Filipino = URM?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
They are 100% asian...so they fall under the asian category
 
bensherman said:
Ah, that's too bad. I don't see many of us applying, let alone getting into medical school =(. Thanks for the info
Click to expand...

true, most of them are chinese/korean/japanese/indian. altho i am sure most patients can't tell the difference, so........
 
Actually, it depends on the school. I am Filipino and I was invited to URM/Diversity Dinners at a good bunch of the schools I interviewed at. The percentage of Filipino physicians is less than the percentage of Filipino people in the United States, so technically yes, we are URM, but I think only the schools that pull us from the "Asian" category recognize this.
 
Is you look Hispanic enough and speak tagalog (and maybe took spanish classes)....

I don't know why you couldn't label yourself as hispanic then 🙂laugh🙂
I kid. But it does seem URM to me.
 
jr doctor in sd said:
They are 100% asian...so they fall under the asian category
Click to expand...

I agree, in reality.

But from an educational standpoint, Filipinos fall under the "Pacific Islander or Filipino" category, so I think it's a good question.

(Education doesn't equal reality for some reason.)

👍
 
😱 Is this serious? The doctor I shadowed all through college was Filipino and so were a lot of other doctors who worked with him. Actually, I know a lot of Filipino med students and about 50% of the premeds I know are Filipino. I'm really surprised they're considered URM anywhere. If you had told me there were more Filipino than White people in med school, I would have believed you.
 
iMEDatUCI said:
😱 Is this serious? The doctor I shadowed all through college was Filipino and so were a lot of other doctors who worked with him. Actually, I know a lot of Filipino med students and about 50% of the premeds I know are Filipino. I'm really surprised they're considered URM anywhere. If you had told me there were more Filipino than White people in med school, I would have believed you.
Click to expand...
That may be because you go to UCI.
 
technically no, bu ive seen filipino kids claim that theyre urm and get away with it.
 
Even though I'm the only Filipino (sort of....I'm mixed Filipino and White) premed that I know, I was under the impression that there were a significant number of Filipinos in medicine and were not considered URMs (though perhaps this is because there are several doctors on the filipino side of my family). Maybe the consideration of filipinos as URMs is regional?
 
hah, maybe schools like utah are so desperate for diversity that anybody whos dark enough and has spanish sounding names count :laugh:
 
According to the 2000 Census, 3.6% of the US is Asian. I don't know the exact statistic, but I believe its upwards of 15% of med students in US MD programs are Asian. The largest group of US Asians is Chinese (~3.6M), the second is Filipino (~3.1M). I know, I'm kinda surprised too. The majority of Filipinos live in Hawaii and Southern California. (Funny side note, one of the most densely Asian cities is Las Vegas, LMAO...)

If you're form CA or HI, I'd imagine it's hard to see Asian's as URM's. The funny thing though is that while proportionaltely they make up a smaller amount of med students than they do the US, they make more money than any other Asian except Indians.

So, as a Filipino, while I would say URM status would be awesome and in many ways it is deserved, I don't think it is. You can argue that Filipino shouldn't be grouped in with Asians and that the Asian group makes it seem like there are proportionately more Filipinos in med school than in the US. I would agree with you, but when you consider that Filipinos do significantly better than the rest of the Asian groups, the URM argument is kinda hard to support unless you're talking only about #'s of people in medical school.

And I don't know if it's even possible to walk through a hospital in So Cal without hearing Tagalog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_American
 
chasincam said:
According to the 2000 Census, 3.6% of the US is Asian. I don't know the exact statistic, but I believe its upwards of 15% of med students in US MD programs are Asian. The largest group of US Asians is Chinese (~3.6M), the second is Filipino (~3.1M). I know, I'm kinda surprised too. The majority of Filipinos live in Hawaii and Southern California.
Click to expand...
wow. That's pretty awesome. I grew up in a pretty Filipino filled neighborhood in IL and honestly, none of them seemed inclined to become a physician nor did I ever see any Filipino MDs (lots of nurses though). I guess I just imagined there wasn't that many Filipino MDs as my undergraduate class only had two Filipino people - which was way less than 1% of my graduating class.

edit: I misread that and thought Filipinos were the second largest group of Asian doctors in the US (not population).
Honestly though, if they are the second largest Asian population than they should be the second largest group of Asian medical students represented. According to the wikipedia article... they might be... but that might be more because of IMGs coming from the Philippines than Filipino kids who grew up in the US going on to medical school. Make me wonder...

Anyways, officially according to AMCAS, URM = Blacks, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans (that is, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians), and mainland Puerto Ricans.
 
Last edited:
People, this issue about URM is very well established and has been for decades. The categories now are:

Black americans
Native americans
Hispanics

In the 1980s, it was Black Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans (mainland) and Mexican Americans. They expanded to the Hispanic category in the last 10 years I think.

Any variations of that, you are not URM by AMCAS standards. If you are from Burundi, a school may look at you as a token for diversity for that particular school. That is very different than being considered an URM by legal school criteria.
 
Then is Chinese Asian? How about Vietnamese? and Korean? Is there really any Asian ppl then?
 
Are Hispanics considered URM in Texas? I feel like there are more hispanics in texas than white/asian put together
 
longhorn09 said:
Then is Chinese Asian? How about Vietnamese? and Korean? Is there really any Asian ppl then?
Click to expand...


The arguement is that Filipino should be PI. There is a distinct cultural difference between the Philippines and the rest of mainland Asia. As much as it is hard to understand when most barely consider Filipinos Asians, there is a reason. The Filipino culture is vastly different and actually is much more similar to cultures of the Pacific.
 
chinocochino said:
Why are people trying to game the system by being classified as URM? Heck, my friend and I had the same MCAT score and he got multiple full ride scholarships while I got nothing. His GPA was higher but his classes were much easier. (I did a post bac at his school and got a 3.9 in pure science classes)
Click to expand...
So sad that there is no way for say an Indian or East Asian to "game the system" no matter how hard they try...
 
SweetRain said:
Are Hispanics considered URM in Texas? I feel like there are more hispanics in texas than white/asian put together
Click to expand...
Yes dude, they are. URM is about the ratio of hispanic med students to the total hispanic population in the community. I am guessing this ratio for hispanic is still lower than that of other ethnic groups in the great state of Texas.
 
bravofleet4 said:
i feel sad then for the Hmong. Not all Asian groups perform equally socially and economically....those guys are one of the worst off groups in the U.S.
Click to expand...

There are a couple schools out west that consider the Hmong under-represented in medicine so they give them a boost in admissions. I just think there aren't many applying for some reason.
 
Good to see people still posting threads on this issue. I last posted a thread on Students with Full or Partial Filipino background in US Medical Schools when I was a 1st year med student in 2003:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=77120&highlight=filipino

From my experiences as a medical student in the US (MD school in the U.S.) and now finishing my last year of residency (East Coast), yes Filipinos are under-represented from my experience:
1. I was the only Fil-Am in my class of 140+ medical students
2. During medical school, I have only worked with 2 Filipino attendings
3. During internship and residency, I've met only 3 other Fil-Am resident
physicians (of all the hospitals I've rotated in), 1 Filipino fellow, and 1 Filipino attending.

I'd be happy to be a mentor for any Fil-Am premeds or med students out there. Feel free to PM me.

thx.
 
We dont really consider Philippinos asians. they are just philipinos.
 
Actually, the AAMC allows each school to define URM any way they want according to the local area, where the school draws from or the population the graduates are intended to serve, and the needs of that population. There is no URM box on the application. Enter your place of birth, your race, whether you self-identify has hispanic (Hispanics may be of any race), and the languages you speak. The adcom will figure out the rest.
 
LizzyM said:
Actually, the AAMC allows each school to define URM any way they want according to the local area, where the school draws from or the population the graduates are intended to serve, and the needs of that population. There is no URM box on the application. Enter your place of birth, your race, whether you self-identify has hispanic (Hispanics may be of any race), and the languages you speak. The adcom will figure out the rest.
Click to expand...

As an example, one school in ohio considers filipinos (along with hmong, lao, cambodian etc) as URM. Although, generally Filipinos are NOT URMs at most schools
 
How about being 1/2 Afghan and 1/2 Hungarian? Both parents are immigrants.
 
LizzyM said:
I would say definitively that you are not Pacific Islander. 🙄
Click to expand...

No way! haha, no I meant to ask if I can be considered a URM... I never really know which box to check when it comes to race 😛

I know filipinos are underrepresented as doctors (loads of nurses though), but I've never met any hungarian or afghan doctors for that matter either.
 
After a bit of searching, I was unable to find statistics that showed the percentage of Filipinos in the US Physician Workforce. To be URM, that number needs to be lower than the % of Filipinos in the US population at large. /thread
 
LoveUltimate said:
No way! haha, no I meant to ask if I can be considered a URM... I never really know which box to check when it comes to race 😛

I know filipinos are underrepresented as doctors (loads of nurses though), but I've never met any hungarian or afghan doctors for that matter either.
Click to expand...

I know two Hungarian physicians in the US... there really aren't many Afghanis in the US so it is hard to say that they are underrepresented in medicine.

Anyway, how did you self - identify on the US Census this year? That might give you an idea.
 
I would like to christen my first post ever on this thread :idea:
I'm half-Filipino so I checked Filipino as one of my ethnicities, but how they handle mixed-background ethnicity people I do not know.

ilovelanguages said:
After a bit of searching, I was unable to find statistics that showed the percentage of Filipinos in the US Physician Workforce. To be URM, that number needs to be lower than the % of Filipinos in the US population at large. /thread
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the urban environments there are lots of Filipinos, but possibly enough make it into medicine to not have them count as a URM. Never been a big fan of even having race on an application, but I guess that's because I've never been one to take advantage of the system using it?
 
University of Utah SOM considers Filipinos af URM. An admissions rep's reply via e-mail:

.. .Applicants who are not Utah residents must meet one of the requirements listed below in order to be eligible for consideration for our school..
. .
.1. Have significant Utah ties, (i.e. lived in, own property in or have family members who live in Utah.) or.
.2. Apply to the MD/PHD program (permanent US residents only ) or.
.3. Are a member of an underrepresented minority Africans and African Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Chamorros, Polynesians including Native Hawaiians, Tongans, Samoans, Filipinos, Tahitians, Maoris, Fijians, Niueans, Palauans; Chicanos/as and Latinos/as including Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, Central Americans, and South Americans..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
  • Locked
Am I URM? (Serious)
Replies
6
Views
1K
Brandon M.
B
vinestarmed
Am I URM?
Replies
5
Views
1K
vinestarmed
vinestarmed
P
URM Clarification
Replies
7
Views
2K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
J
Am I considered URM?
Replies
4
Views
1K
obiwan
obiwan
U
Absolutely crushed by my MCAT retake. URM 3.5 cGPA, 3.4sGPA, 497 MCAT
Replies
17
Views
1K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
Top