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Agreed, I aint even of Black descent and I love myself some fried chicken with mac and cheese and i tell you what, with some good half cup sweet ice tea = heaven.
Not mentioning ethnicity on applications - disadvantage?
Started by MangoPlant
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Agreed, I aint even of Black descent and I love myself some fried chicken with mac and cheese and i tell you what, with some good half cup sweet ice tea = heaven.
While I agree that Asians have less privilege in American Society than White people, med schools don't practice "affirmative action". Many people use this term without realizing what it actually means. Med schools aren't trying to affirm any action. They want to build a diverse class of doctors to provide better care for our population. Do I agree that patients should respond better to physicians of their own race? Heck no. Do they still do anyways? Of course. That's why it's done. We want to provide the best medical care possible, even if that means attempting to mirror the US population with the incoming physician med school class.
That's IT. They aren't trying to politically correct years of institutional, ideological power imbalance. It's not affirmative action in that sense.
Well, all your source proves is that a lot of Asians immigrate to America which is no surprise, but that doesn't take us back to how Asians have any less social/political power. If it can't be quantified, than what are you using to measure everything up to give that claim?
Sure, how I feel about Jackson and Sharpton is my my opinion but it's one that is strongly held to by a lot of the African-American community. If you think that they're "showing others can't just step over blacks", you're mistaken.
Anyways, this is all suffice to say, we've basically been talking affirmative action and this isn't the job of the medical school.
They are seeking to diversify their individual classes not by different type of Asian immigrants but by those who are representative of the entire population. If that means they look outside of those with 38 MCATs or 3.9 gpas, is that really a bad thing?
Irrelevant, fine. However your entire post reeks of over-entitlement.
As for the bolded, yes. Thank you for resorting to petty name-calling.
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Wow this thread took a nasty left turn. What did I tell you about oppression olympics?
Asians have it bad, Black people have it bad. Trying to say that one group has been oppressed worse than other just makes you look like you are belittling people.
Side note: I went to 3 interviews and i did not see a single black person interviewing.
Asians have it bad, Black people have it bad. Trying to say that one group has been oppressed worse than other just makes you look like you are belittling people.
Side note: I went to 3 interviews and i did not see a single black person interviewing.
This is a HIGHLY misleading statistic. Why did less AA get accepted than Asians percentage wise? Well, go take a look at these two charts:
https://www.aamc.org/download/321514/data/2012factstable25-2.pdf
https://www.aamc.org/download/321516/data/2012factstable25-3.pdf
Look at how many AA there are with unacceptable stats (< 23 MCAT). Now look at how many Asians there are with < 23 MCAT. It seems like AA has a lower overall acceptance rate because there are many more AA with unacceptable stats than Asians. It is not fair to look at overall acceptance rate because you are comparing a large number of AA with extremely low stats to Asians that do not have as large of a proportion of applicants with those extremely low stats. However, look at ANY combination of MCAT/GPA and you will see that for an AA and Asian with the same MCAT/GPA the AA has a much higher acceptance rate.
Regardless of this, I am not interested in comparing AA to Asian or Latino to Asian because it can be argued that there are so few URMs applying to begin with. What I'm interested in having a discussion about is why Asians get a disadvantage? Lets not talk about why URMs are given an advantage, but instead about why Asians are given a disadvantage.
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ORM
There simply are too many qualified applicants applying to medical school. Period. Schools could come out and say, hey all you need to survive medical school academically is a 3.3 sGPA and a 28 MCAT, but it wouldn't matter because there are so many students above this threshold that they have to find ways to accept some and reject others. So they look outside of numbers and look at a lot of other factors.
That statement is 100% accurate, but it doesn't address his/her question.
If, as a person of Asian heritage, you are claiming that the Asian-Americans are the hardest working group, then it should come as no surprise to you that within the demographic a certain standard of excellence has been made for themselves. Sorry, if you're unable to meet the expectation of high grades that has been made of your people, by your people, then you're just complaining about the weather, frankly. If you have to work 25 hours a week during college, the medical school admissions committee takes that into account (i.e., considered EC activities in the face of less than stellar GPA and MCAT.) However, as someone has mentioned earlier, it is often the case that many Asian applicants are bringing to the table high MCAT, high GPA, and little else. As I mentioned previously, it is a mixed bag - you need the grades and you need the extracurricular activities. Getting back to a comment I made earlier - in many asian cultures, the youth of the home is considered first and foremost a student and are expected to maintain that role inside the classroom and outside the classroom. So, if someone is studying their @$$ off all the time, is investing little energy into extracurricular activities or work, and they can only pull off a 3.5/3.6 and a 33-36 MCAT, is this someone who will be able to balance all of the rigors of medical school? Between labs and classes and small group sessions and weekly preceptorships and research and free clinic and curriculum committees or giving interviewees tours? Probably not. I am actually kind of surprised that this thread is going, and that it is not obvious why there is this 'mild discrimination'. LizzyM already did a very good job explaining where that 3% difference may come from - no eye contact, poor english skills, or someone who may not genuinely want to go into medicine but is being pushed into it.
This is a forum for discussion of pre-medical school issues - classes, to applying, to recommendation letters to interview tips - this forum is not designed for societal injustices, and the conversation has taken a stark left turn from an emphasis on applying to medical school to an emphasis on societal injustice and political imbalances of power among demographics.
jesusF#$@#ck%%ing#christ.
This is a forum for discussion of pre-medical school issues - classes, to applying, to recommendation letters to interview tips - this forum is not designed for societal injustices, and the conversation has taken a stark left turn from an emphasis on applying to medical school to an emphasis on societal injustice and political imbalances of power among demographics.
jesusF#$@#ck%%ing#christ.
Haha, it's a lively debate and a good number of people are enjoying this conversation - I know I am. I see no reason to end it. This isn't aimed at you, but every time I see someone post something along the lines of "this thread is stupid" I wonder why it is so hard for that person to simply ignore the thread and move on with their life? Is it really that hard?
Are you a mod? Why don't you leave it to the mods to determine what we can discuss?
And you're wrong, "the Asian people's" GPA/MCAT should irrelevant to each individual applicant. That's exactly, perfectly, succinctly racism to group all of the Asian people and hold them to a different standard than everyone else. It is irrelevant that you're Asian yourself. As LizzyM suggested, I think some of the % difference can be attributed to accent/ESL issues, but I don't think that's the whole story. That's what's at issue here.
I am not a mod - there is no need for the assertive attitude. You will agree, it is probably better for a general user to point this out, before a MOD actually does notice this and completely locks off thread. Yes?
Absolutely...my medical director, who is a freaking genius has the heaviest accent I have ever heard, why? cause she speaks 5 languages, you heard that right FIVE languages fluently, as in clinically certified to talk to patients without an certified interpreter being in the room. Frech, Spanish, Portugese, German, and English. English was never her first language, is she the head of a whole center now? you bet ya.
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Leave policing the forums to the mods. (no)
That's why I say that I don't think that's the full story. Some of my best profs in UG had accents worse than Leslie Chow.
This reminds me of a talk that I went to given by Chinese-born man (MD, director of a very competitive residency at a top 20 school).
He went into this story about how he's more or less pushed his daughter into medicine, except that because she's Chinese, she's been discriminated against "even with a 3.7 and 32 MCAT at out of state medical schools."
He then went on to say that with Chinese parents its go into medicine, engineering, or medicine, and nothing else.
I kind of sat there shaking my head, feeling like the token white person.
He went into this story about how he's more or less pushed his daughter into medicine, except that because she's Chinese, she's been discriminated against "even with a 3.7 and 32 MCAT at out of state medical schools."
He then went on to say that with Chinese parents its go into medicine, engineering, or medicine, and nothing else.
I kind of sat there shaking my head, feeling like the token white person.
Get over yourself. When the thread is closed due to inflammatory of nature of posts (which is often the case), we'll see who is so gdamn cavalier.
Being a professor and being a clinician are incredibly different. Yes, it might not be a big deal to have a strong accent when you're teaching a group of undergrads physics (they can always read up on it in the book), but if you're trying to explain risk factors and health issues to your patient in the most direct and simple way possible - that accent may get in the way.
BTW I totally don't think an accent should be a reason for not accepting a student unless it's complete unintelligible.
I have an accent, cause i do more than 1 language fluently as well, not clinically certified yet, but my university seems to think my abilities are good enough, never had to take a foreign language in undergrad, and how they tested me? oh they used a certified interpreter to test me via speaking to me, reading, writing...the process was comprehensive
I'm honestly 100% baffled by your stance. So you think that something irrelevant like race should be a factor, but an actual, real thing that you just said can impede patient care should not be a reason for not accepting an applicant? Could you elaborate on this perhaps please?
It would behoove you to take your own advice.
There are so few seats available that for Asians to no longer be at a "disadvantage", you'll have to take those seats from somewhere else and you're basically insinuating that those seats belong to Asians with higher stats. How many of those Asians will go back to an underprivileged area (or even just a middle class area with a mainly URM such as AA and latino (2 groups larger than the Asian population in the US) and practice as primary care physicians or even work at the hospital in the area? Not many since people tend to go back and practice wherever they grew up from. MCAT/GPA isn't the end all be all metric of acceptance because there are many schools that actively recruit for a diverse class, Asian included. Is there a disadvantage to being Asian? If you have low stats, yeah and if they had valid reasons (SES status, tough road travelled etc) I am sure adcoms will account for this just like everyone else. But an Asian individual who grew up in a middle class society and gets lower stats for X reason doesn't deserve anything over anyone. S/he knew what was expected, messed up and can either try to remediate GPA/MCAT, excel in an SMP and try again or go to DO school if they're willing to.Also, overall attrition rate in US medical school is ridiculously low compared most other academic institutions (overall 5.7% in a 10 year period)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23363547
So that "damn URM" with a <23 is going to more likely than not do just fine and could possibly help his fellow cohorts in the future. I'd rather have a diverse student body filling up the medical seats that reflects the changing demographics of the US than just have every school look at high GPA/MCAT and have medical school be dominated by White and Asians.
Also, overall attrition rate in US medical school is ridiculously low compared most other academic institutions (overall 5.7% in a 10 year period)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23363547
So that "damn URM" with a <23 is going to more likely than not do just fine and could possibly help his fellow cohorts in the future. I'd rather have a diverse student body filling up the medical seats that reflects the changing demographics of the US than just have every school look at high GPA/MCAT and have medical school be dominated by White and Asians.
Your entire post is just blatant racism couched in pretty language. Pretend you are a hard-working Asian immigrant who has busted his ass through high school and college to get into medical school. He is turned away at the door and told "You are not the right color. We want the RACES of our students to reflect that of American society. Because of your color, we are turning you away. If you were born a different color, you would have been accepted."
How is this acceptable in the meritocracy that is America?
@darklabel: people are going to read what the want to read.
Your post was very cogent.
Ignore the naysayers.
Your post was very cogent.
Ignore the naysayers.
I'm racist because I want there to be a diverse student body in medical school? K. No use in arguing with you. I present stats from linked articles and push so that every race is included. You just want mediocre Asians to get in as opposed to other URMs who have lower stats, but most likely offer something else to make up for it, isn't that right? Because as an Asian individual, a 3.7+/30+ will still get you far in applying for medical school. If you want to have a meaningful convo like @MangoPlant , then I'm all for it, but name calling is unnecessary and adds nothing.
You're right, but I would like to hear other people's opinions about this.
Why does it have to be dominated by Whites and Asians? Once the "bar is lifted" so to speak (in reality, leveling the bar), for the minorities why would they not increase their GPA / MCAT scores as a result? People (as a generality) do what they have to do to get in. If I took the MCAT and made a 25 my first time, and had a great chance of getting in with that score, you better believe I wouldn't re-take the MCAT.
The averages are lower for minorities, in part, due to their ability to play the system and get by with lower scores than Whites/Asians. It isn't always because they're less intelligent or have less opportunities. Many of the Asian/White applicants (that make up the high MCAT scores) had to re-take the MCAT multiple times to achieve their high score.
Your argument is essentially IDENTICAL to the one which was used to institute Jewish quotas at the ivy league schools in the 1920s.
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I'm not insinuating that those seats belong to Asians with higher stats. I'm insinuating that those seats belong to the better applicant REGARDLESS of their ethnicity/race.
So what makes you think that a URM that grew up in a poor neighborhood will go back and practice as a primary care physician? I'd be inclined to think that most people who become doctors and grew up in poor neighborhoods would be tempted to seek a better life than to return. This includes POOR Asians (yes it does exist) as well.
Actually, yes. You just said "[I want there to be some black people, some white people, some Asian people, and some [whatever] people in medical school. In fact, I support admitting certain people and not admitting certain people on the basis of race to achieve this end.]"
Diversity isn't a virtue if you force it to happen through racial screening like medical schools do. I think black people can compete equally on an intellectual level with Asian people. They don't need your handicap. They are not inferior.
I agree in a big way that there are minorities that game the system, but I doubt they think "Oh I'll just get a 25 and I'll get in everywhere". Sometimes I think URMs (including Asians) should be taken into context with SES because not everyone can retake the MCAT or go on a bunch of interviews. I'll agree that middle class Asian vs middle class hispanic vs middle class AA should be seen equal in terms of admissions and that SES status should be considered highly as well as road travelled for all races, but I know that there are Asians of low SES that are hurting from this sort of reverse discrimination and its those individuals that should be looked at more carefully.
I wish that were true, that URMs will rise to the occasion, but this has been tried and failed miserably in achieving that:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/21/california-affirmative-action_n_1442851.html
So we'll see record low numbers of URMs being physicians if only MCAT and GPA were accounted for in admissions.
According to the statistics, they are more likely to go back and practice in poorer neighborhoods than Asians and whites
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245143.php
I don't understand why this sentiment keeps popping up in your (and others') posts. It is demonstrably false:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12467254
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22270266
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21233803
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571929
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15566445
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14727802
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12815085
Race is relevant to quality of care regardless of your views. Anyway, carry on.
You and your silly science. Jury's still out on that.
A distinction can be made between strong accent (read unintelligible to the average patient) and simply an accent. I guess I wasn't clear. I don't think an applicant should be rejected for having an accent unless that accent is so strong it would get in the way of patient care.
And just because you choose to ignore the role that race plays in our society doesn't mean its irrelevant.
So then the answer to the problem is to help URMs achieve the same level of academic success as white and Asian students. This starts with the family culture, early school experience, etc.
The solution should NOT be to lower the standards for URMs, and raise the standards for Asians. That is blatantly discriminatory.
Noone has raised the standards for Asians.
It is self-selecting.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
But leveling the playing field by investing in a public school system that doesn't rely on property tax and isn't segregated by county would be communist. AND THAT'S NOT AMERICAN!
I'm glad someone else said it.
1. I'm more saying that person x studies "real hard" for the MCAT. They end up making sub-30 score. Rather than thinking "Oh crap, I'll never get in with that, better start studying for round #2" they think "Oh, that's not too bad, statistically I have a good shot at getting in!" It would be the same as a White / Asian person making a 35 and not wanting to retry to make a 40 - what's the point?. The amount of work put in to make increasingly higher scores is exponential, and extremely time consuming as I'm sure you're aware. It simply isn't fair.
2. Yes, this would be 10000x better than race.
3. Interesting article, although it doesn't show anything surprising. I don't think they would "rise to the occasion" instantly, it would take time.
The real problem I have with this though, is that it is a temporary solution. If we DO expect minorities to eventually become (and feel) equal, treating them as equals is a necessity. How are we going to expect them to grow if we keep throwing them handicaps? When does this stop? As Quinn implied, the answer lies in tackling the root of the problem. Affirmative action only serves to perpetuate the feelings of animosity between the races and definitely does nothing to assuage racism.
I'd say medical schools have raised standards for Asians. Why else does an Asian with a 27-29 MCAT and 3.4 - 3.6 GPA only have a 28.1% chance of acceptance whereas an African American with those exact same stats has an 84% chance of acceptance and a White with those same statistics has a 34% chance of acceptance? Because those stats are "not good enough for an Asian."
And it is difficult to understand because it is NOT self-selecting. What does one Asian that works hard have anything to do with another Asian that works hard? Each individual person is simply giving their best effort, it is not in one person's control what the other person is doing. To say that it is self-selecting simply because two hard working people are Asian is misleading.
This has been said earlier in the thread; there are so few African-American applicants, that in order for a substantive representation of the demographic in the medical school class, the ADCOMS have to dig deeper into the pool.
I had a 39% chance of acceptance with very similar stats to what you have reported, as I am a white applicant. Was I happy about that? No. Do I understand why the African American applicant with similar stats has more than double the odds of getting than I do? Yes. You know what I did? I stopped complaining about it extensively on SDN, and I put more work in to get noticed. I suggest anyone else complaining about this do the same, or consider a more 'rise to the occaision' field like sales, because this will not change for a very long time.
This is my last post in this thread. Adieu.
Fair point! I was not aware of this research. Good to know.
However, I've addressed this point in previous posts. It does not excuse using race to screen applicants.
Thank you for clarifying. I appreciate it. 🙂
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Good points. I believe we've reached an impasse. Things you've touched upon, like fixing our education system down to grade-school would do wonders to help prop up URMs and especially people of lower SES (which is a much bigger deal in my opinion then race alone), but it is what it is. It would be great if all ethnicities had comparable stats, but they don't and medical schools are trying to work in an imperfect system to make sure everyone gets a chance in medical school admissions and that their class is diverse.
I don't think anybody is proposing complaining on SDN as a solution. Most of us are simply pointing out the hypocrisy. In fact, I've posted in more than one URM WAMC thread encouraging the person that hope was not lost as they are URM (where otherwise it may have been for an ORM). I accept that this is how it is today, and I encourage URMs to take advantage of it while it stands. I similarly encourage ORMs to perform more highly in school and ECs as they have no handicap. I reject that this is moral.
Lol dude... (Correct me if I'm wrong here Rik) Realize that Rik usually argues from a moral standpoint, as do I (or at least I try to).
Good job posting all those links! *Big pat on the back!*
I have a problem with simply matching up physician & patient based on their color. Yes, many people may be comfortable doing this, but how are we ever going to grow as a country, as a culture, if we keep segregating our interactions with each other? Your idea perpetuates the cultural gap that we see in our every-day lives and in medicine. Call me an optimist, but I (and Rik probably agrees) see the future as something greater than a bunch of Black doctors treating Black patients, Asian doctors treating Asian patients, etc... What was the point of desegregation?
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And that's fine! I personally disagree but that's a matter of opinion (and this dead horse has been beaten enough, I think). Just wanted to make sure the debate centered on the means, not the ends 🙂
I guess what I don't understand is the argument that having proportional numbers of physicians of various races helps patients see physicians of their race. Patients are rarely funneled to physicians of their race (that would be racist). Sure patients can choose a white/black/hispanic/asian PCP, but you don't have to have the "right" proportions of races in your physician pool to facilitate this. I can see where this argument holds true at the extremes, but I don't know that 15% vs 20% makes a tangible difference in the average patient experience. Again, I see that having a match between patient and physician race is a positive thing, but chances are that a minority patient will not see a minority physician regardless of how "diverse" medical schools get (again, ignoring extreme scenarios).
I would argue that LGBT patients have a serious need for physicians who understand their medical needs and culture...but having 10% of physicians identify as LGBTQ won't make it easy for that patient population to come across the "right" physician. To this end, medical schools are increasingly teaching segments on LGBTQ health to all their medical students so that all newly minted physicians are better educated to provide good healthcare to this marginalized population. Why is it so radical to teach all physicians about black/poor/immigrant/hispanic/asian health instead of relying on the "right" physicians to come in with that special knowledge and later give back to "their" communities?
Edit: @Womb Raider beat me to it 😀
