It's not that hard to get into Harvard after all...

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not the path i would like to have during my life, but i send the guy congratulations.
 
grain 'o salt my friend... if it is true, good for him, although he could have mentioned how he went from being a soil expert to a Harvard attendee (activities, mentors, etc) in that space mdapplicants provides.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
It has to be a joke, right? I thought so at least...
 
willthatsall said:
It has to be a joke, right? I thought so at least...
Click to expand...
jokes are usually a lot more blatant.
 
To the OP, the person in the profile you posted is Black. Perhaps, that helped him out a bit.
 
I think it's probably just another sad example of affirmative action...
 
Please. Whether you like it or not Harvard can accept whoever they want. Grades and MCAT scores alone are not what makes one more "deserving".
 
Fermata said:
Please. Whether you like it or not Harvard can accept whoever they want. Grades and MCAT scores alone are not what makes one more "deserving".
Click to expand...

Neither is a person's skin color.
 
Are you guys kidding me, Affirmative Action? What, I hope that was some kind of joke. I think this profile just shows how ridiculously random the application process is. He only got into one other school besides Harvard.
 
Or its a joke.
 
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Akscal said:
Are you guys kidding me, Affirmative Action? What, I hope that was some kind of joke. I think this profile just shows how ridiculously random the application process is. He only got into one other school besides Harvard.
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id agree with you here.
 
Now why would someone lie about his/her credentials? Maybe these people have developed exceptional interview and people skills over and above the average Jane or Joe over the course of years. They might just have made some bad choices in their past... I'm actually looking for a school that allows a greater population of working professionals and older students. Does anyone know of any?
 
stwei said:
Now why would someone lie about his/her credentials? Maybe these people have developed exceptional interview and people skills over and above the average Jane or Joe over the course of years. They might just have made some bad choices in their past... I'm actually looking for a school that allows a greater population of working professionals and older students. Does anyone know of any?
Click to expand...

Yeah, apparently Harvard.
 
stwei said:
Now why would someone lie about his/her credentials? Maybe these people have developed exceptional interview and people skills over and above the average Jane or Joe over the course of years. They might just have made some bad choices in their past... I'm actually looking for a school that allows a greater population of working professionals and older students. Does anyone know of any?
Click to expand...
If you're asking seriously, I've heard Case Western really likes non-traditional applicants. Though I think most schools like the wisdom and experience they add to the class. That said, Case seems to go out of their way to seek that - their website says as much.
 
Why do I think someone put that profile up just to ridicule AA? It will take a lot to convince me that someone with that profile got into Harvard, URM or not -- I don't care how much people skills he has, or how disadvantaged he is/was.
 
Sweet, that guy has the sample writing sample score as me.
 
Adapt said:
To the OP, the person in the profile you posted is Black. Perhaps, that helped him out a bit.
Click to expand...
Just out of curiosity, where does it say that? It just says the applicant is from Uganda...
 
BubbleBobble said:
Just out of curiosity, where does it say that? It just says the applicant is from Uganda...
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Ethnicity: African

Speaking of race relations, this girl on "The People's Court" was a blatant racist today. She said... "I'm Italian. Italians don't get along with negroes." My jaw hit the ground when she said that! All I could think was "There are people who think like this still alive today?" She was 16 years old, people. 16!!!!
 
I can't believe this thread almost turned into an AA thread. Anyway, here is why I don't think it could be true. Maybe "he" is an amazing person with great life experiences, but he has a 3.3 GPA and a 23 MCAT. Unless he hand delivered his application to someone he knew in admissions at Harvard, how did he even get considered for a secondary? This application would have gotten thrown out as soon as they saw "23". I don't care what his life story is, I don't believe he is going to Harvard with a 23 MCAT.
 
I know someone who got into HMS with a 25 (albeit a higher GPA from a relatively unknown undergrad school). So getting into HMS with a 23? Probable? No. Possible. Yes.
 
Oh no! Not that agricultural MDapplicants profile from Central Florida again!
:mad:
It comes up about every 4-5 months and sparks a debate about affirmative action... I tried to search for Agriculture/Earth Sciences major at the U of Central Florida and couldn't find it.
It's a hoax people! (I think...)
Here, find that major for yourselves:
http://www.ucf.edu/catalog/current/Academic_Degrees_Majors_and_Minors/index.html
 
Fermata said:
Please. Whether you like it or not Harvard can accept whoever they want. Grades and MCAT scores alone are not what makes one more "deserving".
Click to expand...

Shouldn't this work both ways, then? Would you make the same statement were Harvard to decide to refuse black admissions? It is true that grades and scores are not a good sole determinant of a person's qualifications, but too often affirmative action-minded admissions committees use the nebulous and impossible-to-contest "other qualifications" description to justify any eyebrow-raising admission.

P.S. To be clear, I'm not advocating shutting out blacks from anywhere. However, if you are going to justify AA admissions with the statement that educational institutions can do what they like when it suits you, you must also accept that doctrine when they do what you hate.
 
If he spent 16 years in Africa, perhaps it's possible that his struggles with the MCAT were due to learning english as a second (or third or fourth) language? Those passages can kill someone with average english skills
 
Huh? This was a friend from high school. And he didn't go to Central Florida.
 
BaylorLion said:
Huh? This was a friend from high school. And he didn't go to Central Florida.
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I think you missed what this thread was about. Go back to the first post and look at the link to mdapplicants and you'll see the profile in question.
 
Oh. I saw the OP but forgot which school the original applicant attended. Sorry about that.
 
Dr. N said:
Whole MD applicants is a BIG joke.
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YEAP...so true...99% of the stats------->B.S.

-Harps
 
If the Ugandan guy's mdapplicant profile is true, maybe he just had an outstanding interview at harvard. It sounds like he has an interesting life story. sometimes it's all about luck too. or maybe he had connections....
 
Spitting Camel said:
Speaking of race relations, this girl on "The People's Court" was a blatant racist today. She said... "I'm Italian. Italians don't get along with negroes."
Click to expand...

ha, it's good to know i'm not the only one that watches that show while all my friends are at work or school. she definitely got the shaft though.
 
ashkan33 said:
ha, it's good to know i'm not the only one that watches that show while all my friends are at work or school. she definitely got the shaft though.
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haha! I was watching it WHILE I was at work! Every day at 1 p.m., baby! That's what I get for graduating early - tons of spare time :)
 
kinetic said:
Shouldn't this work both ways, then? Would you make the same statement were Harvard to decide to refuse black admissions? It is true that grades and scores are not a good sole determinant of a person's qualifications, but too often affirmative action-minded admissions committees use the nebulous and impossible-to-contest "other qualifications" description to justify any eyebrow-raising admission.

P.S. To be clear, I'm not advocating shutting out blacks from anywhere. However, if you are going to justify AA admissions with the statement that educational institutions can do what they like when it suits you, you must also accept that doctrine when they do what you hate.
Click to expand...

I understand what you are trying to say. However, what I was trying to point out is that a lot of people think they were screwed out of an acceptance to Harvard when they see that profile. This is simply not the case.
 
willthatsall said:
I can't believe this thread almost turned into an AA thread. Anyway, here is why I don't think it could be true. Maybe "he" is an amazing person with great life experiences, but he has a 3.3 GPA and a 23 MCAT. Unless he hand delivered his application to someone he knew in admissions at Harvard, how did he even get considered for a secondary? This application would have gotten thrown out as soon as they saw "23". I don't care what his life story is, I don't believe he is going to Harvard with a 23 MCAT.
Click to expand...

I don't think that particular profile is true, but I think you aren't fully appreciating just how scarce 3.5+/28+ black applicants are.

I'm not sure if the msar puts out these type of numbers, but a few years ago I was flipping through a friend's law school admission booklet and it said that for a particular year there were only ~40 black applicants in the whole country that had an lsat of at least 165 along with a gpa of at least 3.5. I'm not very familar with law school admissions standards, but I know that 3.5/165 isn't all that great. I'm sure you would see a similar, if even more depressing, situation in medical school applications with a cut-off of 3.6/30.

Recent studies done at several medical schools have found that the average black matriculant has an mcat score 7+ points lower than the average white
or asian matriculant(nationwide it's a little over 6 points). Harvard has an mcat average of about 34, so do the math. My guess is that Harvard's average accepted black student has a 27, so it's pretty conceivable that many 23's get interviewed and some even accepted.

I support AA(especially for medical school admissions) and I think it's opponents are pretty naive to think that even court rulings in their favor could one day reverse such practices in professional school admissions. We all know that it's not all about the numbers for med school admissionm and we all know medical schools are going to want to admit a class that is somewhat diverse. As long as these two forces are at work(and they should be), AA will always be present in medical school admissions(even if the school won't admit it).
 
Dr. N said:
Whole MD applicants is a BIG joke.
Click to expand...


I beg to differ. Most of the posters on that site are real applicants. If you don't have faith in a certain one's profile, don't look at it. I know many applicants who have posted their stats on the site. The GPAs and MCATs posted are generally higher than the norm; that's a given -- they are the ones who care much more so about MedSchool admissions than the average Joe. Just my 0.02 cents. Anyone care to add their two pennies?

Jason
 
actually his MCAT score is only really bad in the verbal section... and that is because English is his second language. From what this guy went through his GPA isn't bad at all..... A 3.3 or 3.4 is actually pretty good for someone who's English isn't that good, isn't that a B+ average I think its great. 50 years ago people with this kind of average would have been accepted to any med school in the US with a full scholarship!!
 
meanderson said:
I don't think that particular profile is true, but I think you aren't fully appreciating just how scarce 3.5+/28+ black applicants are.

I'm not sure if the msar puts out these type of numbers, but a few years ago I was flipping through a friend's law school admission booklet and it said that for a particular year there were only ~40 black applicants in the whole country that had an lsat of at least 165 along with a gpa of at least 3.5. I'm not very familar with law school admissions standards, but I know that 3.5/165 isn't all that great. I'm sure you would see a similar, if even more depressing, situation in medical school applications with a cut-off of 3.6/30.

Recent studies done at several medical schools have found that the average black matriculant has an mcat score 7+ points lower than the average white
or asian matriculant(nationwide it's a little over 6 points). Harvard has an mcat average of about 34, so do the math. My guess is that Harvard's average accepted black student has a 27, so it's pretty conceivable that many 23's get interviewed and some even accepted.

I support AA(especially for medical school admissions) and I think it's opponents are pretty naive to think that even court rulings in their favor could one day reverse such practices in professional school admissions. We all know that it's not all about the numbers for med school admissionm and we all know medical schools are going to want to admit a class that is somewhat diverse. As long as these two forces are at work(and they should be), AA will always be present in medical school admissions(even if the school won't admit it).
Click to expand...
I can't say I really support Affirmative Action, but realizing the extremely small number of URM with stellar academic record sorta helps me realize the extreme disparity between URM and other applicants.
 
I think this was a joke. He said he was waitlisted at Harvard. First off, no one gets off the waitlist at Harvard. Second, he said he is from FL and was accepted to NEOUCOM, they only take OH residents. I think its a joke.
 
meanderson said:
I don't think that particular profile is true, but I think you aren't fully appreciating just how scarce 3.5+/28+ black applicants are.
Click to expand...

No offense, but this is really irrelevant. In essence, you're advocating taking "the best of the worst" (the cream of the sewage). If black applicants are doing that poorly that the best they can offer as a group is someone with a 3.5/28, then someone needs to tell them to hit the books. I don't think blacks are genetically dumber than non-blacks, so I don't think that's too much to ask. In the meantime, admitting the "best they have to offer" is pretty unfair to everyone else AND sends the message that you don't need to improve.
 
kinetic said:
No offense, but this is really irrelevant. In essence, you're advocating taking "the best of the worst" (the cream of the sewage). If black applicants are doing that poorly that the best they can offer as a group is someone with a 3.5/28, then someone needs to tell them to hit the books. I don't think blacks are genetically dumber than non-blacks, so I don't think that's too much to ask. In the meantime, admitting the "best they have to offer" is pretty unfair to everyone else AND sends the message that you don't need to improve.
Click to expand...

The problem is they often don't have the opportunity to hit the books. Inner city schools can't always provide the same AP and IB classes, or SAT prep courses or any of the other college preparation taken for granted at upper-middle class suburban schools. Thus they don't even get to see many of the advantages offered to premeds at the more elite colleges. And it just goes on from there. Even if an URM wants to take the initiative to try and better him/herself, it's often hampered by the fact that public library funding has been slashed repeatedly causing limited hours and reduced resources. What books should they hit then?

*yeah I'm generalizing and lumping all URMs together, but a few well-off URMs doesn't change an average all that much.
 
I have met roughly a dozen URMs in medical school and not a single one comes from anything below middle class. I know some who are very wealthy. The URM status must acurately reflect a disadvantage, such as financial status, yet this is clearly not happening.
 
jdc5 said:
The problem is they often don't have the opportunity to hit the books. Inner city schools can't always provide the same AP and IB classes, or SAT prep courses or any of the other college preparation taken for granted at upper-middle class suburban schools. Thus they don't even get to see many of the advantages offered to premeds at the more elite colleges. And it just goes on from there. Even if an URM wants to take the initiative to try and better him/herself, it's often hampered by the fact that public library funding has been slashed repeatedly causing limited hours and reduced resources. What books should they hit then?

*yeah I'm generalizing and lumping all URMs together, but a few well-off URMs doesn't change an average all that much.
Click to expand...

Bottom line - would you want someone who doesn't "have the opportunity to hit the books" as your physician? No, you wouldn't, and neither would the American public. I think the issue of so many underqualified minorities getting into medical school needs to be made more public so people realize how unfair and racist this process really is.
 
jdc5 said:
The problem is they often don't have the opportunity to hit the books. Inner city schools can't always provide the same AP and IB classes, or SAT prep courses or any of the other college preparation taken for granted at upper-middle class suburban schools. Thus they don't even get to see many of the advantages offered to premeds at the more elite colleges. And it just goes on from there. Even if an URM wants to take the initiative to try and better him/herself, it's often hampered by the fact that public library funding has been slashed repeatedly causing limited hours and reduced resources. What books should they hit then?

*yeah I'm generalizing and lumping all URMs together, but a few well-off URMs doesn't change an average all that much.
Click to expand...

I never understand how this works.

Like you said, for the purposes of discussing academic performance, it is always assumed that blacks are all living in the hood, their parents are all smoking crack and engaged in prostitution, and their books are getting shot at by gang-members. Meanwhile, everyone else is living out in suburbia, lounging around in lawn chairs and getting tutored while getting fanned by big palm leaves.

But if we were talking about the social conditions of blacks and I made those same conjectures, I would be deemed "racist" for making those same assumptions. People would say, "oh, you think whites aren't poor, too, and living in trailers?" In other words, it seems that it's OK to dump on blacks when explaining why they are deficient in an area, but not otherwise.

Anecdotally, I knew one black kid who held that blacks were still being discriminated against in general (and him, specifically) ...even though his mother was a stock-broker, his father was a college professor, and he lived in the middle of the suburbs.
 
jdc5 said:
The problem is they often don't have the opportunity to hit the books. Inner city schools can't always provide the same AP and IB classes, or SAT prep courses or any of the other college preparation taken for granted at upper-middle class suburban schools. Thus they don't even get to see many of the advantages offered to premeds at the more elite colleges. And it just goes on from there. Even if an URM wants to take the initiative to try and better him/herself, it's often hampered by the fact that public library funding has been slashed repeatedly causing limited hours and reduced resources. What books should they hit then?

*yeah I'm generalizing and lumping all URMs together, but a few well-off URMs doesn't change an average all that much.
Click to expand...
I don't understand this post. AP classes and SAT prep courses are all techniques to get people into college, but medical school admissions are not based on these. They're based on what you accomplish afterwards.

I would agree that more needs to be done in order to increase URM numbers in college, but I think (or at least, would like to think) that once you're in college, it's a re-leveled playing field.
 
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