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seems like a way to preserve high MCAT average while increasing diversity at the same time... gaming the system..Penn medical school expands minority candidate program that does not require MCAT | The College Fix
Selected candidates can be admitted without having taken the MCAT.
Certainly not at a T5/10!!! Since it's not a HBCU, and the program isn't open to everyone, or even low SES people of all races, whatever it is, it is NOT a "guaranteed/early admission program" under any generally accepted definition of that term.
I'm guessing it stops when the qualified workforce more fairly represents the population as a whole. "Passing" isn't going to change, because it is essential that everyone demonstrate a level of competence.
I think this is exactly what they try to do. The devil is in the details. If someone didn't come from a family of professionals, or doctors, they often begin college with systemic barriers. If someone doesn't do something to shake up the paradigm, nothing ever changes, or it changes so slowly that the change is imperceptible. The question becomes how to level the playing field?
Excellent points, and thanks for the shout out. Just to throw some love @Mr.Smile12's way, he is correct insofar as it's not like waiving MCATs is unheard of, since plenty of direct entry programs do just that. Not to game anything, and certainly not to give unqualified people seats in their schools, but to make the programs more attractive, and to give the very high achieving HS students they admit into their programs once less thing to worry about in college.
So how long have you been anti-FlexMed?
Please enlighten me as to what that is ha?
My undergrad had agreements with a couple of nearby med schools. If we a had good GPA (and better science GPA) we could be guaranteed admission at the end of sophomore year. No MCAT needed.
A direct entry program run by Mt. Sinai that actually dismisses people from the program if they take the MCAT. This is to ensure that they give up their guarantee if they want to apply out, since the school cannot see other applications, but can certainly see a MCAT score if one exists. It is a very competitive, highly desirable program that no one thinks is waiving MCATs as part of a plan to lower the bar for med school admission.
Indeed. FWIW most of the programs that do not require the MCAT substitute a proxy metric like the SAT.
Basically, either the schools think MCAT has any validity of predicting success or not. If not, don’t set a higher expectation for certain groups and lower for others. If yes, apply that equally to everyone.Take a good look at what U Penn requires of applicants. Note that there is not a single mention of a minimum MCAT score or GPA.
Technical Standards for Admission | MD Admissions | Admissions | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
The Perelman School of Medicine enjoys an international reputation for innovation in areas ranging from leadership training to global health. Our groundbreaking curriculum set a new standard for medical education nationwide. The six-module MD curriculum integrates basic sciences and clinical...www.med.upenn.eduGeneral Academic Competencies | MD Admissions | Admissions | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
The Perelman School of Medicine enjoys an international reputation for innovation in areas ranging from leadership training to global health. Our groundbreaking curriculum set a new standard for medical education nationwide. The six-module MD curriculum integrates basic sciences and clinical...www.med.upenn.edu
Now here's what the AAMC requires in terms of competencies:
What Medical Schools are Looking for: Understanding the 15 Core Competencies
Many medical schools use holistic review and to help define holistic review further, they use 15 Core Competencies as a tool to evaluate your application.students-residents.aamc.org
Again, no mention of stats. Note that the humanistic domains outnumber (by a lot) the intellectual domains.
A career in Medicine is not a reward for being a good student or getting the highest grades. SDNers are strongly advised to not fall into the trap of thinking that admitting someone with a lower GPA or MCAT is somehow racist because stats aren't the only admissions criteria.
This is somewhat tangential to the original post (where I generally agree, the school is probably trying to have their cake and eat it by recruiting URMs while not needing to worry about where they stack up academically). But I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding about diversity recruitment as it pertains to medical school admissions. The point is not to "level the playing field" and reward URMs with admission to medical schools through affirmative action, which more or less is kind of how it works for undergrad admissions. Basically, the end goal is not to just recruit each individual future physician in a vacuum. Rather, the NIH has decided that there is intrinsic value in training a diverse workforce of physicians that: 1) more actively recapitulates the American population at large; and 2) benefits from diversity of backgrounds and ideas.
If race matters, make it explicit on the application. Say something like we target 20% Asian, 20% black/Latinx or whatnot. Just be open about it. Instead of raising the bar on some groups, they should just treat the score as pass fail, if it is true that 517 and 514 are the same.
I think they are pretty open about it. I highly doubt that there is a specific percentage of any given race/ethnicity that they are targeting in any given year, and I don't know that pinning themselves down to such a specific number would answer the complaints of people who disagree with the policy.
The MCAT predicts success if scores are higher than 500, and disaster if lower than 500.
That's in there too.
I think providing resources for MCAT and setting a 500 minimum would be an ideal move. As you stated, data have shown that after 500, there's not a significant increase in chance of passing medical school. And I'll take it a step further and highlight additional data demonstrating that after 500, the correlation between step scores becomes very weak....add to this the fact that Step 1 is now pass/fail, and the MCAT correlates to Step 2 even less than it does to Step 1, and I think that strategy makes even more sense.
We try to do that. It's just that there aren't that many of them Last time I looked, only some 400 African-American men applied to MD schools.
Low SES students are not prioritized even close to the same as URMs. Not even in the same stratosphere. When I was applying to both med school and residency I was being actively recruited because of the color of my skin. Not once was I invited to a "diversity" event because I grew up poor.
Hard for me to say how much low SES is prioritized in med school admissions since I've never been directly involved in the decisions. I agree it is important.
Right, thats my point. Women and URM is prioritized. Growing up in poverty is not. Odd since that is the single characteristic that is most reflective of our patient population.
Take a good look at what U Penn requires of applicants. Note that there is not a single mention of a minimum MCAT score or GPA.
Technical Standards for Admission | MD Admissions | Admissions | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
The Perelman School of Medicine enjoys an international reputation for innovation in areas ranging from leadership training to global health. Our groundbreaking curriculum set a new standard for medical education nationwide. The six-module MD curriculum integrates basic sciences and clinical...www.med.upenn.eduGeneral Academic Competencies | MD Admissions | Admissions | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
The Perelman School of Medicine enjoys an international reputation for innovation in areas ranging from leadership training to global health. Our groundbreaking curriculum set a new standard for medical education nationwide. The six-module MD curriculum integrates basic sciences and clinical...www.med.upenn.edu
Now here's what the AAMC requires in terms of competencies:
What Medical Schools are Looking for: Understanding the 15 Core Competencies
Many medical schools use holistic review and to help define holistic review further, they use 15 Core Competencies as a tool to evaluate your application.
Again, no mention of stats. Note that the humanistic domains outnumber (by a lot) the intellectual domains.
A career in Medicine is not a reward for being a good student or getting the highest grades. SDNers are strongly advised to not fall into the trap of thinking that admitting someone with a lower GPA or MCAT is somehow racist because stats aren't the only admissions criteria.
When Asians make up, average, some 30% of all medical student at MD schools (at least 10% at the HBCs!), and up 50% at my own school, you can't say realistically that it's applied unequally to Asians, who make up some 6% of the US population.
It's not unfair because, quite simply we need URM doctors. Patient outcomes are riding on it.
See above. Also, it's other ORM applicants who are keeping the Vietnamese applicant out. And I repeat: it's not what the applicants want, it's what the med schools want.
Discrimination is a med school saying "we have too many Asians". URM admissions is not discrimination because med schools do not do that. And, professional school admissions have been given a carve out by the Supreme Court, unlike UG schools.
1) You can make that assertion if Asian applicants tend to be more qualified on average, which they are. In that case, Asian applicants are being placed in medical school specifically because they are highly qualified.
I'm always torn on this subject. Yes outcomes are better with same race physicians for some minority groups. The question I always have is: why is that? I've read lots of different theories and suspect its little bits of most of them.
Agreed.
