I'll grant you that it's natural to interpret my post as purely sour grapes, but it goes well beyond that. Yes, obviously I have personal reasons for being frustrated with this process, but the overwhelming reason for my post was the following: I heard bull****, and I called bull****. To hear med schools talk, you'd think there was no other way to select applicants than the one they use now. I disagree rather strongly with that.
Let me give you a huge counterexample: admissions to the most selective colleges in this country (Ivy League and the ilk). It's COMPLETELY changed in the last 40 years, and most Americans would say for the better. WAY back in the day (i.e. before WWII), Ivy League schools admitted almost all of their students based on legacies and social status, but there were a small number of "deserving poor" who got in based on academic ability, as measured by admission test scores. (In fact, the joint admission test administered by the Ivy League schools evolved into the SAT.) By the '60s, social standing had waned somewhat in importance for Ivy League admissions, and SAT scores had become more important. But the big change came in the late '60s, when several Ivy schools hired deans of admissions who radically changed their admissions philosophies. Being a legacy no longer trumped everything else, so an alumni child could get rejected in favor of an outsider who was smarter. Public school students, minorities and women began to be admitted in significant numbers. As time went by, the Ivies started to look for students who were "interesting" as well as smart: artists, people with unusual hobbies, etc. For decades now, it's been well known that high grades and perfect SAT's are not enough to get you into a top college--there has to be something "special" about you. And conversely, these schools take quite a few students who may NOT have the highest grades or scores, but have shown their caliber in some other way (essays, life history, personal accomplishments).
To recap, what most people would consider the "best" colleges in America no longer rely slavishly on stats to admit students--and no one would claim that their graduates are stupid. (In fact, quite a few of them become doctors.) Are you telling me that all the med schools in America would fall apart if they got a LITTLE more creative in their approach?
That really applies only to public med schools (of which there are 79)--which leaves 47 private schools who can pick their students any way they please.
I never suggested that med schools interview every applicant, just that they consider factors other than grades and scores in their admission decisions. But there's no reason to believe that they couldn't interview a MUCH higher percentage of their applicants if they so chose.
As a model, I'd point again to the Ivy League colleges. ALL of them receive many more applications than any med school, and they reject nearly as high a percentage of their applicants as med schools. (According to the NY Times, Harvard got about 23,000 apps this year and admitted about 2,000, a 9% acceptance rate.) Yet virtually all the Ivies INTERVIEW ANYONE WHO ASKS FOR ONE. Yup, that's right--and they don't go broke doing it. How could this be? In my day (OK, I'm old), all the schools had on-campus interviews, but now only Yale does--they've moved to alumni interviews instead. (Interestingly, it wasn't logistics or cost that led to this change: it was an effort to level the playing field. The Ivy schools felt that on-campus interviews biased admissions in favor of students who could afford to travel to the interviews. Funny how med schools seem completely unconcerned about this issue.)
My overall point is that Ivy college admissions is quite similar to med school admissions in that a very scare resource is being allocated, and there are many more qualified applicants than places. Both processes select students that society at large agrees are highly qualified and eminently successful. Yet Ivy admissions is NOT predominantly driven by stats, and med school admissions is. That suggests to me that med schools could select their students in any number of different ways and still come up with good ones--yet they seem to think that the stats-based approach is the only way.
We all know their definition of a successful admissions department: we're living it. My entire point is that I disagree with their definition. (And please don't point out to me that I don't run a med school. You don't have to run a med school in order to differ with med school admission philosophies.)
