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Even if the candidate with a foreign name is a US citizen? Especially if one applies to programs in less diverse areas such as the Midwest rather than California.
Do candidates with "american" names get more interviews than those with foreign names?
- Thread starter NeedToStudy
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Probably. On the other hand, it would be a stretch to say that a system that takes 20-25% of it's trainees from overseas is systematically biased.
There was an interesting study some time ago where identical resumes were submitted, one with a "white" name and the other with a "black" name. Predictably, your name influences your future employer in the expected manner.
All sorts of baked in biases affect residency matching, just like life. Diversity goals of current US University leadership is interesting. It reflects "US" diversity, not world-focused. Which makes sense, in a certain way. But is just another bias in another way.
There was an interesting study some time ago where identical resumes were submitted, one with a "white" name and the other with a "black" name. Predictably, your name influences your future employer in the expected manner.
All sorts of baked in biases affect residency matching, just like life. Diversity goals of current US University leadership is interesting. It reflects "US" diversity, not world-focused. Which makes sense, in a certain way. But is just another bias in another way.
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It's probably a wash. For every place that you might face some tacit discrimination, there's going to be a place the wants more diversity. Most places will focus on the more objective factors in granting interviews. To be honest from my experiences with the way these committees work sometimes discrimination actually helps an applicant. If an amazing resident of a particular race or national origin is graduating, sometimes when there's an applicant of similar background the committee makes comparisons, hoping the applicant will be the next Dr. X.
It didn't take long for me to realize that plenty of US grads have "foreign-sounding" names (to my ears, at least), and making assumptions regarding the strength of an applicant based on the name alone was a dangerous mindset.
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