And what is the limit on a personal statement 5100 characters? Good luck fitting all of that in with the obligatory, "I like science and I want to help people and I volunteered here bs."
Is affirmative action in the admission process about to end?
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And that's what the interview is for
Are you serious? How can you go from the median stats of urms being below the national average to almost all urms at top institutions benefitted from AA? Am I the only one that sees how preposterous that is?
Or the disadvantaged section, or the section for background info.And that's what the interview is for
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Oh my gosh! Assuming that does not qualify someone as a racist! Ah! Worst case scenario, it is stereotypical. This is killing me!
I'm not understanding your response to my post. Are you saying that it is justifiable to call him a racist?
IMHO, assuming you're 100% right that that means that, at worst, his interpretation of data is flawed.
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Flaahless has a big a$$ chip on his shoulder or something because not a single racist has yet to post on this thread!
Why are you quoting me? You should have quoted Maxprime first.
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I don't think he has a chip on his shoulder, he is stating his opinions just like everybody else in this thread!
I think this highlights a major reason its hard to discuss topics of inequality, etc. If you're not part of the URM community almost anything you say that's not popular with said community will be declared "racism". People would rather just keep their mouths shut and nod their head than be labeled racist.
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Believe it or not, every discussion about AA isn't about you personally. Seeing as how you represent n==1, I could really care less about the details of your application for the purposes of an AA discussion.
My argument (which you agreed with) is that it's racist to assume something about someone based on their skin color. But you said yourself (in the context of using race in admissions):
These statements are in direct opposition to each other. Either we're to assume certain characteristics about applicants based on their race or not.
If we are then, as you stated, that would be racist. If not, then what purpose is the consideration of race in admissions?
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Okay I'm just trying to say that racist is a pretty harsh descriptor! You have to work pretty hard and go out of your way in order to be racist.
Opinions are cool, calling people racist is not.
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If you think someone has a chip on their shoulder because they're accusing you of attacking them personally, this is pretty much the dumbest way to comment on it.
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i don't think he called anyone racist, I think he more has a problem with some of things people are saying or their thoughts. Some of it does come off real harsh and "racist" like. Not calling anyone a racist but some comments are "racist" like.
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Wrong - big time. Take a second and read about the neurobiology of racism. I don't want to get into a tangent about this in the realm of AA - but the literature is very interesting. People of all races are racist towards each other in little ways every day - what separates us from other species is our ability to use thought and culture to inhibit our dumber responses.
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Well whining about it probably won't do much.
Hot damn, slow down yall. Too much typing to keep up with.
1. I didn't mean to say "I" in reference to myself, it was meant as a hypothetical.
2. I posted the economic disadvantaged as a rehtort to something that nuro????? said. He stated that socioeconomic disadvantages should not be taken into consideration. My argument addressed that and had absolutely nothing to do with race.
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T-minus 21 days and counting - scrambling to finish my thesis right now (hence the 4:30am posts while I have some new code running).
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Yes, I am familiar with a white person's activation of their amygdala when they are prompted with an unfamiliar white face. There is a difference between being prone to prejudice and then acting and speaking on it. Acting and speaking on it is how I define it as racism.
Who did I call a racist?
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Well, there were some comments made on the previous page about "racists", etc, but w/e. I'm not going to worry about it.
This is like the trillionth thread like this I've been a part of, and they're always the same.
I know the second law of thermodynamics states that all energy cannot be turned into work in a cyclical process and because of that, I've been inspired to write the first law of racial political dynamics:
All energy in a heated racial discussion will go into creating a cyclical process and no work will be done
The, "why should race be considered in admissions" question?
On the last page, you "agreed 100%" with someone who called another person a racist. Now that I think about it, I don't even think that person is in the discussion ATM
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They must have realized the foolishness of calling someone out on SDN for being a racist having never met them before.
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Well, I'm going to bed.
I hope this thread doesn't get locked tomorrow just because a few people accused others of being racist (not intended directly at you flaahless). I think it's an interesting topic. I also believe that it will soon be ruled unconstitutional, at least within the next 10-20 years.
Night everybody. It's fricken 2:42 in the morning! Ahh... I have to wake up at eight.
I hope this thread doesn't get locked tomorrow just because a few people accused others of being racist (not intended directly at you flaahless). I think it's an interesting topic. I also believe that it will soon be ruled unconstitutional, at least within the next 10-20 years.
Night everybody. It's fricken 2:42 in the morning! Ahh... I have to wake up at eight.
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Look. AA or not, it is wrong for someone to assume that "most people of a particular ethnic group received preferential treatment." That is incredibly frustrating to deal with. When, as an applicant, many of us (urms) are no different than you. We want to be a doctor, we try our hardest to pursue our dream, and when or if we attain it, there are plenty of individuals to pull the race card and remind us that we are different. That we "benefitted" from something or didn't get in on our own merits and our advice and/or opinions can be disregarded because we are urms and the rules are universally different for us.Well, there were some comments made on the previous page about "racists", etc, but w/e. I'm not going to worry about it.
This is like the trillionth thread like this I've been a part of, and they're always the same.
I know the second law of thermodynamics states that all energy cannot be turned into work in a cyclical process and because of that, I've been inspired to write the first law of racial politics:
All heat energy in a racial discussion will go into creating a cyclical process and no work will be done
And whenever these urm and AA debates jump off, it seems to always boil down to a black vs. white issue.
ie: There is the "I have a black friend at harvard who doesn't deserve to be there..." story. There is the "matriculation numbers of black med students are lower than the national average so virtually every urm is underqualified and needed a handout..." story. There is the "why aren't poor whites given preferential treatment" story. The latter is really ridiculous because there is no published data on that.
I wonder where is the the story about the underqualified caucasian woman? Or the war veteran? Or the disabled student? Why is it always black vs. white.
And that's what these threads boil down to. Black vs. white. And I'll be damned if I let someone post overly general data and then draw illogical and irrational conclusions from that only to perpetuate the negative prejudices that urm applicants have to deal with. Read back a few pages. I didn't take the thread there, but that's where it always goes. It starts on topic until some disgruntled, jealous, envious, prejudiced premed posts some data and concludes that black people are inferior without explicitly saying it ala James Watson.
This thread started out on topic. I didn't take it there.
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I agreed to the statements about the HBCUs and how Partos conclusions were invalid and flawed.On the last page, you "agreed 100%" with someone who called another person a racist. Now that I think about it, I don't even think that person is in the discussion ATM
To create a med school class that accurately reflects the demographics of the country and to increase diversity in the profession. Ie: If I opened flaahless SOM, I would try and select a diverse class in all regards, gender, ethnicity, economics, clinical vs. research, Ivy vs. State, nontrad and trads etc. But that's just me.
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I think that AA will and should stick around for the long run if it's revamped to focus on socioeconomic background and personal hardships, since there will always be folks who are truly disadvantaged. As it stands though, it looks like the system is broken/flawed, in that it doesn't factor in socioeconomic background to a significant degree (at least not for undergrad). The linked NY Times article details this problem. It's a long read for those who are interested, but the main gist of the article can be found in this excerpt:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30affirmative-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin
"The more expansive idea of affirmative action as a counterweight to those unseen forces has become tightly linked to the self-image of American universities. Above all else, they are supposed to be meritocracies. To be truly meritocratic, a college must be diverse or else accept that some groups in society have less merit than others and their underrepresentation cant be helped. University administrators clearly reject this second view, and as a result the best colleges are now filled with students of both sexes and every imaginable race and religion. If you were to ask admissions officers whether they also gave special consideration to low-income applicants whether they gave them credit for overcoming Johnsons unseen forces the officers would say that, absolutely, they did.
In truth, however, they did not. Three years ago, William Bowen (the former president of Princeton) and two other researchers discovered what was really going on. They persuaded 19 elite colleges including Harvard, Middlebury and Virginia to let them analyze their admissions records. The easiest way to understand the results is to imagine a group of students who each have the same SAT scores. Holding that equal, a recruited athlete was 30 percentage points more likely to be admitted than a nonathlete. A black, Latino or Native American student was 28 percentage points more likely to be admitted than a white or Asian student. A legacy received a 20-percentage-point boost over someone whose parents hadnt attended that college. And low-income students? They received no advantage whatsoever. A poor white kid from upstate New York would be treated no differently from a white kid in Chappaqua. Frances Harris would get no more of a leg up than the black daughter of corporate lawyers.
Bowen says he doesnt believe that admissions deans were lying when they said that their affirmative-action programs took social class into account. The colleges apparently put even more stock in the polish that comes with affluence the well-edited essay, the summer trip to Guatemala, the Arabic language lessons. In any case, the poor lose.
There are some big problems with this approach to affirmative action. For one thing, it rests on a very rickety base of political support. Colleges often resort to huge preferences to create a racially diverse student body, especially if they havent been giving any advantage to low-income applicants, who are of course disproportionately minorities. And many of the beneficiaries of the preferences end up being upper-middle-class minority students, since they tend to have better test scores than poor minorities. The helping hand that goes to these relatively well-off nonwhite students strikes many people as unjust. It makes it seem as if affirmative action isnt making good on its larger promise. Affirmative action becomes about mere diversity and not even all forms of diversity rather than fairness. Politically, that has made it weaker and weaker."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30affirmative-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin
"The more expansive idea of affirmative action as a counterweight to those unseen forces has become tightly linked to the self-image of American universities. Above all else, they are supposed to be meritocracies. To be truly meritocratic, a college must be diverse or else accept that some groups in society have less merit than others and their underrepresentation cant be helped. University administrators clearly reject this second view, and as a result the best colleges are now filled with students of both sexes and every imaginable race and religion. If you were to ask admissions officers whether they also gave special consideration to low-income applicants whether they gave them credit for overcoming Johnsons unseen forces the officers would say that, absolutely, they did.
In truth, however, they did not. Three years ago, William Bowen (the former president of Princeton) and two other researchers discovered what was really going on. They persuaded 19 elite colleges including Harvard, Middlebury and Virginia to let them analyze their admissions records. The easiest way to understand the results is to imagine a group of students who each have the same SAT scores. Holding that equal, a recruited athlete was 30 percentage points more likely to be admitted than a nonathlete. A black, Latino or Native American student was 28 percentage points more likely to be admitted than a white or Asian student. A legacy received a 20-percentage-point boost over someone whose parents hadnt attended that college. And low-income students? They received no advantage whatsoever. A poor white kid from upstate New York would be treated no differently from a white kid in Chappaqua. Frances Harris would get no more of a leg up than the black daughter of corporate lawyers.
Bowen says he doesnt believe that admissions deans were lying when they said that their affirmative-action programs took social class into account. The colleges apparently put even more stock in the polish that comes with affluence the well-edited essay, the summer trip to Guatemala, the Arabic language lessons. In any case, the poor lose.
There are some big problems with this approach to affirmative action. For one thing, it rests on a very rickety base of political support. Colleges often resort to huge preferences to create a racially diverse student body, especially if they havent been giving any advantage to low-income applicants, who are of course disproportionately minorities. And many of the beneficiaries of the preferences end up being upper-middle-class minority students, since they tend to have better test scores than poor minorities. The helping hand that goes to these relatively well-off nonwhite students strikes many people as unjust. It makes it seem as if affirmative action isnt making good on its larger promise. Affirmative action becomes about mere diversity and not even all forms of diversity rather than fairness. Politically, that has made it weaker and weaker."
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100% Cosign. There should be an AA version of Godwin's Law stating that as an AA discussion persists, the probability of it turning into a "black vs white" issue is 100%. It's disgusting.
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AA is a joke. a complete joke. discrimination is discrimination and as long as AA is around, debates like this one will go on. black vs white. you dont deserve this or that.
find a better way to help those in need based on something else and not their skin color.
find a better way to help those in need based on something else and not their skin color.
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This thread needs to stay civil and avoid personal insults.
You've already had at least 1 warning, this is the last.
If the debate deteriorates again, this thread will be closed.
You've already had at least 1 warning, this is the last.
If the debate deteriorates again, this thread will be closed.
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It's always depressing to see people in an anonymous internet forum discuss race or affirmative action.
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Dude, I have posted links supporting virtually every assertion I have made, including data provided by supporters of AA, such as the AAMC and med school admission committees. This isnt some hypothetical- texasu stopped using AA and black acceptances declined by almost 90%. You shouldnt be so closed-minded, I provided links to credible data from credible institutions. One of the primary arguments in all the supreme court cases from admissions committees who support AA is that if they are no longer allowed to use AA, there would be hardly any blacks in med school.
I resent that youre calling me a racist. If you had cited any links backing up any of your points I would definitely read them and consider their source and validity. But naturally, you didnt, and resorted to name-calling.
The reason im focusing in black AA is because they receive the lions share of all AA. No other groups come close (except native Americans, but so few ever even apply). Look at the aamc chart I linked to. Also, remember in the gratz case- Michigan revealed that black applicants received a 20 point boost- which was greater boost than received for disadvantaged, being an alumni and for scoring a perfect SAT, combined. No other racial, ethnic or gender received an advantage anywhere close.
Like I said, I dont oppose racial prefrences in admissions, but I hate when people pretend that it doesnt really exist. So how about you dispense with the name-calling and start backing up your assertions with cites or links, instead of just wild rhetoric.
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All I have to say is this: A while ago on the radio a host said that he thought America should get a pat on its back for the progress its made in racism. I found this amusing that he was suggesting we should get a pat on our back for not beating blacks in the streets, or not hanging or enslaving them, or not forcing chinese to work on railroads for near slave wages, or for loosing the mass public malevolence towards hispanics be them legal or not (oh wait, we still have that).
If you think the effects of these pervasive racist traditions of our history (and present) were merely superficial and lasted only in the generations they occured, I disagree. Affirmative Action is intended as a way to counteract the large history this country has had towards discrimination and prejudice by helping those groups back to their feat, not giving them wings above the rest.
However, more importantly, regardless of what value we attribute to the affirmative action process, I think what we should keep in mind is that it is intended to strengthen diversity and minority relations, not incite greater hatred and animosity on both sides once it's perpetuation is brought up.
And to whomever mentioned that Berkeley still uses AA despite the rulings:
...Just depressing.
If you think the effects of these pervasive racist traditions of our history (and present) were merely superficial and lasted only in the generations they occured, I disagree. Affirmative Action is intended as a way to counteract the large history this country has had towards discrimination and prejudice by helping those groups back to their feat, not giving them wings above the rest.
However, more importantly, regardless of what value we attribute to the affirmative action process, I think what we should keep in mind is that it is intended to strengthen diversity and minority relations, not incite greater hatred and animosity on both sides once it's perpetuation is brought up.
And to whomever mentioned that Berkeley still uses AA despite the rulings:
- <1% American Indian/Alaskan Native
- 45% Asian/Pacific Islander
- 3% Black/Non-Hispanic
- 12% Hispanic
- 30% White/Non-Hispanic
- 3% Non-Resident Alien
- 7% Race/ethnicity unreported
...Just depressing.
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For those who missed it:
Without affirmative action, 80% fewer minorities would have been enrolled in U.S. medical schools in 1996, according to data released by the Association of American Medical Colleges.5
"One year after affirmative action was challenged, the University of Texas Law School reduced the number of African Americans by enrolled 88%. Without affirmative action"
http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/journal_of_health_care_for_the_poor_and_underserved/v016/16.1frazer.html
previously unreleased data by the JBSE from the aamc shows that in a race-neutral admissions enviroment black enrollment at top medical schools may drop by 90%.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2998877
Without affirmative action, 80% fewer minorities would have been enrolled in U.S. medical schools in 1996, according to data released by the Association of American Medical Colleges.5
"One year after affirmative action was challenged, the University of Texas Law School reduced the number of African Americans by enrolled 88%. Without affirmative action"
http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/journal_of_health_care_for_the_poor_and_underserved/v016/16.1frazer.html
previously unreleased data by the JBSE from the aamc shows that in a race-neutral admissions enviroment black enrollment at top medical schools may drop by 90%.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2998877
D
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I agree that most blacks wouldn't get into to most medical schools without a little help, and I'm black. Though you may want to argue against the numbers when it comes down to it there is no substantial evidence to prove otherwise. This in no way proves that blacks are innately not as intelligent as any other race, but it does say something about the direct correlation between socioeconomic status and education/race in this country.
I've been to both schools, black and white, and they are not the same. The education of black students in this country is so subpar that its sickening. So considering the fact that almost 80% of black students go to predominately black schools, one can deduce that most of these schools are less than stellar. Couple this with the fact that 1 in 4 of these kids is extremely poor, compared to less than 1 in 10 for whites, and you have a severe uphill climb when it comes to being black and getting a good education in this country.
I've been to both schools, black and white, and they are not the same. The education of black students in this country is so subpar that its sickening. So considering the fact that almost 80% of black students go to predominately black schools, one can deduce that most of these schools are less than stellar. Couple this with the fact that 1 in 4 of these kids is extremely poor, compared to less than 1 in 10 for whites, and you have a severe uphill climb when it comes to being black and getting a good education in this country.
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I have mixed feelings on the topic. How does the idea of white privilege factor into the discussion of AA? I do think there is an inherent privilege by being white in this society, whether you realize it or not. I apologize for not having the source or specific stat, but I was once told that if AA were eliminated it would increase an applicants chance of acceptance by 0.5-1% (I'll try to find it). The way I see it sometimes is that since there are typically less than 10 URM in a given medical school class, URM students are fighting for 1 out of 10 spots.
If you have ever volunteered in an urban clinic than it is hard to argue the importance of having role models in the community that come from similar backgrounds or look like them. I think if a person got over the fear that they are going to be left behind because of AA and saw all the advantages you already have there wouldn't be so much apprehension around the topic. It's a small price to pay for improving society as a whole, but that's just me.
If you have ever volunteered in an urban clinic than it is hard to argue the importance of having role models in the community that come from similar backgrounds or look like them. I think if a person got over the fear that they are going to be left behind because of AA and saw all the advantages you already have there wouldn't be so much apprehension around the topic. It's a small price to pay for improving society as a whole, but that's just me.
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Sorry to bring up old news, but why do we need more African American physicians? If you can answer that, than I will believe in AA. Hopefully your answer will explain why they can do something a white guy can't.
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So white people don't get blamed for putting minorities down.
Might it be because less apply?
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no, no, no. again you are assuming AA is the reason most/all blacks w/ low stats are in med school, which is really silly.
also, you are missing my point.
my point was that AA is just a label
adcom will continue to do what they want to do. are you telling me adcom in private schools are being forced admit urms over non-urms?? if that's what is going on, it is going on because they want it to. even if you ban AA you cant point to a student and say s/he was admitted to X school because of AA unless there was some blatant initiative like a point system that gave minorities a boost. the admissions game is a very subjective one because to even be considered for admissions, the objective parts like gpa and mcat have meet minimum requirements (which is really easy to do, just call up the schools that screen and ask for their cut-offs). you guys should know this.. thats why some people with great stats get rejected from every single school they apply to. lors, ECs, essays, interviews, etc., play a big role in admissions so adcom can sift through the myriad of accomplished and qualified applicants.
i realize a 25 and 3.2 are not great scores, but i shrug it off. gpa is low, but gpa can be mis-leading as it does not factor in upward trends. the mcat is a little low for an average, 5-6 pts below the matriculating avg i believe. if they get accepted with those scores, it just means that those scores are a good enough indication of being capable of completing med school, right?
by the way, your stat was of black applicants in 05
numbers are on the rise.. they'll get better each year
haha, my numbers wont be that low when i apply in 3 years
:wink:
