🤔 Lawsuit

[PathNeuroIMorFM]

Update. Meh ECs.

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[Mr.Smile12]

Why didn't every other rejected TMDSAS applicant think of filing an open records request with the Texas AG...? Or whoever it should be filed with. I guess they should now...

 

[Lawpy]

I guess I’m tired by the constant blaming of minority students for years with zero comment on how legacy admissions are blatantly favoring the wealthy and well-connected.

 

[Bored Snorlax]

Update. Meh ECs.
View attachment 364640

Excellent credentials unfortunately he didn't meet the dress code requirement.

 

[Wordead]

Gotta say, I'd like to see the application of the student accepted with a 2.8 GPA. That's pretty crazy.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Sheriff of sodium had a pretty interesting thread on it today, where he states that the MCAT is really only a relatively ok predictor of success and only in the first 2 years of medical school. Whatever the outcome is, I can't imagine having an open lawsuit against 6 schools will help his chances to get in next time.

I know... Amy Fisher waited until she matriculated at another university before [her family] suing.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Gotta say, I'd like to see the application of the student accepted with a 2.8 GPA. That's pretty crazy.

Thank Texas for Fresh Start or SMP's (that's my guess without evidence).

 

[Darrow O'Lykos]

Thank Texas for Fresh Start or SMP's (that's my guess without evidence).

Unlikely fresh start as older GPAs aren't even reported when applying through fresh start. Possibly JAMP, which is an absolutely insane program of guaranteeing high schoolers with med school seats with pretty insanely low minimum requirements to maintain through college while their competition has to grind to be among the very best to get those same seats.

I guess I’m tired by the constant blaming of minority students for years with zero comment on how legacy admissions are blatantly favoring the wealthy and well-connected.

It's not URMs that are blamed when critiquing the current system--it's the system itself that people are criticizing. No one is going around blaming URMs for matriculating when given the opportunity. Legacy culture also needs to be done away with. If we want to strive towards a more fair meritocracy, there are strives to be made in both regards. Personally I think AdComs absolutely do not need to see name, race, or sex on an application when reviewing and weighing whether or not someone is worth inviting to interview. We can recognize the barriers to pursuing a career in medicine without labeling and assuming that people that check a certain box meet those parameters. Let applicants put forth well reasoned and thoughtful essays of their path through life if they feel they've faced those barriers.

 

[MateoGM416]

No one is going around blaming URMs for matriculating when given the opportunity.

The reason that a minority will never be able to explain to you why this is wrong is the reason why we need more minorities in medicine.

Also, why do people pretend that legacy/nepotism admissions are equally as heinous as AA admissions. There's like 15 URM in my class of 275, but about half of the people I've met have at least one parent who's a doctor. Not that it's heinous that children of doctors want to be doctors, but if we're talking about unfair edges, connections and money make 10x as a difference as being an underrepresented minority.

 

[Lawpy]

It's not URMs that are blamed when critiquing the current system--it's the system itself that people are criticizing. No one is going around blaming URMs for matriculating when given the opportunity. Legacy culture also needs to be done away with. If we want to strive towards a more fair meritocracy, there are strives to be made in both regards. Personally I think AdComs absolutely do not need to see name, race, or sex on an application when reviewing and weighing whether or not someone is worth inviting to interview. We can recognize the barriers to pursuing a career in medicine without labeling and assuming that people that check a certain box meet those parameters. Let applicants put forth well reasoned and thoughtful essays of their path through life if they feel they've faced those barriers.

The US will never be a fair meritocracy and imposing such requirements on med school admissions is unrealistic. Legacy admissions need to go away forever but there are very important reasons why URMs matter in healthcare, which are inherent to the systemic biases in American medicine.

 

[Lawpy]

Update. Meh ECs.
View attachment 364640

Also this letter explicitly blames minority students and denigrates them as being less qualified. Sorry but whatever sympathy i had for Stewart is gone

 

[Goro]

Tim for me to trot this out:

 

[alwaysrunning]

If you scroll down to page 10 of his lawsuit you can check out the admitted MCAT data by race for each of the 6 schools.

https://aflegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1-COMPLAINT-1.10.2023.pdf

 

[FutureInternist]

Tim for me to trot this out:
View attachment 364663

Love this.

And it always boggles my mind that we still have who needed these “leftists, woke, radicals” to actually gain rights in the US (women, minorities, gays etc), that vote for the party that would deny them (and actively working on it) those same rights.

These folks got what they wanted based on the activism of others, and now they work hard to deny others the same equal rights… disgusting

 

[operaman]

Gotta say this all smells fishy to me. His ECs look pretty good - certainly better than mine and I’m quite possibly the whitest dude on the planet.

I’m curious at what point in the process he was recruited into being the posterboy for this lawsuit? Like you really do need to find just the right applicant for this to work. Scores too high and they may accidentally get in; too low and it’s a weak case. You need just good enough gpa/mcat, just enough ECs, but not quite enough to get in.

Just seems like most people would reapply more broadly and move on rather than throw away their medical career for this. Seems like most other white dudes I’ve know in his situation just apply more broadly and fluff their app and get in somewhere.

 

[lal4life]

As a very white guy as well, I can say my med school experience, and residency, and really everywhere I’ve been, has been enhanced by diversity and made me a more well rounded person and doctor. There’s something neat about learning about different cultures and sharing different backgrounds and belief systems.

While I do think admissions should be blinded to an extent, we’d definitely be doing the medical community and our own eduction a disservice if everyone in medical school was a generic white guy.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Gotta say this all smells fishy to me. His ECs look pretty good - certainly better than mine and I’m quite possibly the whitest dude on the planet.

I’m curious at what point in the process he was recruited into being the posterboy for this lawsuit? Like you really do need to find just the right applicant for this to work. Scores too high and they may accidentally get in; too low and it’s a weak case. You need just good enough gpa/mcat, just enough ECs, but not quite enough to get in.

Just seems like most people would reapply more broadly and move on rather than throw away their medical career for this. Seems like most other white dudes I’ve know in his situation just apply more broadly and fluff their app and get in somewhere.

Seeing how many people Ryan Gray finds who are 525+ MCAT 3.9+ GPA applicants who are rejected that he talks about on YouTube... probably can't afford his finder's fee.

 

[SpoiledMilk]

Do you think that URM applicants have more extracurriculars than Asian applicants?

As others have mentioned, ECs are only part of the whole package of an applicant's qualifications for medschool admissions. Others include LORs, interviews, PS, how well the 2nds are written, passion, etc. The article is sparse on the plaintiff's ECs, which others have now provided.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

As a very white guy as well, I can say my med school experience, and residency, and really everywhere I’ve been, has been enhanced by diversity and made me a more well rounded person and doctor. There’s something neat about learning about different cultures and sharing different backgrounds and belief systems.

While I do think admissions should be blinded to an extent, we’d definitely be doing the medical community and our own eduction a disservice if everyone in medical school was a generic white guy.

In my class and the one above me there were more women than men.

 

[Kierkegaard's Bud]

I know a white guy who came from a lower middle-class background and a statistically lower GPA than 511 and got into 5 MD schools. He was well-rounded, to say the least. The admissions committee can pull out these kinds of apps and nuke the lawsuit.

 

[Med Ed]

Update. Meh ECs.

His lawyers want to paint him in the most positive light, I want to see his entire AMCAS application and secondaries.

 

[Esmolol]

On a similar note - I always wondered about the future of candidates/students at the base of a lawsuit just like this one. Say, they win and get admitted. Is it worth staying under the magnifying glass for the rest of your life in medicine? The school presumably will watch your every step. Residency programs will connect the dots when you apply for match. At the end - yes, you won and got in - but at what price...?

 

[operaman]

In my class and the one above me there were more women than men.

Same with mine. It was pretty close though.

His arguments about gender discrimination are the weakest of all. He points out the mcat difference while saying nothing about the gpa difference. My guess is that admitted women had a slightly higher gpa given that women overall have higher GPAs than men.

He definitely cherry picks his data here. Would be interesting to see a less biased analysis of the data he obtained.

 

[boomertexas]

Plaintiff is likely not out any money for this suit. The groups that are supporting plaintiff are funding the suit because they have an agenda. Plaintiff was likely just recruited by said groups.

He's represented by Stephen Miller, aka one of trumps main lawyers Lmao. This is going to be interesting

 

[UODOCPDX]

if hes suing these people im assuming hes hiring a lawyer which isnt cheap. There are a lot more fun ways to waste thousands of dollars.

It’s not gonna cost him anything because the lawsuit is being funded by The America First Legal Foundation founded by Stephen Miller who has long ties to white nationalist and has been funding multiple lawsuits like this across the country.

“A group with ties to white nationalism has been launching legal challenges against affirmative action in Texas. Their latest target? Texas medical schools.

The America First Legal Foundation was founded by Stephen Miller, former Senior Policy Advisor to President Donald Trump. Not only was Miller the architect behind Trump’s family separation policy at the southern border, he has long ties to various white nationalist and supremacy groups. Emails from Miller’s time working at Breitbart show he regularly cites work from virulent racist groups VDRARE and American Renaissance.

In what he has called “national crusade” against affirmative action, Miller’s group has been filing legal complaints on behalf of white and Asian people claiming official discrimination. The plaintiff in the suit is George Stewart, who said he was rejected from six Texas medical schools while women, Black, and Hispanic applicants with lower test scores were accepted. Stewart says he applied to Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, McGovern Medical School in Houston, UT Medical Branch at Galveston, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas over the course of two years.”

https://www.reformaustin.org/healt...schools-for-discrimination-against-white-man/

 

[Darrow O'Lykos]

The US will never be a fair meritocracy and imposing such requirements on med school admissions is unrealistic. Legacy admissions need to go away forever but there are very important reasons why URMs matter in healthcare, which are inherent to the systemic biases in American medicine.

Saying that it will never be a fair meritocracy isn't a reason to not strive towards one. Fundamentally, regardless of background, applicants to medical school are seeking to enter a profession that is competitive to get into, and the threshold for entry is high. Yes, URMs are important in medicine, but moving the goalposts for groups based on a checked box is telling those that don't check that box that their professional aspirations are less valid due to historic prejudices with which they had absolutely nothing to do with, and that is ethically wrong. Being a gatekeeper and keeping someone out because there's enough people that look like that person in the field already is wrong if they did all that is otherwise expected of someone else that is let in.

The reason that a minority will never be able to explain to you why this is wrong is the reason why we need more minorities in medicine.

Also, why do people pretend that legacy/nepotism admissions are equally as heinous as AA admissions. There's like 15 URM in my class of 275, but about half of the people I've met have at least one parent who's a doctor. Not that it's heinous that children of doctors want to be doctors, but if we're talking about unfair edges, connections and money make 10x as a difference as being an underrepresented minority.

What I wrote was that no one is blaming URMs for the admissions system being the way that it is, at least no one with half a brain. I don't know why anyone would tell me that is wrong. Also I never said that nepotism and AA are "equally heinous". I simply stated that a truly fair admissions process would reduce both.

Just seems like most people would reapply more broadly and move on rather than throw away their medical career for this. Seems like most other white dudes I’ve know in his situation just apply more broadly and fluff their app and get in somewhere.

Agreed. As someone that had to go through 4 application cycles, I can personally say that I wouldn't have given up on my dream after 2 tries. I think that itself might be a knock against this plaintiff's commitment to the profession, and maybe his essays did fall flat and didn't show genuine passion, but that would be a poor assumption to make without seeing the entirety of his application (and ultimately, most essays of successful candidates share similarities and don't necessarily show resounding uniqueness). If he otherwise demonstrated 4-6 years of preparation to get into this field, that shows more weight than giving up after two tries, but it also shows that he gave up on becoming a doctor by deciding to file a lawsuit at this point prior to garnering at least one acceptance somewhere. But everyone is entitled to live their life how they see fit and if he decided to switch career paths but feels impassioned to seek justice, then more power to him.

While I do think admissions should be blinded to an extent, we’d definitely be doing the medical community and our own eduction a disservice if everyone in medical school was a generic white guy.

Agreed. This is a genuine open-ended question: what are some plausible hypothetical ways that this could be done to maintain the former without leading to the latter? Would blinding pre-interview invite be enough since that is where the highest degree of filtering is done?

 

[wysdoc]

On a similar note - I always wondered about the future of candidates/students at the base of a lawsuit just like this one. Say, they win and get admitted. Is it worth staying under the magnifying glass for the rest of your life in medicine? The school presumably will watch your every step. Residency programs will connect the dots when you apply for match. At the end - yes, you won and got in - but at what price...?

There is one landmark 1978 case in which a similar plaintiff (Allan Bakke) did prevail and the California Supreme Court ordered UC Davis School of Medicine to admit him. Shocked, the UC System appealed to the US Supreme Court which supported the outcome, though not unanimously.
When the Supreme Court first ruled on affirmative action | Constitution Center

 

[MateoGM416]

What I wrote was that no one is blaming URMs for the admissions system being the way that it is, at least no one with half a brain. I don't know why anyone would tell me that is wrong.

I honestly don't care about what you have to say about AA in med school admissions, but just stop pretending you have a good understanding of what the path is like for UR pre-meds and med students

 

[MDMechEngr]

On a similar note - I always wondered about the future of candidates/students at the base of a lawsuit just like this one. Say, they win and get admitted. Is it worth staying under the magnifying glass for the rest of your life in medicine? The school presumably will watch your every step. Residency programs will connect the dots when you apply for match. At the end - yes, you won and got in - but at what price...?

If he wins and is admitted, the school too will watch every steps they make because any APPEARANCE of a hostile environment, singling him out, or reprisal, he will not have to work another day of his life. something like MD salary multiply by 35 years. Cha ching.

 

[gyngyn]

There is one landmark 1978 case in which a similar plaintiff (Allan Bakke) did prevail and the California Supreme Court ordered UC Davis School of Medicine to admit him. Shocked, the UC System appealed to the US Supreme Court which supported the outcome, though not unanimously.
When the Supreme Court first ruled on affirmative action | Constitution Center

Plaintiff prevailed because of the use of quotas, not the strength of his application.

 

[Esmolol]

I honestly don't care about what you have to say about AA in med school admissions, but just stop pretending you have a good understanding of what the path is like for UR pre-meds and med students

Just out of curiosity - what is it like? I did not grow up in the US, I legitimately don't know. I see the issues day to day but I am just curious about different peoples' experiences on this journey. I don't mean this as an offense, just seeking to broaden an immigrant's perspective on things.

 

[Niwrad]

Just out of curiosity - what is it like? I did not grow up in the US, I legitimately don't know. I see the issues day to day but I am just curious about different peoples' experiences on this journey. I don't mean this as an offense, just seeking to broaden an immigrant's perspective on things.

It starts from birth - A study by the U.S. census and Harvard demonstrated that what zip code you were born in determines your eventual success as an adult.

Opportunity Atlas shows the effect of childhood zip codes on adult success

Ironically, as one of the more diverse communities, the U.S. has many interracial conflicts. Some less informed may believe the U.S. is somehow more racist or bigoted, but if a home community has 100% of the people of all the same ethnicity obviously there will be far fewer conflicts.

For example, there was literally discrimination after the U.S. abolished slavery, such as the Jim Crow laws. Even then there were numerous civil rights movements such as those by MLK in more recent history.

Other examples in the medical field is the HeLa cell line, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, etc.

I think it's very challenging to eliminate all biases in all cases but certainly there has been a lot of progress and you can read a little bit about these examples in history to get a sense of the day to day experiences from other people.

 

[Darrow O'Lykos]

I honestly don't care about what you have to say about AA in med school admissions, but just stop pretending you have a good understanding of what the path is like for UR pre-meds and med students

I'm happy to discuss my frame of reference in private with you if you'd like, but don't dismiss my opinions as ill-informed solely because you disagree with them. I'll leave it at that.

If he wins and is admitted, the school too will watch every steps they make because any APPEARANCE of a hostile environment, singling him out, or reprisal, he will not have to work another day of his life. something like MD salary multiply by 35 years. Cha ching.

His legal team isn't seeking for him to be admitted at this point, right? Aren't they just seeking for a judicial ruling that the defendant schools need to change their policies? I'm legitimately asking those that have better legal knowledge than I do, because I don't know how deep a ruling like that could actually go. I glanced over the suit, but didn't read it in its entirety.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Already mentioned on the thread, this guy is just a figurehead. This whole lawsuit was probably all written up already, and then they shopped around for a squeaky clean rejected applicant who would make a good poster child. And they only included the state schools likely because they are the only ones open to a public record release query.

Honestly, it would be really great to get their data set. Now that we know you can request it, seems easy enough to do so, get a copy, and be able to publish about it.

There have been innumerable threads about this issue here on SDN. What's incontrovertible is that minority students who apply and/or get into medical school have, on average, lower GPA's and MCAT scores -- that data has been released by the AAMC in the famous Table 18.

The question is why that is, and whether it matters. One possible explanation is that schools are admitting poorer quality students to meet racial diversity goals -- that's certainly the viewpoint of the lawsuit filer. But there are lots of other possible explanations.

GPA/MCAT may predict performance, but also has a ceiling effect. Once above a certain level of performance, higher scores no longer predict better performance. That would mean that above some GPA/MCAT cutoff, students with higher scores are not "better". So it's possible that the student in the suit just looked like a cookie cutter copy of a zillion other applicants, and hence they may not have been picked because they had lower scores since something has to break the ties. Plus, the fact that GPA/MCAT are used to straiffy schools only feeds this problem.

Second, individual MCAT/GPA scores may not accurately reflect actual performance. If one applicant has a 3.7/510 but comes from a wealthy background and never had to have a basic job, was able to spend summers studying for the MCAT or volunteering to do research, etc. And another is 3.4/504 but worked a full time job while in college and had to work over summers just to make ends meet, it may not be fair to just compare their scores to determine their abilities.

And last, as already mentioned, there may be other factors that are difficult to measure. But since it's hard to measure these things, it's also easy to claim it's discrimination. And, there's no way to prove it isn't.

 

[CoolBreezes]

Texas has like a dozen public medical schools. I am willing to bet that plaintiff applied to nearly all of them, was admitted to none of them, and yet only 6 were sued. Why is that? If the GPA and MCAT data broken down by race and gender from the other schools did not fit his narrative of being discriminated against, maybe it was because factors other than race, gender, GPA, and MCAT were used in their admissions decisions. And if it was okay for the other schools to deny him admission in spite of his qualifications, then why shouldn't the defendants?

 

[Darrow O'Lykos]

Texas has like a dozen public medical schools. I am willing to bet that plaintiff applied to nearly all of them, was admitted to none of them, and yet only 6 were sued. Why is that? If the GPA and MCAT data broken down by race and gender from the other schools did not fit his narrative of being discriminated against, maybe it was because factors other than race, gender, GPA, and MCAT were used in their admissions decisions. And if it was okay for the other schools to deny him admission in spite of his qualifications, then why shouldn't the defendants?

They're alleging that the 6 schools in question are using discriminatory practices based on disparities in the data, not that all 12 schools are guilty for not admitting him. If the 6 that aren't being sued didn't show the same disparities, then there's no reason to sue them. You could argue that being rejected from the other 6 schools helps the defense in this lawsuit, but the lawsuit isn't to get the plaintiff admitted, it's to change the practices at the 6 schools in question. Is it possible that there's an underlying issue that kept the plaintiff from getting accepted at all 12 schools? Sure, of course, but we don't know that and it's pure conjecture to insinuate that (at least with what we know at this point in time). Getting rejected from a particular school or schools doesn't mean you aren't worthy of getting accepted to any medical school. IIRC, the majority of TMDSAS applicants only garner < 3 interviews from the 12 TMDSAS schools and may only get 1 pre-match offer and/or matched (@wysdoc probably knows better stats on TMDSAS apps). Does getting rejected from the other 11 schools mean the 12th school should reject them as well? Of course not.

 

[Med Ed]

The question is why that is, and whether it matters. One possible explanation is that schools are admitting poorer quality students to meet racial diversity goals -- that's certainly the viewpoint of the lawsuit filer. But there are lots of other possible explanations.

GPA/MCAT may predict performance, but also has a ceiling effect. Once above a certain level of performance, higher scores no longer predict better performance. That would mean that above some GPA/MCAT cutoff, students with higher scores are not "better". So it's possible that the student in the suit just looked like a cookie cutter copy of a zillion other applicants, and hence they may not have been picked because they had lower scores since something has to break the ties. Plus, the fact that GPA/MCAT are used to straiffy schools only feeds this problem.

Second, individual MCAT/GPA scores may not accurately reflect actual performance. If one applicant has a 3.7/510 but comes from a wealthy background and never had to have a basic job, was able to spend summers studying for the MCAT or volunteering to do research, etc. And another is 3.4/504 but worked a full time job while in college and had to work over summers just to make ends meet, it may not be fair to just compare their scores to determine their abilities.

All good points, and I would add the mission of the school as another potential factor. For example, Brody/ECU's mission statement is very explicit in this regard. If a key part of their mission is to graduate doctors for underserved communities in eastern North Carolina, it makes sense for them to accept applicants from those communities, even of some of them come in with lower stats.

 

[NITRAS]

If he wins and is admitted, the school too will watch every steps they make because any APPEARANCE of a hostile environment, singling him out, or reprisal, he will not have to work another day of his life. something like MD salary multiply by 35 years. Cha ching.

I suspect if he wins, he would ask for monetary compensation because he couldn’t realistically go to school there. Mr. Stewart is never going to medical school.

 

[lal4life]

Agreed. This is a genuine open-ended question: what are some plausible hypothetical ways that this could be done to maintain the former without leading to the latter? Would blinding pre-interview invite be enough since that is where the highest degree of filtering is done?

I’m not sure the best way to do that. It would have to be in the pre-interview process. Off the top of my head, blind all the applicants and set certain criteria or minimums, allow for some of that to be made up with extra curricular activities. At that point select those that meet criteria to be invited and unblind the application so that people on the interview day know who is coming.

I would also blind the interviewers to the scores and just look at everything else to lessen bias during the interview.

I also don’t think it is inappropriate for schools to have missions that align with URM or introduce a more diverse student population. Below average GPA and MCATs can absolutely be made up for by ECs.

And it’s very possible that this guy came across as a total tool during his interview, screwing his chances.

At my core, I do believe med school and residency admissions should be merit based, not legacy, race, or gender. And I also fully admit that race and gender put people up against the wall, they clearly have an uphill battle, might not have access to the ECs that others do. And I think that should be taken account of when admitting too. I also don’t think med schools admit people that they think won’t succeed. There are enough seats for people that deserve them. So, in short, merit needs to be accounted for, and it’s ok for race and gender to be considered as well.

Based on stats, if it was all merit based, it would be a bunch of white and Asian guys with a few others sprinkled in. Just doesn’t seem right to me.

I guarantee there are holes for my plan. I also don’t know how to fix such a big problem.

 

[FutureInternist]

It starts from birth - A study by the U.S. census and Harvard demonstrated that what zip code you were born in determines your eventual success as an adult.

Opportunity Atlas shows the effect of childhood zip codes on adult success

Ironically, as one of the more diverse communities, the U.S. has many interracial conflicts. Some less informed may believe the U.S. is somehow more racist or bigoted, but if a home community has 100% of the people of all the same ethnicity obviously there will be far fewer conflicts.

For example, there was literally discrimination after the U.S. abolished slavery, such as the Jim Crow laws. Even then there were numerous civil rights movements such as those by MLK in more recent history.

Other examples in the medical field is the HeLa cell line, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, etc.

I think it's very challenging to eliminate all biases in all cases but certainly there has been a lot of progress and you can read a little bit about these examples in history to get a sense of the day to day experiences from other people.

Look up the test white Southerners gave to newly freed slaves that they had to pass in order to vote…
Then look up where “grandfathered in” came from.
Then look at CURRENT Republican rules regarding no votes on Sunday (guess who votes en mass after church on Sundays in various locations), look up voting booth wait times in predominantly minority communities, then look up all the restrictions they are putting in to disallow mail-in votes, “ballot harvesting” (so 80 yo grandparents have to drop off their ballot themselves), the # of ballot drop off locations in Harris County in Texas vs the neighbouring rural counties….

The only surprise is just how blinded most of their cult is to their racism, fascism, sexism… all cos they are scared by “Socialism”…. And then also look up which states need federal handouts more, and which state are poorer.

Just one example -

GOP action on mail ballot timelines angers military families

Ohio’s restrictive new election law significantly shortens the window for mailed ballots to be received, even though there's no evidence that the extended timeline has led to fraud or any other problems.

apnews.com

 

[MateoGM416]

Just out of curiosity - what is it like? I did not grow up in the US, I legitimately don't know. I see the issues day to day but I am just curious about different peoples' experiences on this journey. I don't mean this as an offense, just seeking to broaden an immigrant's perspective on things.

Spoiler

Having no parental help, no connections. Growing up in a broken household cause immediate family and extended family's been f*ed over one way or another since being in this country. Paid way through undergrad with scholarships, being the first in my family to even work in healthcare. I've only lived in the South so I grew up with hella racist abuse, especially at my job from patients. Patients and coworkers talking down to you when they wouldn't do so to a white coworker. Paying entire 300k med school tuition with loans. If I flunk out, my life is done.

A lot of these things do come with just not having money. But imagine going through these things and then having to work like hell to make it through undergrad, MCAT prep, shadowing, volunteering, research, EC's, and then four years of med school knowing once you finally make it as an attending, you'll be caring for old white people who don't want you in the country, and especially not their patient room. (I once had a patient ask me when I was going back to help my own people, after I told them I and my parents were born in Texas.) And now we have lawsuits and debates like this on a national level that put targets on our backs and cast doubt on the basis of our existence in this field, like we didn't work as hard as our classmates to get here. And despite all this, I am still only one of 10 other Latinos in my class of 275 and like 20 URM total, so lol

 

[KaiBuzz]

These lawsuits seem to ignore the fundamental reality that White men are still disproportionately represented in positions of power in this country including medicine. Don’t fret Stephen Miller, the patriarchy is still alive and well.

 

[LunaOri]

The basic presumption of the lawsuit is flawed: higher GPA and MCAT do not necessarily make a more qualified applicant. (My definition of “qualified” is an applicant who can graduate from med school in 4 years, pass Steps, AND be a good physician).

 

[operaman]

The basic presumption of the lawsuit is flawed: higher GPA and MCAT do not necessarily make a more qualified applicant. (My definition of “qualified” is an applicant who can graduate from med school in 4 years, pass Steps, AND be a good physician).

This bugs me too. I think there’s a disconnect between how people strategize to make strong applications and how decisions are ultimately made.

Gpa and mcat are not the end all be all metrics they seem to be, and probably make little difference after a certain point. Similar issues with step scores for residency - the score is a convenient way to stratify people but not once in a rank meeting did anyone ever say “gee this person had a 270 and this one only a 255 so we should rank her higher.”

They’re all simply tools - surrogate markers - to help predict who will succeed and who has the potential to be a good physician. And for many schools - especially state ones - they often have other missions to fulfill in terms of serving their populations.

Personally I do hope this lawsuit survives summary judgement simply so we can have discovery. Much like the Harvard lawsuit discovery and the use of the “personality score” to specifically limit the number of Asian students, it would be interesting to see the behind the scenes machinations that led to these skewed gpa/mcat numbers. But the gpa/mcat disparities themselves aren’t that interesting.

 

[AnonymousDoctorGuyPerson]

Gotta say, I'd like to see the application of the student accepted with a 2.8 GPA. That's pretty crazy.

I had decently less than a 2.8, so it happens (though 100th percentile MCAT and will say I didn't have a necessarily stellar application cycle heh); the GPAs reported are typically just the uGPAs before any non-undergrad course remediation and doesn't include things people may have done in a SMP/Grad program.


To the post, it's interesting because admissions clearly chooses students based off of more than metrics and given this students response to being rejected it pretty solidly showcases these admission committees knew what they were doing and dodged a bullet lol

 

[Kierkegaard's Bud]

Just out of curiosity - what is it like? I did not grow up in the US, I legitimately don't know. I see the issues day to day but I am just curious about different peoples' experiences on this journey. I don't mean this as an offense, just seeking to broaden an immigrant's perspective on things.

Esmolol, Its a bit like your distant cousin Sotalol; people generally use stereotypes to put him in a Class II anti-arrhythmic (beta blocker) box, but only the diligent ones who get to know him will see that stereotypes don't define him, in fact; he is in a totally different class, Class III anti-arrhythmic but with some essential class II properties.

 

[Niwrad]

The issue here and with a lot of other admissions is that they’re trying to increase the diversity of the student population but also saying they’re not discriminating on race, though they are essentially two ways of saying the same thing. Affirmative action has been supported by previous cases and race is indeed a factor in admissions.

This increasing of holistic evaluation is not unlike the high reliability culture of airline safety which resulted in flying being among the safest mode of transportation despite the intuitive sense that it’s much more dangerous to be high speed pressurized tube that’s supported solely by aerodynamic forces. In that sense it’s commendable that more holistic evaluation of applicants are being made, and considering aspects that increase the diversity of the physician population which does improve outcomes.

However the issue is the obscuration of the metrics by which applicants are being measured.

To illustrate this example, in competitive sports there is a limited number of winners, not unlike in admissions in which many qualified applicants but a limited number of spots. However there are very clear metrics by which the winners are measured, along with the rules by which they play. You don’t see anyone filing a lawsuit for discrimination, at least not recently. In fact the proportion of athletes do not reflect the proportion of races in the population but it’s not something that upsets people.

If increasing the diversity of the community is important, then admissions will work to that very goal. However they will obscure the rules and metrics by which they arrive at their eventual goal. For example, in the Harvard case there is final “lop list” in which there’s secret committees that trim off the list of top applicants to a number that they can accept. Even when released the document os heavily redacted.

People do not like to be deceived or defrauded. And applicants want to know the rules by which the contest of admissions is made. If race is a factor, then perhaps admissions committee should be prepared to stand by their goal to increase diversity and consider what is really their mission. I like how for example Med Ed brought up a school with a mission of specifically recruiting applicants that will serve the community around the school, and of course it will select for a certain applicant who may more likely be a URM. Maybe someone will be upset that they can’t get into that school with an otherwise excellent application because they’re not from that area or not likely to support the community around that area. But if it’s made clear that was a significant detractor in their application then that would be far less likely to upset the applicant.

People just want transparency and the honest metrics. Like the “sheriff of sodium” said on a lecture, students all running at 100% will rise to whatever challenge lies before them, explaining the disturbing trend that the average test score for the USMLE step 1 extrapolated out to will within our lifetime will literally reach a perfect or maximum 300/300 score.

This has already been achieved in some standardized subject tests. For example mathematics and language SAT exams for many top colleges literally have an matriculated student average score that is 800/800. For AP (advance placement) exams, it seems they’ve accepted this reality and made the scores go up to 5 only, so most students study to get a 5/5 and no more, allowing for a much more well rounded education for a student on this track. Personally I felt that the level of difficulty was more than sufficient to stratify myself but since I wouldn’t have “improved” much by studying more than necessary it felt like a much more fair system, even if I knew that my in class exams were not literally #1 in the class.

But they can’t rise to a challenge if they don’t know the rules of the game that they’re playing. Transparency is ultimately the most important factor, and if test scores are NOT important after all, then it should be made clear to applicants. If it’s something specific such as scores above the 90th percentile do not matter/improve your application, then that should be made clear as well, and so on.

 

[LunaOri]

The issue here and with a lot of other admissions is that they’re trying to increase the diversity of the student population but also saying they’re not discriminating on race, though they are essentially two ways of saying the same thing. Affirmative action has been supported by previous cases and race is indeed a factor in admissions.

This increasing of holistic evaluation is not unlike the high reliability culture of airline safety which resulted in flying being among the safest mode of transportation despite the intuitive sense that it’s much more dangerous to be high speed pressurized tube that’s supported solely by aerodynamic forces. In that sense it’s commendable that more holistic evaluation of applicants are being made, and considering aspects that increase the diversity of the physician population which does improve outcomes.

However the issue is the obscuration of the metrics by which applicants are being measured.

To illustrate this example, in competitive sports there is a limited number of winners, not unlike in admissions in which many qualified applicants but a limited number of spots. However there are very clear metrics by which the winners are measured, along with the rules by which they play. You don’t see anyone filing a lawsuit for discrimination, at least not recently. In fact the proportion of athletes do not reflect the proportion of races in the population but it’s not something that upsets people.

If increasing the diversity of the community is important, then admissions will work to that very goal. However they will obscure the rules and metrics by which they arrive at their eventual goal. For example, in the Harvard case there is final “lop list” in which there’s secret committees that trim off the list of top applicants to a number that they can accept. Even when released the document os heavily redacted.

People do not like to be deceived or defrauded. And applicants want to know the rules by which the contest of admissions is made. If race is a factor, then perhaps admissions committee should be prepared to stand by their goal to increase diversity and consider what is really their mission. I like how for example Med Ed brought up a school with a mission of specifically recruiting applicants that will serve the community around the school, and of course it will select for a certain applicant who may more likely be a URM. Maybe someone will be upset that they can’t get into that school with an otherwise excellent application because they’re not from that area or not likely to support the community around that area. But if it’s made clear that was a significant detractor in their application then that would be far less likely to upset the applicant.

People just want transparency and the honest metrics. Like the “sheriff of sodium” said on a lecture, students all running at 100% will rise to whatever challenge lies before them, explaining the disturbing trend that the average test score for the USMLE step 1 extrapolated out to will within our lifetime will literally reach a perfect or maximum 300/300 score.

This has already been achieved in some standardized subject tests. For example mathematics and language SAT exams for many top colleges literally have an matriculated student average score that is 800/800. For AP (advance placement) exams, it seems they’ve accepted this reality and made the scores go up to 5 only, so most students study to get a 5/5 and no more, allowing for a much more well rounded education for a student on this track. Personally I felt that the level of difficulty was more than sufficient to stratify myself but since I wouldn’t have “improved” much by studying more than necessary it felt like a much more fair system, even if I knew that my in class exams were not literally #1 in the class.

But they can’t rise to a challenge if they don’t know the rules of the game that they’re playing. Transparency is ultimately the most important factor, and if test scores are NOT important after all, then it should be made clear to applicants. If it’s something specific such as scores above the 90th percentile do not matter/improve your application, then that should be made clear as well, and so on.

It’s not that simple! We know that, above a minimum cutoff for MCAT (around 500) students are highly likely to graduate in 4 years and pass Step 1 on the first attempt. That doesn’t mean that a higher MCAT score (especially 520+) doesn’t give a little boost. It all factors in to the total package. A high MCAT score may give some balance to a low GPA, and vice versa. Low SES, with a need for many hours of paid employment, may offset a lower GPA. A good fit to the school’s mission, demographic underrepresentation, military veteran status, outstanding achievements, notable dedication to serving the underserved, and a whole lot of other things, are noticed and factored in.

 

[Med Ed]

However the issue is the obscuration of the metrics by which applicants are being measured.

To illustrate this example, in competitive sports there is a limited number of winners, not unlike in admissions in which many qualified applicants but a limited number of spots. However there are very clear metrics by which the winners are measured, along with the rules by which they play. You don’t see anyone filing a lawsuit for discrimination, at least not recently. In fact the proportion of athletes do not reflect the proportion of races in the population but it’s not something that upsets people.

I see what you're getting at, but a better analogy is probably the NFL draft. Teams know what they're looking for, and they have a lot of information on individual players, but the process is both art and science. And sometimes, in spite of your best efforts to find the next Tom Brady, you end up with a Danny Wuerffle.

 

[NITRAS]

The basic presumption of the lawsuit is flawed: higher GPA and MCAT do not necessarily make a more qualified applicant. (My definition of “qualified” is an applicant who can graduate from med school in 4 years, pass Steps, AND be a good physician).

Except all the schools and programs seem to think so. The more competative medical schools have higher MCAT scores than the less competative schools. MD schools are higher than DO schools, which are higher than caribean. More competative specialties have higher STEP scores.

I get the point that above a threshold, you have good students who can likely deal with the academic rigor of medical school, but a higher score is better.