Is it easier to get into med school if you're not white?

[flodhi1]

Yea, good point. The demand to see someone of the same race however cannot always be met. I wonder if they sue if someone of a different race saves their life.



Yea it would, but I have a feeling it would depend more on economic and geographical aspects not so much as race. I mean someone living in the suburbs of Cali wouldn't care as much to see a physician of a different race as compared to someone in Brooklyn or Oakland.

I agree that economic, geographical aspects and social economic backgrounds as a whole shape individuals and areas in different ways but in the end of the day racism will always occur. It is important for this healthcare to have a diversity of physicians to meet the requirement of these patients. Just because there was a different standard for accepting a Native American to medical school than a Caucasian does not change the fact that all Physicians must pass medical school, USMLE board exams, residency and possibly fellowship exams. All physicians are deemed competent according to the standards of medical education if they were not they wouldn't be licensed. Therefore, these dumb affirmative action, race, URM threads really need to come to a stop. Condone or challenge racism all you want guys, this is America and racism will never end. Any physician that tries to end racism in a country with a population greater than 300 million individuals will most likely lose their license and get shot. Welcome to America pretty soon you will realize that even as a physician you will not be allowed to do the right things because your hands will be tied behind your back. I think it's important for all of us premeds to gain clinical experience and see that the medical field is not shaped perfectly as us premeds would imagine it to be.

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[realmeaning]

Nay. Far too long have whites been held down by Asians.

Sarcasm, I'm assuming?

I really shouldn't be wasting my time commenting on threads that have anything to do with race. It's always a ****show.

Edit: Actually, I don't think threads that deal with race and affirmative action are always negative. I'm not sure why some people want this thread deleted (unless it's because of redundancy, which is totally understandable). As a minority myself, not UR, (un?)fortunately, I'm curious as to how race and ethnicity play into acceptance statistics. Being new to the whole pre-med game, I'm curious to learn "what my chances are" in relation to my academics, ECs, everything-- and that includes race. It's true that these threads online can often turn into trite arguments and are a hotbed of ignorance, but they can also be informative. I don't think we should shy away from the race issue. Are all SDN members mature enough to handle it? That's another question.

 

[gettheleadout]

Whats with the condescending winky face bro? I never said it was did I?

I didn't mean it to be condescending...

I just meant it as a playful wink.

 

[Neurosis]

Whats with the condescending winky face bro? I never said it was did I?

someone is a sensitive sally.

 

[jHustle]

Can't we all just get alone? (...listening to "changes"-tupac)

 

[weezynation]

I go to school in a very liberal state, and yes i have over 500 hours of volunteering in a hospital setting. This is what i have seen. The pediatrician i shadow often graduated from harvard and hes white, yet i have never seen the patients disrespect him or have any trouble "connecting". The whole argument i made about socioeconomics is about background. Your socioeconomic background builds your emotional background. A poor person who became rich is more likely to be empathetic to the poor rather than a rich person who has always been rich. (does skin color really matter here? no)

You are out of touch with reality. People like you are the reason why diversity is great in medical school so you can get some perspective into the life of a URM and then you can come back to reality.

 

[Ashley1989]

I didn't mean it to be condescending...

I just meant it as a playful wink.

Awww don't worry I saw your comment as a playful wink as well and not at all condescending. +1 for you

 

[damitusbrown]

Being black myself, I can tell you the importance of "lowering standards" for black applicants. When I was applying to colleges, I had a 3.6 gpa and a 1500 SAT score. Although I wasn't considered competitive, I got into many of the top schools including University of Miami, Emory, Georgetown and BC where I amcurrently attending. After my first year, I finished with a 3.2 gpa and although not the best gpa, I can say that I outperformed many of my classmates who made it to BC only because of their parents $$. Coming from Washington DC which has the 2nd worst school system in the nation, I was behind in calculus, english and my science classes. After seeing my classmates excel in courses because they had parents who sent them to top private schools in the country, I have nothing against URM's having an advantage. I remember being accepted to Sidwell friends in DC (school where Obama's daughters go to) but could not attend because my parents could not afford it. Im not saying that all URM's came from bad neighborhoods and had really difficult lives however all my black friends at BC went though the same thing I went through. Its also proven that your parents wealth is correlated with success academically, I mean some students struggling in a course could easily call their parents and buy a tutor. I could keep rambling about all the problems I had to deal with being black... not saying that blacks are the only ones that experience these problems, but they are more prevalent with URMs.

Now im not saying that students should rely on being a URM to get into med school, but there is something more to a URM having a lower GPA

 

[SpecterGT260]

And I don't think you understand how to think outside the box. What does it tell you when an entire racial group scores below another and with URM "advantage" still about 15% less get accepted than whites/asians? It tells me that URM is not an advantage but rather an equalizer for a population, in general, that has to struggle with more BS than another.

Now I expect to have someone reply with the "black billionaire" example of how he/she has it easy.

But seriously, if you're white and want affirmative action, just apply to DO school. In exchange, you become a minority too (sort of).

No... I understand it just fine whatever a demographic group scores is irrelevant. Fine. call it a normalization if you want. My point was in contrast to the idea that URMs are not granted relative leniency. Further interpretation from there by you does not demonstrate an inability on my part to think outside the box but rather just demonstrates some need to call me out based on our discussions of your nonsense in the past

 

[LizzyM]

So if it's so subjective do you guys actually take a look into that? When you see a 3.9 vs a 3.7?

There are times when an adcom member might wonder if a black man with a 3.5 might have had a 3.7 if he had been white. Grading being subjective and all that....

 

[SpecterGT260]

There are times when an adcom member might wonder if a black man with a 3.5 might have had a 3.7 if he had been white. Grading being subjective and all that....

is there any literature or guidelines that are applied to that, or does the adcom member just pull that 0.2 right out of any commonly cited orifice?

I would suspect that race is a coincidental variable and socioeconomic status plays a much bigger role.

 

[Coldsoldier]

You are out of touch with reality. People like you are the reason why diversity is great in medical school so you can get some perspective into the life of a URM and then you can come back to reality.

Its his reality. You have no grounds of telling him his own view is in-correct as yours in based on the same principles. Its called life experiences. Everyone has a different one, doesn't make theirs "out of touch" and it doesn't make yours right.

 

[deleted382095]

I am that way too, but I grew up in a different bubble. I live in San Francisco. Racism is not very high here, although it exists. However, I do see how the older generation prefers doctors from their race because they are scared of being lied to or given false things. Black people are scared from Tuskegee. Undocumented immigrants are more likely to go to a Hispanic doctor thinking that he'll understand them and not report them for deportation. Things like this are real. You will see them more as you age and spend time around these populations.

kudo +1

 

[beethousand]

It's easy to say you don't see discrimination when you're not the person on the receiving end. I would caution people in making assumptions based on limited anecdotes about race. there are more explicit forms of racism but also more subtle forms that exist daily and add up over time. Google the study about perceptions of white and black dolls by children for example. The majority of matriculants are white and did not grow up anywhere near poverty. med schools are trying to increase diversity to serve diverse populations. It is an advantage to the community to create physicians who can relate to their experiences, and often times the typical applicant is lacking that perspective. just my two cents.

 

[WhizoMD]

I always see discussions about racist patients in these threads, while the (in my experience) significant amount of culturally ignorant --in some cases, unabashedly racist-- physicians are never brought up. Do you guys think doctors are too smart to be culturally incompetent?

The increasingly diverse pool of peers/experiences is one of the main benefits of URM admissions imo. Medical education in the last few decades--and to a slightly lesser extent today-- was racially and socioeconomically isolated, and it shows. I don't think we'll get to the implied goal of URM student populations matching their representation in the general population any time soon. But, I think having students exposed to different perspectives within their peer group will allow them to leave the bubble when dealing with patients from different groups.

 

[StBernardsRule]

While I agree with this (I am Asian so I understand the "obstacles" ORM face), that isn't the point of URM and AA.

The point of the URM status is to just get diversity in health care. If this status was an endeavor to compensate the struggles and obstacles URM's face, then it's an incredibly poor standard and should be eliminated right away. They should base applicants on socio-economic status for that.

The point of it is (while I still disagree) is diversity. We still live in a pretty racist society. Diversity in healthcare is still needed for the best healthcare.

I was simply addressing the point that it is ridiculous to assume since one group is over represented and another underrepresented that it implies some sort of hardship and/or discrimination for the underrepresented group. I don't, for example, think whites or Asians face any discrimination for becoming basketball players despite being underrepresented.

Whether or not the benefits from giving a very hefty advantage to URM justify the practice is a totally separate issue.

 

[weezynation]

Its his reality. You have no grounds of telling him his own view is in-correct as yours in based on the same principles. Its called life experiences. Everyone has a different one, doesn't make theirs "out of touch" and it doesn't make yours right.

Just because someone lives in a place where, according to him/her, there is no patient preference in reference to a physician's race based on what they've seen with his/her own eyes, this does not make it reality in the medical world just because that is their experience. This is not about what one person sees in their little bubble. So, yes I do have a basis for telling that person their view is incorrect. If that person's experience was reality, why would medical schools make such an effort to include URM status in admissions? I guess adcoms have no idea what they are talking about, huh? This is the same as if you were to say, "in my eyes and according to my experiences, racism does not exist." People say this all the same. Does this mean it's reality? Nope.

 

[LizzyM]

In my experience, even at a top tier school, a hard working student with a 3.2 and a 26 can succeed and graduate in 4 years. The odds are not as good as they are for someone with a 3.8/35 but they are not bad, maybe 95%. So, if we can assume that a hard worker with a 3.2/26 can be successful in medical school we have a very large pool from which to select applicants. If we put everyone with those stats in the pool, how shall we select the 5-15% of applicants who we can actually admit? You might say that we should pick the top scorers, and some schools do, but if the lower scorers are equally likely to graduate in 4 years and pass the boards, on what rationale should be choose the highest scorers? What else should go into the decision?

 

[seracus]

In my experience, even at a top tier school, a hard working student with a 3.2 and a 26 can succeed and graduate in 4 years. The odds are not as good as they are for someone with a 3.8/35 but they are not bad, maybe 95%. So, if we can assume that a hard worker with a 3.2/26 can be successful in medical school we have a very large pool from which to select applicants. If we put everyone with those stats in the pool, how shall we select the 5-15% of applicants who we can actually admit? You might say that we should pick the top scorers, and some schools do, but if the lower scorers are equally likely to graduate in 4 years and pass the boards, on what rationale should be choose the highest scorers? What else should go into the decision?

But do you want a class of people who just passed or a class of people who not only passed but excelled? If I were an admin, I wouldn't be looking for people who could graduate in four years. That would already be a given. My bar would be much higher: I would be looking for people who would become leaders in medicine, people who 20 years down the line would be turning out NEJM papers every six months, people who would become the very best doctors in the nation. I wouldn't settle for passing.

 

[sotto voce]

Being black myself, I can tell you the importance of "lowering standards" for black applicants. When I was applying to colleges, I had a 3.6 gpa and a 1500 SAT score. Although I wasn't considered competitive, I got into many of the top schools including University of Miami, Emory, Georgetown and BC where I amcurrently attending. After my first year, I finished with a 3.2 gpa and although not the best gpa, I can say that I outperformed many of my classmates who made it to BC only because of their parents $$. Coming from Washington DC which has the 2nd worst school system in the nation, I was behind in calculus, english and my science classes. After seeing my classmates excel in courses because they had parents who sent them to top private schools in the country, I have nothing against URM's having an advantage. I remember being accepted to Sidwell friends in DC (school where Obama's daughters go to) but could not attend because my parents could not afford it. Im not saying that all URM's came from bad neighborhoods and had really difficult lives however all my black friends at BC went though the same thing I went through. Its also proven that your parents wealth is correlated with success academically, I mean some students struggling in a course could easily call their parents and buy a tutor. I could keep rambling about all the problems I had to deal with being black... not saying that blacks are the only ones that experience these problems, but they are more prevalent with URMs.

Now im not saying that students should rely on being a URM to get into med school, but there is something more to a URM having a lower GPA

1. You probably got into BC on your own merit. Don't downplay a 1500 on the SAT (hopefully that's out of 1600; if not, I hope to God you're never my doctor).

2. Your story is the reason AA should be based on socioeconomic status. Why do black students with parents making, $80,000+ a year need an advantage? They don't. Rather, the students from low-income familes who likely faced unique struggles may need a boost. That includes you, but it also includes poor Asians, poor whites, poor Mexicans, poor Africans, poor Pakistanis, poor Ukrainians, etc. Your struggles as a poor black person demonstrate why AA should benefit poor people, not people of any particular race.

 

[weezynation]

But do you want a class of people who just passed or a class of people who not only passed but excelled? If I were an admin, I wouldn't be looking for people who could graduate in four years. That would already be a given. My bar would be much higher: I would be looking for people who would become leaders in medicine, people who 20 years down the line would be turning out NEJM papers every six months, people who would become the very best doctors in the nation. I wouldn't settle for passing.

Who says a person with a 3.2 and 26 couldn't accomplish all of those feats? I'm not bashing you for being inquisitive because it is a valid question, but I think this is why adcoms are adcoms and we arent. We just do not understand all the intricacies of choosing a class in which the individual students will go on to succeed in their respective fields.

 

[weezynation]

1. You probably got into BC on your own merit. Don't downplay a 1500 on the SAT (hopefully that's out of 1600; if not, I hope to God you're never my doctor).

2. Your story is the reason AA should be based on socioeconomic status. Why do black students with parents making, $80,000+ a year need an advantage? They don't. Rather, the students from low-income familes who likely faced unique struggles may need a boost. That includes you, but it also includes poor Asians, poor whites, poor Mexicans, poor Africans, poor Pakistanis, poor Ukrainians, etc. Your struggles as a poor black person demonstrate why AA should benefit poor people, not people of any particular race.



If this is actually what you do (and I hope it isn't), your logic is pretty bad. Students in the humanities and social sciences would have faced a lot of subjective grading, but that's just not the case for science majors. You either know how to do physics or you don't. That said, since majors in the humanities and social sciences are easier anyway, no race-based adjustment is necessary. Unless you're choosing between an Asian with a 3.9 in Anthropology and a Black with a 3.7 in English Literature, for example.

I think what you probably meant to say is, your school's medians are ~3.9 and ~35, and you're delighted to find a black applicant with a ~3.7 and ~32. You get diversity without the prestige of your school taking a hit.

Some SDN people never cease to amaze me. It's bad enough people saying someone is going to be a terrible doctor based on an mcat score, but now this person is going to be a terrible doctor because of their SAT score? Wow.

In response to everything else you said...you realize you just told an adcom she doesn't know what she's doing and then corrected her based on what you feel she "meant to say." You've lost it.

 

[LizzyM]

But do you want a class of people who just passed or a class of people who not only passed but excelled? If I were an admin, I wouldn't be looking for people who could graduate in four years. That would already be a given. My bar would be much higher: I would be looking for people who would become leaders in medicine, people who 20 years down the line would be turning out NEJM papers every six months, people who would become the very best doctors in the nation. I wouldn't settle for passing.

It all depends on the school's mission. If my school were funded by state taxes and owed its existance to the need for primary care providers in my state, then creating leaders turning out NEJM papers would not be what we would be shooting for in selecting a class.

Also, again you are equating "the best doctors" with academic achievement. Are the greatest artists those who had the highest scores in art school?

 

[seracus]

Who says a person with a 3.2 and 26 couldn't accomplish all of those feats? I'm not bashing you for being inquisitive because it is a valid question, but I think this is why adcoms are adcoms and we arent. We just do not understand all the intricacies of choosing a class in which the individual students will go on to succeed in their respective fields.

I never meant to imply that someone with lower scores could not excel. However, with any attempt at selecting a group of people for a particular task, you have to take into consideration whatever data you have available so you can better play the odds at achieving excellence. I have no study to link to which demonstrates that people who excel in academics or extracurriculars are more likely to excel in their career, but I would suspect this to be the case. One could also imagine how a certain sociocultural background could motivate someone to excel in a specific area (for example, health policy affecting underrepresented areas in medicine).

 

[sotto voce]

In my experience, even at a top tier school, a hard working student with a 3.2 and a 26 can succeed and graduate in 4 years. The odds are not as good as they are for someone with a 3.8/35 but they are not bad, maybe 95%. So, if we can assume that a hard worker with a 3.2/26 can be successful in medical school we have a very large pool from which to select applicants. If we put everyone with those stats in the pool, how shall we select the 5-15% of applicants who we can actually admit? You might say that we should pick the top scorers, and some schools do, but if the lower scorers are equally likely to graduate in 4 years and pass the boards, on what rationale should be choose the highest scorers? What else should go into the decision?

Just out of curiosity, in admissions do you consider the fact that the black students you admit fare worse on the USMLE Step 1, are less likely to get a residency, and provide worse care for patients? (This assumes Step 1 performance and performance as a doctor linked, which seems very likely.)(Also, poor treatment is better than no treatment, so if black doctors are more likely to practice underserved areas, that's worth noting. However, I have seen no evidence of this.)

From U of M, regarding USMLE Step 1:

"In 2003, the median score for black students was 17 points lower than the median for Asians and 20 points lower than the white median. Scores for black students at the 75th percentile were roughly the same as the scores for Asian and white students at the 25th percentile. In other words, 75 percent of black students taking the test in 2003 scored lower than 75 percent of Asian and white students taking the test that year."

 

[sotto voce]

Who says a person with a 3.2 and 26 couldn't accomplish all of those feats? I'm not bashing you for being inquisitive because it is a valid question, but I think this is why adcoms are adcoms and we arent. We just do not understand all the intricacies of choosing a class in which the individual students will go on to succeed in their respective fields.

MCAT score correlates strongly with USMLE Step 1.

Mediocre MCAT ==> Mediocre Step 1 ==> Mediocre Doctor

 

[AestheticGod]

How do i delete a thread?

 

[weezynation]

MCAT score correlates strongly with USMLE Step 1.

Mediocre MCAT ==> Mediocre Step 1 ==> Mediocre Doctor

I always hear this on SDN but is it based in fact? I am not saying it isn't fact; I just want to make sure the correlation between mcat and step 1 isnt just hearsay. Maybe Lizzy M can comment on this. I personally have a Black friend who got a 25 mcat and recently got well above the average for Step 1. This may be an outlier but he told me the trickiness of the mcat tripped him up a lot even though he knew the science material; however, he said the step 1 (although it had more info on it) was more straight-forward so he found it easier than the mcat.

 

[gettheleadout]

MCAT score correlates strongly with USMLE Step 1.

Eh, no.

Mediocre MCAT ==> Mediocre Step 1 ==> Mediocre Doctor

Have you a measured correlation between Step 1 score and clinical outcomes?

I always hear this on SDN but is it based in fact? I am not saying it isn't fact; I just want to make sure the correlation between mcat and step 1 isnt just hearsay. Maybe Lizzy M can comment on this. I personally have a Black friend who got a 25 mcat and recently got well above the average for Step 1. This may be an outlier but he told me the trickiness of the mcat tripped him up a lot even though he knew the science material; however, he said the step 1 (although it had more info on it) was more straight-forward so he found it easier than the mcat.

A small to moderate correlation was also found between MCAT and USMLE scores, with r values ranging from 0.38 to 0.60. This correlation was highest for USMLE Step 1. Among the different MCAT subsets, the highest correlation was found for the biological sciences and verbal sections.

Source: http://www.usmleworld.com/Step1/step1_facts.aspx

 

[seracus]

I always hear this on SDN but is it based in fact? I am not saying it isn't fact; I just want to make sure the correlation between mcat and step 1 isnt just hearsay. Maybe Lizzy M can comment on this. I personally have a Black friend who got a 25 mcat and recently got well above the average for Step 1. This may be an outlier but he told me the trickiness of the mcat tripped him up a lot even though he knew the science material; however, he said the step 1 (although it had more info on it) was more straight-forward so he found it easier than the mcat.

http://journals.lww.com/academicmed...rgraduate_institutional_mcat_scores_as.5.aspx

A quotation from the Discussion section:

"Consistent with findings from previous studies, this study demonstrated that undergraduate science GPAs and MCAT scores are strong predictors of standardized test performances during medical school."

 

[sotto voce]

Eh, no.

Have you a measured correlation between Step 1 score and clinical outcomes?



Source: http://www.usmleworld.com/Step1/step1_facts.aspx

0.72 according to the University of Michigan.

UG sGPA also is pretty good.

 

[MedPR]

Being black myself, I can tell you the importance of "lowering standards" for black applicants. When I was applying to colleges, I had a 3.6 gpa and a 1500 SAT score. Although I wasn't considered competitive, I got into many of the top schools including University of Miami, Emory, Georgetown and BC where I amcurrently attending. After my first year, I finished with a 3.2 gpa and although not the best gpa, I can say that I outperformed many of my classmates who made it to BC only because of their parents $$. Coming from Washington DC which has the 2nd worst school system in the nation, I was behind in calculus, english and my science classes. After seeing my classmates excel in courses because they had parents who sent them to top private schools in the country, I have nothing against URM's having an advantage. I remember being accepted to Sidwell friends in DC (school where Obama's daughters go to) but could not attend because my parents could not afford it. Im not saying that all URM's came from bad neighborhoods and had really difficult lives however all my black friends at BC went though the same thing I went through. Its also proven that your parents wealth is correlated with success academically, I mean some students struggling in a course could easily call their parents and buy a tutor. I could keep rambling about all the problems I had to deal with being black... not saying that blacks are the only ones that experience these problems, but they are more prevalent with URMs.

Now im not saying that students should rely on being a URM to get into med school, but there is something more to a URM having a lower GPA

You have a great story, and I'm sure your story is what most people think of when they see a struggling black guy in their classes, but that doesn't mean it's true for all URMs. The main thing I was saying in my first post was that being a member of a disadvantaged race does not necessarily make you a better applicant than someone from an advantaged race (white/asian) with lower stats than their race's average.

I am that way too, but I grew up in a different bubble. I live in San Francisco. Racism is not very high here, although it exists. However, I do see how the older generation prefers doctors from their race because they are scared of being lied to or given false things. Black people are scared from Tuskegee. Undocumented immigrants are more likely to go to a Hispanic doctor thinking that he'll understand them and not report them for deportation. Things like this are real. You will see them more as you age and spend time around these populations.

I've definitely seen what you are talking about and I know it exists. I hadn't thought about it from that point of view when I approached this thread, but you're right and I can see that now.

In my experience, even at a top tier school, a hard working student with a 3.2 and a 26 can succeed and graduate in 4 years. The odds are not as good as they are for someone with a 3.8/35 but they are not bad, maybe 95%. So, if we can assume that a hard worker with a 3.2/26 can be successful in medical school we have a very large pool from which to select applicants. If we put everyone with those stats in the pool, how shall we select the 5-15% of applicants who we can actually admit? You might say that we should pick the top scorers, and some schools do, but if the lower scorers are equally likely to graduate in 4 years and pass the boards, on what rationale should be choose the highest scorers? What else should go into the decision?

I agree with what you're saying, but if you have two applicants, one black and one asian, both with a 3.2/26, I think it's pretty safe to assume that no ADCOM would even consider the asian student, while many would give the black student the benefit of the doubt because of their race and possible "struggle" associated with being black.

I think that's bogus and completely unfair to the asian applicant. Not all URMs come from poor and undereducated families and not all asians come from wealthy and intelligent families, but the GPA/MCAT statistics make it seem like that's the veil under which ADCOMs make decisions.

I always hear this on SDN but is it based in fact? I am not saying it isn't fact; I just want to make sure the correlation between mcat and step 1 isnt just hearsay. Maybe Lizzy M can comment on this. I personally have a Black friend who got a 25 mcat and recently got well above the average for Step 1. This may be an outlier but he told me the trickiness of the mcat tripped him up a lot even though he knew the science material; however, he said the step 1 (although it had more info on it) was more straight-forward so he found it easier than the mcat.

I think it's true that someone who can do well on the MCAT can probably do well on Step 1 since to do well on the MCAT requires commitment to learn the material, a decent level of intelligence, as well as standardized test taking logic/skill.

I don't think it's true that someone who doesn't do well on the MCAT can't do well on Step 1 since they are completely different tests.

 

[WhizoMD]

MCAT score correlates strongly with USMLE Step 1.

Mediocre MCAT ==> Mediocre Step 1 ==> Mediocre Doctor

You have a very simplistic view of what makes a good doctor. Even if we assume that this is correct, you're forgetting that residency/fellowship selection is largely performance based, especially the highly technical surgical specialties. So, your 10th percentile and 90th percentile ortho residents are both highly qualified as far as step 1 goes. Also, the internist that can't extract necessary information from their patients, the surgeon with bad hand-eye coordination, and the pediatrician with a short fuse are all likely to be mediocre physicians regardless of their performance on step 1.

 

[MedPR]

1. You probably got into BC on your own merit. Don't downplay a 1500 on the SAT (hopefully that's out of 1600; if not, I hope to God you're never my doctor).

2. Your story is the reason AA should be based on socioeconomic status. Why do black students with parents making, $80,000+ a year need an advantage? They don't. Rather, the students from low-income familes who likely faced unique struggles may need a boost. That includes you, but it also includes poor Asians, poor whites, poor Mexicans, poor Africans, poor Pakistanis, poor Ukrainians, etc. Your struggles as a poor black person demonstrate why AA should benefit poor people, not people of any particular race.

1. I assumed it was 1500/2400 since the poster said they were not considered competitive. Last time I checked, a 3.6 and 1500/1600 is pretty competitive for a college applicant.

2. Don't forget that society thinks (perhaps the average IQ data supports this as fact, actually) that asians are inherently smarter than african americans. It follows, then, that they should have higher GPAs and test scores. So if an asian has a 3.5/30, they may be smarter than the african american who has a 3.0/25, however since the asian applicants are held at a higher standard, the 3.5/30 asian may not have as good of a chance as the 3.0/25 african american. And as you say, there should not be a URM blanket thrown over entire populations of specific ethnic background.

 

[sotto voce]

You have a very simplistic view of what makes a good doctor. Even if we assume that this is correct, you're forgetting that residency/fellowship selection is largely performance based, especially the highly technical surgical specialties. So, your 10th percentile and 90th percentile ortho residents are both highly qualified as far as step 1 goes. Also, the internist that can't extract necessary information from their patients, the surgeon with bad hand-eye coordination, and the pediatrician with a short fuse are all likely to be mediocre physicians regardless of their performance on step 1.

And you are ignorant of the fact that the medical school drop-out rate for black students is higher than for any other race. You are also ignorant of the fact that black medical school graduates, because of lower USMLE Step 1 scores, are less likely to get a residency. Imagine what the bright Asian students (gasp!) could do for underserved populations if those spots in medical schools had been given to them instead.

 

[MedPR]

And you are ignorant of the fact that the medical school drop-out rate for black students is higher than for any other race. You are also ignorant of the fact that black medical school graduates, because of lower USMLE Step 1 scores, are less likely to get a residency. Imagine what the bright Asian students (gasp!) could do for underserved populations if those spots in medical schools had been given to them instead.

Where did you read that black students have a higher drop out rate?

 

[sotto voce]

1. I assumed it was 1500/2400 since the poster said they were not considered competitive. Last time I checked, a 3.6 and 1500/1600 is pretty competitive for a college applicant.

2. Don't forget that society thinks (perhaps the average IQ data supports this as fact, actually) that asians are inherently smarter than african americans. It follows, then, that they should have higher GPAs and test scores.

I was really hoping that was a score from the old format (out of 1600). 1500/2400 is barely functioning.

And I do not believe there is any difference in intelligence between the races. Even the term race is a bit misleading. I just think that if you're from a wealthy family, ya know, life is gonna be pretty good. If you're from a poor family, be it black, Japanese, Korean, Guatemalan, whatever, life is going to be a bit harder, and that should be taken into account in med school admissions.

 

[seracus]

Have you a measured correlation between Step 1 score and clinical outcomes?

I think this point is a great one, but I want to stress that the correct response to a statement like this is not to throw up your hands and declare "IT'S JUST RANDOM!". At the very least we can try to figure out the qualities of a good doctor. Compassionate, persistent, capable, knowledgeable. Then we would have to decide if the Step 1 scores for any of these qualities (perhaps 'knowledgeable'). If we agree that Step 1 does score for one of these qualities at a particular time point, and perhaps has some predictive power for the measure of this quality later on, then we could begin to lay out our argument.

 

[Ashley1989]

And you are ignorant of the fact that the medical school drop-out rate for black students is higher than for any other race. You are also ignorant of the fact that black medical school graduates, because of lower USMLE Step 1 scores, are less likely to get a residency. Imagine what the bright Asian students (gasp!) could do for underserved populations if those spots in medical schools had been given to them instead.

If you're going to state something like that with such certainty, you had best post WHERE you read that information.

 

[WhizoMD]

And you are ignorant of the fact that the medical school drop-out rate for black students is higher than for any other race. You are also ignorant of the fact that black medical school graduates, because of lower USMLE Step 1 scores, are less likely to get a residency. Imagine what the bright Asian students (gasp!) could do for underserved populations if those spots in medical schools had been given to them instead.

You're not taking HBCU's / PR schools into account. They take a chance on a a lot of students with <27 mcat scores and account for most of the disparities you're citing. They would likely pass on the "bright asian" you're describing so the point is moot.

 

[seracus]

Where did you read that black students have a higher drop out rate?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03898.x/full

This May 2011 review states that the four studies which hypothesized a relation between ethnicity and retention rate failed to demonstrate any correlation between them.

"The effect of ethnicity was accounted for in four studies (Table 2).8,23,24,35 None of these studies found ethnicity to significantly influence dropout."

----

However, from the discussion section...

"In a previous systematic review, Ferguson et al.1 examined factors associated with grades obtained in medical school and found that relatively little research had been carried out on the importance of socio-demographic variables, but that white ethnicity and female gender seemed to be associated with higher grades obtained in medical school. In comparison, we found no obvious and consistent pattern of association between demographic variables and medical school dropout (Table 2)."

Ferguson E, James D, Madeley L. Factors associated with success in medical school: systematic review of the literature. BMJ 2002;324 (7343):952&#8211;7.
CrossRef,PubMed,Web of Science® Times Cited: 118

 

[sotto voce]

Where did you read that black students have a higher drop out rate?

Actually, one more thing: Black students tend to take longer to graduate from med school. The four-year graduation rate for Black students is below 60%. For Asians and Whites, it's above 80%.

To answer your question, in 1995 (most recent AAMC data), 6.7% of Black students dropped out for academic reasons.

In 1995, 0.7% of White students dropped out for academic reasons.

https://www.aamc.org/download/102346/data/aibvol7no2.pdf

 

[WhizoMD]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03898.x/full

This review states that the four studies which hypothesized a relation between ethnicity and retention rate failed to demonstrate any correlation between them.

I think there was a study in the early 90s that showed slightly higher attrition rate for URMs, I can't remember title/author though.

-edit-

^that one

 

[sotto voce]

If you're going to state something like that with such certainty, you had best post WHERE you read that information.

"When...[URM]...students did leave medical school, the most common reason cited was "academic reasons" (Table 1). This was not the case for Asian and White students."

https://www.aamc.org/download/102346/data/aibvol7no2.pdf

-----

"Nevertheless, our data indicate that

students from different racial/ethnic

groups completed their M.D.s at

disparate rates (Figure 1). The disparity

is most apparent for Black/African-

American students at years four and five."

https://www.aamc.org/download/102346/data/aibvol7no2.pdf

-----

"A cohort of 626 non-African-American and 47 African-American applicants was analyzed. The proportion of applicants below each incremental threshold score was significantly higher for African-American applicants (p <.05 at each level). Depending on the threshold score used, an African-American applicant was three to six times less likely to be offered an interview.
CONCLUSIONS:

When USMLE Step 1 scores are used to screen applicants for a residency interview, a significantly greater proportion of African-American students will be refused an interview."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11739053

-----

"In 2003, the median score for black students was 17 points lower than the median for Asians and 20 points lower than the white median. Scores for black students at the 75th percentile were roughly the same as the scores for Asian and white students at the 25th percentile. In other words, 75 percent of black students taking the test in 2003 scored lower than 75 percent of Asian and white students taking the test that year."


http://www.ceousa.org/attachments/article/543/UMichMed_final.pdf

 

[seracus]

Haha, fair enough. Either way, I assume the review I linked to would control for all other factors outside of ethnicity when determining a correlation. In other words, it would compare black students with particular gpa/mcat scores to white students with the same scores.

Edit: eh, I could be wrong though. I would have to check the four individual studies.

I think there was a study in the early 90s that showed slightly higher attrition rate for URMs, I can't remember title/author though.

-edit-

^that one

 

[Neurosis]

1. You probably got into BC on your own merit. Don't downplay a 1500 on the SAT (hopefully that's out of 1600; if not, I hope to God you're never my doctor).
.

 

[Ashley1989]

"Nevertheless, our data indicate that

students from different racial/ethnic

groups completed their M.D.s at

disparate rates (Figure 1). The disparity

is most apparent for Black/African-

American students at years four and five."

https://www.aamc.org/download/102346/data/aibvol7no2.pdf

-----

"A cohort of 626 non-African-American and 47 African-American applicants was analyzed. The proportion of applicants below each incremental threshold score was significantly higher for African-American applicants (p <.05 at each level). Depending on the threshold score used, an African-American applicant was three to six times less likely to be offered an interview.
CONCLUSIONS:

When USMLE Step 1 scores are used to screen applicants for a residency interview, a significantly greater proportion of African-American students will be refused an interview."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11739053

-----

"In 2003, the median score for black students was 17 points lower than the median for Asians and 20 points lower than the white median. Scores for black students at the 75th percentile were roughly the same as the scores for Asian and white students at the 25th percentile. In other words, 75 percent of black students taking the test in 2003 scored lower than 75 percent of Asian and white students taking the test that year."

http://www.ceousa.org/attachments/article/543/UMichMed_final.pdf

I'm glad you posted the sources, however it's almost a decade old. Interesting nonetheless.

 

[sotto voce]

I'm glad you posted the sources, however it's almost a decade old. Interesting nonetheless.

I expect/hope that the numbers have improved.

 

[Ashley1989]

I expect/hope that the numbers have improved.

I do hope they have, and until a more recent study is done we can speculate but I don't think we should apply it the present as if its fact.

 

[sotto voce]

I do hope they have, and until a more recent study is done we can speculate but I don't think we should apply it the present as if its fact.

Ohhh but this website is perfect for wild speculation And more recent data for median/average MCAT of black med school applicants suggests not much has changed.