Originally posted by Vader:
•The statement by Petros that "affirmative action isn't legal in California" is a common misperception. Prop 209 bars race as a criterion for state hiring and contracting and admissions procedures. However, there are many contracts and programs that are still mandated by the federal government to use affirmative action in hiring, contracting, and admissions. Institutions such as UCSF and other government-funded schools must still abide by the law of the nation, or else risk losing funding. The elimination of affirmative action by the state of California has had a tremendous negative effect on the percentages of underrepresented minorities admitted to the top UC schools.
Lilycat, I just wanted to say that your post intentionally or unintentionally was fairly condescending and judgemental. It implied that Bruin4Life got the interview because of his/her race. I doubt that Bruin4Life got the interview because of a "work around" in the system. A 27 MCAT doesn't rule one out for admissions and there could be other aspects of his/her application which are tremendously strong. As a moderator on this forum, I would expect your future comments to be more impartial and less loaded with negative connotation.•
Vader, I'm extremely impressed that you gleaned so much information about me and my beliefs regarding Bruin's qualifications from one sentence. Truly impressive deductive reasoning.
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I was not commenting on Bruin's interview invite one way or the other, hence why I only copied Petros' response -- that was the only portion of this thread that I chose to comment on. Perhaps it was unfortunate that it was in the body of a thread regarding this applicant's interview invite. My experience with the UC system has been that while they may not explicitly factor race into account, they do seem to pay some significant attention to socioeconomic background, hence a way to "work around" whatever limitations they may face as result of recent legislation regarding affirmative action. Hence, my reply to Petros' comment.
As for any comment regarding Bruin's qualifications -- I have none -- I know nothing about his application, besides the fact that he has a 27 MCAT. If he received a UCSF invite, I can only assume that he is a competitive candidate. I may not know what it is like to be a URM, and feel like you constantly have to defend yourself and your credentials. However, I have quickly discovered what it is like to be a female in medicine, and realize that because of your gender your abilities and career goals are continually questioned. I won't bore you with the number of times that I have been asked if I'm a PA or nursing student -- not that these aren't challenging programs in their own right, but somehow I doubt that most of my male classmates get these assumptions made about them. I wonder how often people have asked that question of you Vader? But wait, I forgot dammit, I'm supposed to be the condescending one here!
The nature of many threads on SDN is that they go off course of the original topic, and various sidebars and side-topics become embedded within them. As I mentioned previously, it was perhaps an unfortunate accident that Petros' comment and my repsonse to him was embedded within this particular thread -- for that I apologize, since it seemed to detract from the other comments made. But I stand by my statement, and do not apologize for it, because I don't think there was anything to apologize for. However, I do think that in the future you may need to take a second before you jump to such rapid judgments and conclusions. Of course, it's always easier to make flip judgments based on limited information -- that's why we have such abundant bigotry, ignorance, and racism in this country.
