schools). who knows?

And I don't understand your logic... why would adcoms have to be multiracial just because docs are supposed to be? They serve different purposes.
 
For the following range:
GPA- 3.20-3.39
MCAT- 30-32

African-American Applicants:
Acceptance Rate- 82.8%

Caucasian-American Applicants:
Acceptance Rate- 40.7%

Asian-American Applicants:
Acceptance Rate- 30.9%

I chose a pool where there were sufficient observations for statistical significance and didn't look at the statistics before I chose them, so not "trying to tell a story here". But in my mind, there's no doubt that the general higher amount of competitiveness, at least in terms of GPA/MCAT among Asian-American applicants has led to increased difficulty for this group to gain admittance to medical school compared to other groups.

Edit:

Yes, they are at a disadvantage. Some may attempt to rationalize the statistics otherwise, but their justifications are murky at best.

i wish medical school admissions applications did not include a race section, if only they picked students based off purely things that the students themselves can control. i can't control what race i am, and (if these statistics are indeed accurate) in seems that it has the potential to decide whether i get accepted at a particular school or not.
 
i wish medical school admissions applications did not include a race section, if only they picked students based off purely things that the students themselves can control. i can't control what race i am, and (if these statistics are indeed accurate) in seems that it has the potential to decide whether i get accepted at a particular school or not.

well welcome to the real world

I wish everyone came from the middle class..... wait no i dont, because then my advantage would be marginalized
 
This will probably blow some minds... and answer multiple threads that are like this.

Just try to think for a second instead of typing. There is a supposed bias against Caucasians and Asians because a much higher % of applicants are these 2 races. So really, you're competing against your other racial members who may have higher stats. That's why Asians and Caucasians seemingly have it "harder." There just aren't that many African-Americans and Native Americans in college, so why would there be a higher number of medical school applicants? A fewer number of these individuals apply, so there's a smaller pool to select from, but a certain number of slots that has to be covered by AA... which is why the stats may be lower than to a larger pool of Asians and Caucasians. Shocker. And guess what? As you saw on the Oakland University website, there are people looking at these applications.

People are humans, whom will have emotion, no matter how subdued the emotions are. If you package yourself with a poor application and average stats, obviously...not gonna get in. Technically medical schools are investing millions of dollars that are hopefully placed on individuals who will successfully complete a MD; if someone fails out, then there are multiple consequences. The medical school has intense pressure to select those individuals who will complete schooling, including selecting some who are of a different race. But if someone shows some improvement or potential with a convincing application, there's a slight probability that some admission members will give the applicant a chance. Why do you think there is so much variance of acceptances/interviews of high stat-applications?

So...if you screwed up in the past, then just work on improving now and in the future. And as a tip, learn to write, and more specifically, learn to write Germanic English more often than to write in Latin English for a clearer, stronger word choice to convey why you want to become a doctor and create a convincing application that shows potential. This will help not only now but also speaking with the best communication skills possible to any level of intellect...aka when you're a doctor.
 
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This will probably blow some minds... and answer multiple threads that are like this.

Just try to think for a second instead of typing. There is a supposed bias against Caucasians and Asians because a much higher % of applicants are these 2 races. So really, you're competing against your other racial members who may have higher stats. That's why Asians and Caucasians seemingly have it "harder." There just aren't that many African-Americans and Native Americans in college, so why would there be a higher number of medical school applicants? A fewer number of these individuals apply, so there's a smaller pool to select from, but a certain number of slots that has to be covered by AA... which is why the stats may be lower than to a larger pool of Asians and Caucasians. Shocker. And guess what? As you saw on the Oakland University website, there are people looking at these applications.

People are humans, whom will have emotion, no matter how subdued the emotions are. If you package yourself with a poor application and average stats, obviously...not gonna get in. Technically medical schools are investing millions of dollars that are hopefully placed on individuals who will successfully complete a MD; if someone fails out, then there are multiple consequences. The medical school has intense pressure to select those individuals who will complete schooling, including selecting some who are of a different race. But if someone shows some improvement or potential with a convincing application, there's a slight probability that some admission members will give the applicant a chance. Why do you think there is so much variance of acceptances/interviews of high stat-applications?

So...if you screwed up in the past, then just work on improving now and in the future. And as a tip, learn to write, and more specifically, learn to write Germanic English more often than to write in Latin English for a clearer, stronger word choice to convey why you want to become a doctor and create a convincing application that shows potential. This will help not only now but also speaking with the best communication skills possible to any level of intellect...aka when you're a doctor.

Germanic English .... So that's what I've been doing wrong
 
This will probably blow some minds... and answer multiple threads that are like this.

Just try to think for a second instead of typing. There is a supposed bias against Caucasians and Asians because a much higher % of applicants are these 2 races. So really, you're competing against your other racial members who may have higher stats. That's why Asians and Caucasians seemingly have it "harder." There just aren't that many African-Americans and Native Americans in college, so why would there be a higher number of medical school applicants? A fewer number of these individuals apply, so there's a smaller pool to select from, but a certain number of slots that has to be covered by AA... which is why the stats may be lower than to a larger pool of Asians and Caucasians. Shocker. And guess what? As you saw on the Oakland University website, there are people looking at these applications.

People are humans, whom will have emotion, no matter how subdued the emotions are. If you package yourself with a poor application and average stats, obviously...not gonna get in. Technically medical schools are investing millions of dollars that are hopefully placed on individuals who will successfully complete a MD; if someone fails out, then there are multiple consequences. The medical school has intense pressure to select those individuals who will complete schooling, including selecting some who are of a different race. But if someone shows some improvement or potential with a convincing application, there's a slight probability that some admission members will give the applicant a chance. Why do you think there is so much variance of acceptances/interviews of high stat-applications?

So...if you screwed up in the past, then just work on improving now and in the future. And as a tip, learn to write, and more specifically, learn to write Germanic English more often than to write in Latin English for a clearer, stronger word choice to convey why you want to become a doctor and create a convincing application that shows potential. This will help not only now but also speaking with the best communication skills possible to any level of intellect...aka when you're a doctor.

Mind blown. :eek:




:smuggrin:
 
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The only plausible way this could have explanatory power on the phenomenon that we are observing, however, is that Asian-Americans speak disproportionately poor English, are unable to articulate why they wish to be physicians, or only want to be physicians because it is a family tradition. Considering that we are talking about Asian-AMERICANS, not international students, I find this explanation weak at best.

Adcoms tend to prefer applicants who seem to have an internal, personal drive to become a physician over applicants who seem to want to become a physician to please, say, their family. The problem is that it's easy to compile statistics on the average GPA and MCAT scores of accepted applicants of different races, but essentially impossible to compile statistics on how adcoms judge their motivations. Is it really so hard to believe that there are, on average, differences in how parents of different cultures push their children to pursue specific fields, how children choose their interests, and that all this has an impact on the admissions process that isn't captured by looking at the numbers?
 
Adcoms tend to prefer applicants who seem to have an internal, personal drive to become a physician over applicants who seem to want to become a physician to please, say, their family. The problem is that it's easy to compile statistics on the average GPA and MCAT scores of accepted applicants of different races, but essentially impossible to compile statistics on how adcoms judge their motivations. Is it really so hard to believe that there are, on average, differences in how parents of different cultures push their children to pursue specific fields, how children choose their interests, and that all this has an impact on the admissions process that isn't captured by looking at the numbers?

I'll counter your flawed logic using your flawed logic - "Is it really so hard to believe that AAs are, on average, more competitive and the medical school admissions system is such that AAs are at a competitive disadvantage during the process?"

but essentially impossible to compile statistics on how adcoms judge their motivations.

Nonetheless, that was actually overkill since you essentially answered your own question before you even asked it.
 
For the following range:
GPA- 3.20-3.39
MCAT- 30-32

African-American Applicants:
Acceptance Rate- 82.8%

Caucasian-American Applicants:
Acceptance Rate- 40.7%

Asian-American Applicants:
Acceptance Rate- 30.9%

I chose a pool where there were sufficient observations for statistical significance and didn't look at the statistics before I chose them, so not "trying to tell a story here". But in my mind, there's no doubt that the general higher amount of competitiveness, at least in terms of GPA/MCAT among Asian-American applicants has led to increased difficulty for this group to gain admittance to medical school compared to other groups.

Edit:

Yes, they are at a disadvantage. Some may attempt to rationalize the statistics otherwise, but their justifications are murky at best.

Q: Among applicants with gpa 3.20-3.39 and MCAT 30-32, how many are admitted?

A: AAMC data show that 1,001 white applicants, 318 Asian applicants, and 214 African-American/black applicants within that range were admitted to medical school 2009-2011. If we had admitted blacks in the same proportion as Asians and whites, there would have been <1% increase in the number of whites admitted and an increase in the number of Asians admitted by about 100. We'd still have about 600 Asian applicants in that range out in the cold along with over 1400 white applicants. Would our schools, including the historically black medical schools, and our country be better off with 100 fewer black students? Is that really what we want?
 
Q: Among applicants with gpa 3.20-3.39 and MCAT 30-32, how many are admitted?

A: AAMC data show that 1,001 white applicants, 318 Asian applicants, and 214 African-American/black applicants within that range were admitted to medical school 2009-2011. If we had admitted blacks in the same proportion as Asians and whites, there would have been <1% increase in the number of whites admitted and an increase in the number of Asians admitted by about 100. We'd still have about 600 Asian applicants in that range out in the cold along with over 1400 white applicants. Would our schools, including the historically black medical schools, and our country be better off with 100 fewer black students? Is that really what we want?

I'm not commenting on whether that would be a "good" or a "bad" thing, only that there is VERY strong and persuasive evidence that Asian-Americans are at a disadvantage in the process.

And I'll ask the question differently- is our country better off with 100 fewer Asian-American students in medical school? Because that's the tradeoff considering that admission is a zero-sum game.

I'm of the opinion that medical school admissions should be completely race/ethnicity-blind. If we want to account for socioeconomic differences, then base it off of educational resources, neighborhood environment, parent schooling, economic status, etc., etc., etc., anything but this ridiculous notion of race. I know too many extremely privileged "URMs" that work half as hard as others and end up being accepted over those that worked twice as hard as them - that's not the kind of behavior our system should encourage or attitude our system should perpetuate.

I think the OPs question has been adequately answered at this point. I think there's been some good discussion here, but also some disappointing assumptions and remarks.
 
Q: Among applicants with gpa 3.20-3.39 and MCAT 30-32, how many are admitted?

A: AAMC data show that 1,001 white applicants, 318 Asian applicants, and 214 African-American/black applicants within that range were admitted to medical school 2009-2011. If we had admitted blacks in the same proportion as Asians and whites, there would have been <1% increase in the number of whites admitted and an increase in the number of Asians admitted by about 100. We'd still have about 600 Asian applicants in that range out in the cold along with over 1400 white applicants. Would our schools, including the historically black medical schools, and our country be better off with 100 fewer black students? Is that really what we want?
Do all adcoms share your views on this issue?
 
Do all adcoms share your views on this issue?

It seems that some adcoms view Caucasian-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, etc. as completely different species. We're not humans, or pre-meds, or future doctors. We're apparently still defined by our skin and our hair. This is the 21st century. This is scary.
 
Seperate but equal, euphimism for seperate but unequal, went on for over 100 years. Affirmative Action may take equally long time to make playing field even.
 
I'm of the opinion that medical school admissions should be completely race/ethnicity-blind. If we want to account for socioeconomic differences, then base it off of educational resources, neighborhood environment, parent schooling, economic status, etc., etc., etc., anything but this ridiculous notion of race. I know too many extremely privileged "URMs" that work half as hard as others and end up being accepted over those that worked twice as hard as them - that's not the kind of behavior our system should encourage or attitude our system should perpetuate.

:rolleyes: Riiight. You mad?
 
To be honest I see no problem with using race as a factor to judge admission to medical school. Some posters above have mentioned that we should only be judged on things we can control, but that is murky at best. Consider the following.
Medical schools value intelligence. Why? They assume a more intelligent individual will be able to better retain all the information necessary to treat patients, make quicker and accurate diagnoses, etc. They use (IMO) the MCAT as a measure of this trait. I was able to score very well on the exam with a below average amount of effort, while many of my peers (who I feel would make excellent physicians) studied their asses off and ended up about average. We can control the amount of effort we put into studying for the MCAT, but we can't control the intelligence level we were born with, and sadly that does seem to play a large role in the score we can achieve on the MCAT.
Similarly, medical schools value diversity. Why? The assume (with statistical backing) that physicians from underrepresented communities are X% (don't have the stats sorry) more likely to go back and serve that community. You can shadow at any family medicine clinic or free clinic in an under served part of town and see this for yourself.
With health disparities worsening like no other and numbers of applicants (GPA/MCAT) rising each year, of course adcoms will be willing to lower "standards," simply because URM's can bring something to the table that I, an Indian-American applicant, will never be able to. Is this wrong? No. I was born with higher than average intelligence. Adcoms want the trait I have. Nothing I or anyone else can do about that. Many friends of mine were born black. Exact same story.
 
I wasnt being condescending, it was a genuine question. Not everyone is as passive aggressive as you think.

Well, then let me ask you a question. Do you honestly think it even possible, let alone probable, that every admissions committee member shares LizzyM's views about anything?

Follow up: If it is, do you think LizzyM regularly talks with all admissions committee members daily to ascertain their views and discuss her relevant metaphors?
 
Well, then let me ask you a question. Do you honestly think it even possible, let alone probable, that every admissions committee member shares LizzyM's views about anything?

Follow up: If it is, do you think LizzyM regularly talks with all admissions committee members daily to ascertain their views and discuss her relevant metaphors?

Its clearly implied that I meant all adcoms that she is in contact with. Do you always make sweeping generalizations? That's gonna get you far.

Edit about the bolder part: yeah I think I'm pretty safe to say that all admissions members agree that someone with a 2.0 and a 14 mcat isn't getting in.
 
Q: Among applicants with gpa 3.20-3.39 and MCAT 30-32, how many are admitted?

A: AAMC data show that 1,001 white applicants, 318 Asian applicants, and 214 African-American/black applicants within that range were admitted to medical school 2009-2011. If we had admitted blacks in the same proportion as Asians and whites, there would have been <1% increase in the number of whites admitted and an increase in the number of Asians admitted by about 100. We'd still have about 600 Asian applicants in that range out in the cold along with over 1400 white applicants. Would our schools, including the historically black medical schools, and our country be better off with 100 fewer black students? Is that really what we want?

Yes our country will be better off not encouraging discrimination. This reflects the sentiment of MLK.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Reverse discrimination is discrimination.
 
Yes our country will be better off not encouraging discrimination. This reflects the sentiment of MLK.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Reverse discrimination is discrimination.

But you will end up with an uneven racial mix of docs if this happens at every medicals school.
 
But you will end up with an uneven racial mix of docs if this happens at every medicals school.

Then perhaps URM's need to step up their game and try harder. The gap continues to widen because while URM's have the leisure to slack off, Asians have to perform even better among their peers because of this discrimination. Or perhaps some people were simply not meant to become doctors. You can't always become what you want to be without exerting any effort. If a person strives to become a physician, he or she should also put in the work that is needed. :mad:
 
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