Do donations influence med school decisions?

[gyngyn]

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Why wouldn't you expect a 20 year-old to have these competencies but a 22 year old to have them?

These are very important years in terms of human development.
They include some of the best opportunities to evaluate resiliency, adaptability and commitment to service.

 

[aldol16]

These are very important years in terms of human development.
They include some of the best opportunities to evaluate resiliency, adaptability and commitment to service.

I can believe that an 18 year-old can be less mature than a 22 year-old who has just graduated college. But I don't think a 20 or 21 year-old is much less mature than a 22 year-old. To each their own.

 

[Yorick]

I can believe that an 18 year-old can be less mature than a 22 year-old who has just graduated college. But I don't think a 20 or 21 year-old is much less mature than a 22 year-old. To each their own.

You're making assumptions about the age of applicants. These are college sophomores applying to Flexmed. Most of my classmates when I was a sophomore were around 18-20. The average age of Flexmed applicants could even be around 19 if a lot of the applicants were gifted students who skipped grade(s). It would be interesting to see this data on the demographics of applicants and accepted students, but I don't think Sinai releases this information.

 

[aldol16]

You're making assumptions about the age of applicants. These are college sophomores applying to Flexmed. Most of my classmates when I was a sophomore were around 18-20. The average age of Flexmed applicants could even be around 19 if a lot of the applicants were gifted students who skipped grade(s). It would be interesting to see this data on the demographics of applicants and accepted students, but I don't think Sinai releases this information.

It would be interesting to see the average age of FlexMed and HuMed applicants but I can't find that information online. I do assume that the college sophomores that apply to FlexMed are right about 20 years old, which was the age of most college sophomores at my former school.

 

[deleted616051]

You are naïve if you think money does not affect decisions. It doesn't matter what company it is. Money talks even if you are dealing with people's lives

 

[Goro]

At my school, about a decade ago, we had an unqualified candidate (dumb as a stump) forced down our throat (and accepted) because the candidate's dad would be a donor to our University's new Pharmacy school...not the med school, but the Pharm school!!!!!!

Just some stories I have had heard from reliable faculty/adcoms here from some of the schools here. Lets just say alot of money and power flies around this city. But it works both ways.

1) circa mid1970s (acceptance ratio then was 3.5 to 1) . Wealthy donor "visits" Dean to ask about his grandson chances for acceptance. Dean says they are reasonable. Donor writes 7 figure check. Dean looks at it and congratulates donor on his grandson's acceptance.

2) circa late 1990's (after AMCAS has centralized the application service) Large donor has been really pushing several deans/president about his I believe grand nephew. After several pestering phone calls, the dean calls in the donor to a meeting. At the meeting is the General Counsel (corporate lawyer) who tries to present the legal and ethical issues in doing , donor is combative. Apparently they were expecting that. The GC produces a letter signed and ready to send to AAMC/AMCAS stating that be using undue influence on his application and should be considered suspect (I forget what legal BS). GC says he is sending this and it will make the applicant persona non grata at any US medical school. Then threatens that this donor will never get his name on a wing but Family X will instead. Donor backs down.

3) My favorite: Had to be early 1990s. A large donor and active fund raiser/hospital trustee who knows all the deans for a long time asks one of them at some function for a favor. Dean knows this is a real good guy, not some stuck up donor. The donor asks could they please interview his sister's kid or whoever for medical school admission. Dean knows this is a real big wig so he treads lightly. Asks if the kid is a good candidate. Donor says, Hell No. I wouldnt trust this kid to walk my dog. I didnt say admit him, just interview him so I can get my sister off my back

 

[efle]

Uhhh, probably not a good move if that's true. US News Rankings are based primarily on research - that's why nobody is ever going to beat HMS with their four pre-eminent academic medical centers. MCAT is weighted 13% in the research rankings and only about 10% in the primary care rankings (http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/medical-schools-methodology).



Why are you citing an almost two-decade-old study when a newer one is clearly available and shows data to the contrary? That is, there is no statistical difference between HuMed students and their traditional peers in USMLE Step 1 failure rate. I cited the newer study above.



No, you're ignoring the fact that there are likely many confounding variables with students who have verbal SAT <= 650. In order to show that A has predictive power over B, there has to be a graded dose-response relationship. This is why dose-response curves are so important in medicinal chemistry. It means nothing if your drug works at 60 mg dose but then drops off completely at everything below that. That just means that your drug isn't very predictable and pharmaceutical executives understandably don't like that. They would say that there's no dose-response relationship here on the SAT. 650 is a high score on the SAT. In fact, it's the 89th percentile. Does that surprise you?

It surprises me. Basically, they're saying that there's no relationship between candidates' SAT scores and USMLE Step 1 score but everybody who failed the Step 1 was below the 89th percentile on the SAT. In a group of 100 people, that covers 88 people of the group. That's like saying, "Everybody who was rejected from med school A was a U.S. citizen." Well, that's a bit obvious since that includes most people who applied to that school in the first place and stacks the deck in your favor. This only emphasizes the point that the SAT is a very poor predictor of Step 1 performance.

Also, for the reason I mentioned above, med schools probably aren't as concerned about MCAT average as you think (except maybe mid- to low-tier schools). MCAT score is weighted only ~10% in the USNews ranking. Research-related factors account for the lion's share. That means that schools get a lot more bang for their buck in focusing on getting more NIH funding than raising the average MCAT score of its students.



That would be interesting and I believe there is no data on this except in specific specialties (OB/GYN comes to mind). It's hard to measure and I suspect there is no effect at all.

You are both aware there is actual data about the MCAT showing the points at which failure rates for med school and step exams start to spike up, right?

See the last ten pages of this document

 

[aldol16]

You are both aware there is actual data about the MCAT showing the points at which failure rates for med school and step exams start to spike up, right?

Define "spike up" and define at which point MCAT accurately predicts Step 1 failure.

 

[efle]

Define "spike up" and define at which point MCAT accurately predicts Step 1 failure.

You can see that per bin the rate changes only by a point or two until you hit the mid 20s, after which it drops like 96% -> 91% -> 84% -> 79% even among people with stellar grades. You strike me as bright enough to imagine how it is curved rather than linear without having it plotted for you.

As for predictive ability, you're not quite on about the S. cat idea. If you fall in a stats bin with an initial step 1 pass rate of ~80% vs 99% you, yes even as an individual, differ in the amount of risk you present to a medical school. The best analogy is something like drawing marbles from a bag. If pulling a red marble indicates a huge failure, including a life made extremely difficult with loans, you don't want to go sticking your hand in the bag of 20% reds very often when there are other bags with a few percent red.

 

[aldol16]

You can see that per bin the rate changes only by a point or two until you hit the mid 20s, after which it drops like 96% -> 91% -> 84% -> 79% even among people with stellar grades. You strike me as bright enough to imagine how it is curved rather than linear without having it plotted for you.

You might assume too much about my abilities 😉 The question is how "big" of a difference it is from 96 to 91 percent or from 91 to 84 percent. There are many factors that go into Step 1 performance and I would say that you can probably find many that are better predictors (again, which is my argument - I'm not saying the MCAT doesn't predict Step 1 at all. I'm saying that it's not that good of a predictor).

As for predictive ability, you're not quite on about the S. cat idea. If you fall in a stats bin with an initial step 1 pass rate of ~80% vs 99% you, yes even as an individual, differ in the amount of risk you present to a medical school. The best analogy is something like drawing marbles from a bag. If pulling a red marble indicates a huge failure, including a life made extremely difficult with loans, you don't want to go sticking your hand in the bag of 20% reds very often when there are other bags with a few percent red.

Risk of scoring low on the Step 1 is different from actual Step 1 score. Sure, having a lower MCAT may put you at a higher risk of scoring lower on the Step 1. But again, like I said, I do not believe the MCAT should be used as Step 1 predictor because I don't think it's a particularly good one. Just because it's the only one available doesn't mean that we should use it without thinking about whether we can improve it. I trust enough in your scientific abilities to assume that you would question a test that measures some variable but explains only 40% of the variance on that variable. You might use it if it's the only one available but you as a rough benchmark but not as solid data. You would try to come up with a better measure. MCAT explains ~40% of Step 1 variance. If you're a psychologist or biologist, you might say "oh, that's a good predictor!" I'm a physical scientist. I look at that and I say, "It predicts <50% of Step 1 variance." Therefore, the other factors (including intangible ones) have a bigger role.

 

[efle]

I'm on mobile so I can't dig it up, but there have been reviews of all the factors in admissions and their correlates, and GPA + MCAT was by far the best predictor for step 1. Something like high .6x if I recall correctly. What could you conceive of as a better predictor in this process than LizzyM stats?

By the way the biggest meta-analysis I found in the 2000s put the MCAT on average at like .55 , with a broad range between individual anlyses

 

[efle]

Edit: This actually looks like it's the same meta you mention above...where were you getting a 0.40 correlation?

Here is the meta I was thinking of. It puts PS and BS sections in the .50s and the Composite in the .60s across tens of thousands of students in half a dozen studies:

I cant seem to find the other figure I once saw about what correlates to what, but I remember what stood out was that interview performance (and MMI in particular) was the best predictor for clinical years, while MCAT/GPA was the best by far for preclinical years and step 1