Originally posted by TeinII
to screw with our poor lil brains of course 
no seriously, of course the elements of becoming a doctor run much much deeper than average gpa and mcat scores. my question is this: does affirmative action, in any way, negatively affect the quality of medical school matriculants?
let me ask you another hypothetical question: if ethnicity was complete removed from the selection process for all 125 medical schools in the u.s. (just pretend that the adcom does not know anything about the ethnic backgrounds of any of the applicants they are screening, and that the interview is held with a divider in between the interviewer and applicant), so that the selection process is solely based on the non-ethnic merits of the applicants, what will be the percentage of African Americans and other URMs in the entering class?
dayam that was long...i'm spent...
To answer your question, Tien: No, I don't think that affirmative action negatively affects the quality of matriculants. See, you are assuming that URMs are undeserving of being in med school just
because they are URMs. You must realize that every URM applicant who gets accepted with consideration as such, is still bringing quite a bit more to the table.
As for your hypothetical question, I'll answer it but only for the sake of argument, because these 'what if...' games don't really get us anywhere. Now, if the adcoms looked solely at the non-ethnic merits, I believe that fewer URMs applicants would get in than do now. But, I'm not sure that that is necessarily a good thing. You must realize that the affirmative action was designed not to suppress the majority, but to lift the minority. The difference, seemingly subtle, really isn't. In fact, it's huge. Nor was the AA designed with individuals in mind. Look at who is getting the special consideration - UNDER-represented minorities, not just any and all minorities (and, btw, I don't think Indians fall under that category, as well we shouldn't).
The whole idea behind AA is that URMs are under-represented for a reason; they, as a whole group, haven't been privy to the advantages that the rest of us have had. Now, are there, say, african-americans who belong to affluent families and have had everything just for the wanting? Absolutely! It also follows then that there are white applicants, or applicants from other well represented groups who have had it just as bad as any URM applicant. Yes, it absolutely reeks for the individual applicants, and then there are those who are able to take unfair advantage of the process. But, what's the alternative? If you let things be the way they are, those who are under-rep. will remain so, and the cycle will continue. The idea is to give those who have been disadvantaged, as a GROUP, a break so that they may be able to break the cycle and bring some balance to the society.
As for the quality of matriculants, I suppose you need only look at the physicians who are practicing today.....are there bad ones out there? You bet there are. But, do they all belong to URMs. Hell no. Conversely, there are excellent doctors who belong to URMs, as well as the other groups. So, we may atleast rest assured that the AA is not putting out conspicously bad doctors into circulation. Remember that once in med school, it's a clean slate, and we are all judged the same.
with regards
! Then 6 months later they are like wow look at this place
! Short memories are abundant! I was born here and I grew up with the privilage of being able to go to school free of charge, given the oppprtunity to say and do what I want when I want within the limits of the law (and sometimes without
