The fact that you're bothered by the question says a lot buddy. And I like that you call it trolling instead of engaging in the debate. It sounds like to me that you don't have a counterargument and want to continue partaking in the benefits URM status gives you. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Prove to me why AA is needed if no URM benefits from it instead of pussyfooting your way around a topic that bothers you by calling it trolling. I'd like to hear your opinion and I'm open to changing my opinion if there's a good reason for AA
Okay, if GPA only gets you so far why are the requirements so stringent? Why is GPA even a requirement? Sure GPA only gets you so far, but why is it that people tell you to reconsider medical school as a non-URM applicant if you have below a 3.3 (or even a 3.5)?
As far as I know the GPA requirements are so high because it is a weed out mechanism. So why are some groups getting a lower bar?
Also the percent of URMs accepted with a 3.4-3.59 is 45-46%. For ORMs it's 32-35%. If you drop down to the 3.2-3.39 range it's ~36% URM, 20% ORM. So you're telling me that it just happens that more URMs have these "other factors" in this GPA range but ORMs don't? I don't think it's a coincidence that those numbers line up that way
-This is based on the tables posted by AAMCAS-
https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html
And, I used support lightly. You guys didn't say anything that sounded like you were against it. Maybe you don't support it, but it seems you're at least okay with it. So why should it be okay? Like I said I'm willing to change my perspective if you have a good argument
@WhittyPsyche the problem I have with AA is that certain races (such as my own, I won't say what it is) are forced to have higher academic stats to feel comfortable with their application, not whatever you're putting in my mouth. Maybe AA isn't a factor, but the applications are not race blind. Also if you look at the the AAMCAS table for acceptance by GPA and MCAT you'll notice that the % accepted for lower GPA applicants for URMs are much higher than their ORM counterparts, such that having a GPA one category below gives you a similar percentage (at least above the 3.0 mark). I refuse to believe that 50% of sub 3.5 URMs were qualified "in other ways" but only 30% of Asians and whites were in that same way
To be honest I didn't see this was the URM sub. OP may or may not be trolling, but I'd like to hear from groups that are supposed beneficiaries of AA (but esp those in that group that say they don't benefit from it) why we need AA (and by AA I'm also including the idea of forced diversity, ie lowering the bar to build a diverse class). I saw that was the case here so I asked my question
I am not sure why you are addressing me as I didn't address you, so I am not sure where you got that I put anything in your mouth as I never bothered to read your post to begin with. However, you completely missed the point in the very first sentence of my post. There is no Affirmative Action in medical school admissions. It is the stated goal of AAMC, and the stated goal of specific medical schools to educate and train physicians to represent the population of the U.S. To bring proper culturally relevant care to minorities and other populations that are in high risk groups and have not received appropriate care for hundreds of years. It is documented that white and asian physician, by and large, do not or refuse to work in various subsets of America which has created severe deficits and what we all call "underserved areas" with a roll of the tongue without really understanding what that means. It has been evidenced that minorities, URM, and at risk groups who become doctors are far more likely to return to their communities and make a change which has been one of the main areas of relieving health care disparities; the people who care about those communities return to help them. The mission is to increase access, make sure culturally relevant access is available to all and to work on achieving healthcare equity.
In nothing you have posted, have you addressed those issues and those reasons are at the core of increasing URM recruitment and acceptance into medical school. Instead I only see "but hey, lower gpa and mcat is acceptable on average for URM and it's a higher bar for Asians".
I strongly believe if someone is truly interested in knowing and understanding the "why" of any question, they would explore all sides of the issue. This means not the superficial parts, not just the parts that pertain to you, not just the parts that make you the benefactor or the one that loses out but all parts. And this is where anti-URM and anti-AA threads become absolutely pointless and contribute nothing of value, because 99.99999% of those who start these threads and participate in them, never take the time to explore every facet of the issue they claim to be arguing about. Instead, they only know about the one thing that personally affects them, which for the vast majority is the GPA/MCAT averages which they feel is a direct slight against them.
-So you know that GPA/MCAT is not the only part of the picture. Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you. So you know disadvantaged students are more likely to have desirable traits in their application that adcoms seek, "the path travelled" and all that. Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you.
-Did you know that URM students, namely hispanic/latino, black, and native american are many times more likely to be economically and socially disadvantaged, therefore making the two groups largely overlapping? Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you.
-You mentioned that you can't see how the two groups could have major differences in the "other" aspects to make that ratio (50% of black to 30% of Asians for example). Well, this is in fact the truth. The medical school applicant pool better represents the middle and upper middle class of society. So just from pure chance, a white and/or asian applicant is far more likely to have come from a two parent household, higher income, better schooling, better opportunities, better everything. While a hispanic/black/native american applicant, is far more likely t come from a poor family, single parent home, bad neighborhood, severely lacking school system, lack of enrichment from early childhood and on. So statistically, yes a black/hispanic/native american applicant is more likely to have things in their application that demonstrate overcoming many obstacles through life in order to get to the point of applying. There are white students that receive acceptances with lower stats who come from these type of backgrounds, your response will be yeah but less often, well there are less often white applicants that represent that group. Have you striated the data to account for the chances of a disadvantaged white who applies with this type of background, rather than the low overall percent chance for all whites who applied? Or do you care to know the difference? Yes? No?
-On that point, did you know that medical school admissions is not a meritocracy? I think you have an inkling here. Do you understand that the goal is to train physicians that meet the needs of the patient population in the US, not to give everyone who had a high GPA a gold star and give them their entitled seat in medical school for doing so?
-You know that those AAMC tables you and everyone else reverts to does not separate the HBCUs, or the Puerto Rican schools both of which sole mission is to provide medical education to minorities, the reason they were created, since you know it was illegal for blacks to get this educations, and later discrimination made it impossible. Yes? No?
Do you understand why that is important? Do you care?
-Did you know these schools take applicants with much lower stats in order to achieve this mission? Yes? No? Do you understand why that is important? Do you care?
-Do you know that on those tables, a total of 4400 black applicants and 5700 hispanic/latino were accepted to medical school, do you know how those numbers are affected by the number of students who were accepted into the aforementioned schools? Yes? No? Does that matter to you?
-Do you know how that would affect the % chances at each gpa/mcat threshold if you ignored the acceptances? Do you know exactly how much of an advantage you would be able to find from each bin, for example how a difference of "45-46% to 32-36%" would be affected? Have you tried to striate that data? Does that matter to you?
-Finally to circle back after going through the nitpicky stuff. You mentioned forced diversity. Do you believe a diverse class in unnecessary? Why? did you know white males used to say the same thing about letting women into medical schools? When women were first allowed to pursue medical education, it was the result of female only medical schools being created with the stated mission of education/training for a female cohort of physicians. They had lower stats than males, they were actively recruited, and in the previously male only schools they were also recruited and accepted at lower standards in order to achieve diversity. Do you see this force diversity of educating women as a negative? Why do we need forced gender diversity, white males were fully capable of caring for women and women of all races at that? Do you support that? Do you realize that is the only reason female patients are now able to choose to see a female doctor? Does that matter to you? It matters to patients.
-Did you know letting asians into medical schools in the US was an act of "forced diversity"? Are you against that? Or is it only when we are forcing diversity for blacks, hispanics and native americans? (Note: if you seriously do not understand the social, emotional, cognitive, and moral advantages of diversity then this conversation would be more of a commitment than I could reasonable bear.)
-Have you looked at any of the research on doctor-patient relationships? Have you seen the data on how white doctors interact with minority patients? Do you know they are less likely to explain pertinent medical information, less likely to discuss negatives and positives of medications and procedures, less likely to take the patient's perceptions, opinions, wants and desires into account than they would with white patients, do you know that they have distinct patterns of what medications to prescribe and what procedures to pursue and what surgical interventions to refer depending on patient race that has nothing to do with any actual scientific evidence that supports choosing a speck protocol for a specific race? Do you know that they tend to spend more time with white patients, assume that the patient is more educated and agreeable (use of standardized patients here so only variable is the doctor's perception) and therefore have completely different visits/follow ups with white patients than black patients.
-Have you looked at outcomes research that shows how the interaction with the physician affects compliance, health outcomes and future help-seeking? Did you know much of the negatives are mitigated when patients see doctors who share their cultural/ethnic background? Or doctors with cultural competence, which is most likely to be the doctor that shares the same background, so essentially the same.
-Biggest question is then do you care that health outcomes for minorities are significantly better when they are able to see a doctor that shares their background? Do you care that this can help healthcare equity, disparities in access, disparities in help seeking, disparities in compliance, disparities in standard and quality of care?
All of these things have to addressed and considered seriously if you truly want to have a "discussion"... and yet we have barely scratched the surface.
