U.Michigan: Lack of Diversity?

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geneman

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Hey guys. Been real busy lately but looks like all is well on SDN.

Just got back from the U.Michigan interview. I was impressed by basically everything (Ann Arbor is an awesome college town, classroom/technology facilities are great, curriculum is being revised for the better for 2003, etc.), but I found one thing that was rather surprising.

Out of the 30 some odd people at the interview day, I saw 0 African-Americans, 0 Hispanics, 2 East Asians, and 1 South East Asians. Sure, one interview bunch doesn't represent the whole (as stats support, U.Mich has ~40% minority population) but anybody have any thoughts on this?
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hey geneman, whats been up?

might have just been an anomaly the day you interviewed. if a school is allegedly that diverse, i'm sure they'd have to interview a ton of over and underrepresented minorities to acheive that. maybe its much more heterogeneous on the monday interviews. :confused:
 
diversity is overrated. Look at where these people eat lunch and who are their friends after they start med school. Whites eat/socialize with whites, blacks with blacks, hispanics with hispanics, etc.

self-segregation makes any arguments about diversity moot
 
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I also think that some minorities could be intimidated my the U of Mich image(very competative) so some might attend a lesser school like Wayne State or Michigan state. This is just my take on the issue.
 
if you think about. The state of Michigan is not that diverse. A good example can be seen in their universities. MSU is as diverse as I thought it would be. About 15% underrepresented. Don't get me wrong MSU and U of Mich are very very good schools. I wish they had more minorities
 
Class Composition
Male: 57% of class
Female: 43% of class
MSTP: 13 students
Inteflex: 30 students
Maxofacial Surgery Program: 2 students
14% of the class are minority students

This is from UMich's website, I don't know why you would think they had 40% minority.
 
Originally posted by mws99
Class Composition
Male: 57% of class
Female: 43% of class
MSTP: 13 students
Inteflex: 30 students
Maxofacial Surgery Program: 2 students
14% of the class are minority students

This is from UMich's website, I don't know why you would think they had 40% minority.
Click to expand...

in medical school speak, that "minority" percent there usually refers to URMS. if you include ALL minorities (asians, indians, blacks, hispanics, all "non whites" basically), its probably significantly higher, probably the root of the 40 percent estimate (which is probably the average composite at most schools anyways). just my thought though
 
40% is too high. you'll find 85% or higher at the predominantly African American schools.
 
I mean, at the UofM interview (i was there this past friday the 13th also), not only were there virtually no minorities, but all the people kids were well to do, kids of rich lawyers/doctors from west bloomfield and grosspoint (rich rich neighborhoods). I guess it's inevitable, but it really made me think.
 
Two real cool things, however. First, there was an obviously gay guy that lead one of the tours, and I was impressed that the obviously conservative atmosphere at UofM would do that. Second, we got to see a cadaver, so that was cool.
 
please dont flame me for stereotyping..i probably am...but maybe it's because the kids (who were described as white and well-to-do) were able to pay for everything and get it all in on time, hence they have the early interviews.

none of my applications are complete yet cause i'm still struggling with finances and applying. i am not a URM however (though i am a racial minority). i guess more minorities, statistically, would fall into this category.

i realize it's a long shot.

another theory...didn't umich get rid of it's affirmative action policy (or are they currently in a lawsuit over it?)
 
diversity is overrated. Look at where these people eat lunch and who are their friends after they start med school. Whites eat/socialize with whites, blacks with blacks, hispanics with hispanics, etc.
Click to expand...

Very ignorant comment above.

What does where people eat and who they relate to in their social life in med school have to do with a diverse med school population? In case you don't know the purpose of a diverse med school population is primarily to graduate minority doctors who want to encourage other minorities to seek health care and provide quality health care to the people you probably turn your nose up at.

Please keep eating at your race-specific table. Your comments are unwarranted.


I also think that some minorities could be intimidated my the U of Mich image(very competative) so some might attend a lesser school like Wayne State or Michigan state. This is just my take on the issue
Click to expand...

Ignorant comment #2.

How in the heck did competition, intimidation, and minority get correlated into one sentence? The underlying NOT SO subtle conclusion is that minorities are not competitive candidates to med school so they settle for schools with low requirements. Ask yourself if educated minorities are intimidating? Sleep on your answer.

GEEZ...the intelligence of this board is really shining through in this post. I vote we don't talk about minority or URM ever again because there is an evident reflection that the majority SDN population comes from small town America and can't relate to anyone outside of their bubble.
 
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Originally posted by DW
*head slaps keyboard*

sigh.........
Click to expand...


I know, I'm doing that too as well. Gee, another SDN AA pissing contest.

Get you goggles and rain coats on folks.
 
From Michigan's website:

Class of 2005
Number of Applicants:
Number applying in 2001: 4688
Number interviewed: 615 (13% of applicants)
Number in the class: 170
Standard Class Averages: GPA: 3.7 MCAT: 11.1

Entering Class:
Black/African American 17 (10%)
Mexican American 7 (4%)
Native American 1 (1%)
Asian groups 37 (22%)
White/Other 108 (64%)
Male: 54%
Female: 46%

Class Composition:
Standard applicants-- 131
Deferred from 2000-- 5
Inteflex students-- 22
Medical Scientist Training Program-- 6
Maxofacial Surgery Program-- 2

Class Geography:
Michigan residents: 49% Non-Michigan: 51%
States represented: 29 states.
Largest contingent is from Michigan (85)
Next largest group: California with 25, for 15% of the class. Other states with significant representation: Ohio with 6, Texas with 5 and Illinois with 4. There are 3 students each from Arizona, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Wisconsin.

Undergraduate Colleges Attended:
Number of undergraduate schools represented: 68 different schools.
Number of Michigan colleges represented: 8
Number of students who attended UM Ann Arbor: 59 (includes Inteflex) -- (35% of the class)
Schools with the most representation, besides UM: UCLA with 8, UC Berkeley with 7, Hope College and UC San Diego each with 5, Harvard with 4, and three each from Brigham Young, MIT, Notre Dame, Penn, and Stanford.

College Field of Study:
Biology and related fields: 48%
Other science and math fields 14%
Humanities fields 12%
Chemistry and Biochemistry 11%
Engineering fields 7%
Science/humanities double majors 4%
Business and economics 3%
Health fields 2%

Advanced Degrees:
Seven students have MS degrees in a science or engineering field
Two students have Master's degrees in a public health field
Two students have Master's degrees in humanities fields
Two have a DDS
Two have a JD

Tuition and fees:
Michigan Residents: $19,331 Non-residents: $29,691



Class of 2006
Admissions Summary
Number applying in 2002: 4479 applicants
Number interviewed: 577 (13%)
Number of students in the class: 170
Class Averages: GPA: 3.76, MCAT: 11.4

Class Composition
Male: 57% of class
Female: 43% of class
MSTP: 13 students
Inteflex: 30 students
Maxofacial Surgery Program: 2 students
14% of the class are minority students

Class Geography
Michigan residents: 89 students (52%) Non-Michigan: 81 students (48%)
States represented: 29
After the state of Michigan, the next largest groups are: 14 students from California (8% of the class), ten from Illinois, 6 from Ohio, and 4 each from New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland.

Undergraduate Colleges Attended
54 undergraduate schools are represented in the class, including 8 schools in Michigan.
60 students attended the University of Michigan (35% of class).
Nine students attended Harvard; six attended Stanford; five each attended Johns Hopkins, Berkeley, and Cornell. Next were Northwestern and Notre Dame with 4 each. Three each attended the University of Virginia, Yale, Brigham Young, Calvin College, Hope College, Michigan State, UCLA, University of Chicago, and Princeton.

College Field of Study
Biology and biomedical fields: 49%
Humanities fields: 18%
Chemistry/Biochemistry: 17%
Other science, engineering and math: 8%
Business/Economics: 5%
Health fields: 3%

Advanced Degrees
One student has a PhD in Biochemistry
Two students have doctorates in dentistry
Six students have master's degrees

Tuition and Fees
Michigan Residents: $19,919 Non-Residents: $30,595
 
Originally posted by LoveDoc
Very ignorant comment above.

The underlying NOT SO subtle conclusion is that minorities are not competitive candidates to med school so they settle for schools with low requirements.
Click to expand...

THE WHOLE POINT OF AA IS THAT URMs ARE NOT COMPETETIVE...THAT THEY NEED LOWER STANDARDS!!
That is AA in its pure, unadulterated form. If you're willing to support AA, be willing to accept its premises. I do not. And do I not accept AA.
 
all i can say....

i'm so SAD... michigan lost today :(
 
Originally posted by MacGyver
diversity is overrated. Look at where these people eat lunch and who are their friends after they start med school. Whites eat/socialize with whites, blacks with blacks, hispanics with hispanics, etc.

self-segregation makes any arguments about diversity moot
Click to expand...

MacGyver,

Is that how it is where you are from? My class is diverse and we eat lunch/dinner and go out with everyone, regardless of their color. From your comment, I'd guess that you pretty much only associate with your 'own kind'. You should try working on that self-imposed limitation, b/c you'd be surprised at how meaningful it is to interact with people who have very different backgrounds. I've learned a lot about growing up in Burma, Mexico, Alabama, Russia, etc..I can understand why those who look the same or come from the same background tend to associate with each other. It seems to be the easiest road to social interaction for many people. I think it is unfortunate. I guess I am very glad that my classmates value our diversity and look forward to interacting. This diversity goes beyond color and includes background, prior careers, etc..It makes for a really interesting class and I truly feel blessed to have the opportunity to grow close to people who I admire.
 
so you think we can pull off something that may only work in the corporate world....

I'm coming to interview at michigan on oct 11-- they play penn state on oct 12...
Maybe call up the admissions dept and ask em if they can score a couple tickets for us 'recruits'??

We DON'T NEED a new offense... we just need a new quarterback who can hit the open men downfield!!!!

Gosh, we have the best qb recruit out of cali as a freshman this year sitting on the bench.. they gotta put him in the game.
 
yeah, that was my nice way of saying "navarre really, really sucks". i dont know man, you guys have got to get your stuff together soon, Ohio State looks good this year. let me know how your ticket plan works out, if it does i'll be firing up applications to all the bigtime football/basketball schools

go nittany lions :)
 
Originally posted by laviddee
so you think we can pull off something that may only work in the corporate world....

I'm coming to interview at michigan on oct 11-- they play penn state on oct 12...
Maybe call up the admissions dept and ask em if they can score a couple tickets for us 'recruits'??

We DON'T NEED a new offense... we just need a new quarterback who can hit the open men downfield!!!!

Gosh, we have the best qb recruit out of cali as a freshman this year sitting on the bench.. they gotta put him in the game.
Click to expand...

Hey I'll be there on Oct. 11th too.:clap: Let's go by Navarre's and cause him to have an "accident".
 
MacGyver is a well known troll who has somehow re-emerged from the depths, after a blessed period where he was not heard from. Ignore him, everyone.
 
Originally posted by DW
hey geneman, whats been up?

might have just been an anomaly the day you interviewed. if a school is allegedly that diverse, i'm sure they'd have to interview a ton of over and underrepresented minorities to acheive that. maybe its much more heterogeneous on the monday interviews. :confused:
Click to expand...

Hey DW. I can finally see the light at the end of the "Pre"-med tunnel... Interview season is in full swing... I feel like I'm rounding the last leg in the 3200m -- tired but chuggin along. Even had to drop a Wine tasting course cause it was too much work... :p

Back to the topic, I think my perception of U.Mich's lack of div was compounded by my interview experience at Columbia (where there is no real majority, or at least it feels that way). But the numbers don't lie, I guess...
 
MacGyver the Troll is back. Ignore this fool.

Originally posted by MacGyver
diversity is overrated. Look at where these people eat lunch and who are their friends after they start med school. Whites eat/socialize with whites, blacks with blacks, hispanics with hispanics, etc.

self-segregation makes any arguments about diversity moot
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by SMW
MacGyver is a well known troll who has somehow re-emerged from the depths, after a blessed period where he was not heard from. Ignore him, everyone.
Click to expand...

i'm touched you've been keeping tabs on me
 
Umich isn't conservative and neither is Ann Arbor. I laugh at the Republicans who try to win this hippie district every election. There isn't really a point in trying.

AA gets a lot of positive coverage by the Michigan Daily (our newspaper), and the administration officially supports it. In fact Umich is getting its ass sued for doing AA but instead of backing off, they sent in the lawyers.
 
Why formulate an argument when you can just call someone a troll? No fuss, no mess and it makes you look so cool and original.
 
now my head is banging..........


not competitive or OPPRESSED?
 
i had my umich interview on sept 6th. yeah, the obviously gay guy led my session as well. there were a few minorities in my group of about 30 people there. but keep in mind as well, the first month or so of interviews at umich are mostly filled with michigan residents. so yeah, there were a lot of rich white kids from grosse point or west bloomfield there. but there were others as well.

when i interviewed with the student (i had two mds, one m4), i specifically asked about the diversity of the student body, and not just racially. i was interested in a broad age spread, gender, race, socioeconomic, etc... the guy interviewing me was s.e. asian and he said he was impressed w/the diversity, given what seems to be a large white-kid turnout at the first round of interviews. and back to that eat lunch with your race issue, he said the best thing about the diversity of the student body is that you don't *notice* it because it isn't segregated like many would expect. i don't know if this makes any sense, but it did to me.

anyhoo, that's just the one guy's opinion and my impression of the place. i did my ugrad there and loved the school and the interview really got me psyched about the place again. keep in mind that they interview all thru the winter as well and so this first month is not representative necessarily of what the m1 class will be in the fall.

good luck all! :)
 
I don't know where people are getting the idea that Ann Arbor is conservative. From what I've heard (and I interviewed and spent the weekend there), it's very diverse, and very progressive.

I have to admit, with such a diverse undergrad campus, I was surprised that only 14% of med students were "underrepresented minorities." I did, however, see many East and Southeast Asians, and several African-Americans. Mostly white, I'll agree, but Michigan is a mostly white state, and I applaud them especially for being a state school and taking 50% of their class from out of state.

Ann Arbor has all sorts of cultural outlets, diverse restaraunts and entertainment, and if you walked through the Diag, I'd be surprised if you didn't see students protesting or rallying for or against something or other. The town is definitely upper-middle class, but I think the students are a fairly progressive bunch.

Went to the new arts/indy movie theatre at the Ann Arbor mall: it's got like, 8 screens. I don't think a conservative town could support an arts theatre--let alone a 8-screen one. Just a little indicator for me.

Oh, and about the "upper-middle class" med student applicants--I think medicine in that way is something of a trade that families pass on--it's fairly common for doctors to have a parent in medicine, or something similar. And although minorities are slowly become more common in medicine, the majority of current physicians are white, and upper-middle class. Hence their children learn about medicine, want to be doctors, and can financially afford the educational backgrounds (good high schools, good universities, etc.) that med schools are looking for. There are huge class, race, and social structures and components to medicine, if you weren't sure beforehand.
 
For UM undergrad/med students and people who have interviewed:

Do you have any suggestions on a cool place to hang out Friday night? I have my interview on Friday, so I wanted to find a cool place to chill after taking care of some personal business in and around Detroit.
 
THE WHOLE POINT OF AA IS THAT URMs ARE NOT COMPETETIVE...THAT THEY
Click to expand...

What? :eek:

Let's talk solution Ryo-Ohki. What's your suggestion as to how professional schools can achieve diversity?
 
I think I can end this debate pretty easily. The people who were invited to these early interviews (myself included), many without having submitted secondaries or letters of rec, are generally people with high MCAT scores and GPAs (I believe there's a cutoff somewhere around 3.7/33). That would explain the low number of minorities, case closed.

Also, anyone who thinks Ann Arbor is conservative or not diverse has obviously never been to Ann Arbor.
 
Interview early - get rejected

Interview late - get rejected

The bottom line is getting in, even if it's off the wait list!
 
Detroit sucks, there is nothing to do. There are several little cool bars and things to do in Ann Arbor, however.

That comment that the seemingly lack of diversity is a result of the fact that the early interviews are basically the really high GPA/MCAT people makes sense.

JEEZ I hope i get in!
 
I was in the interview on sep 20th. Out of about 15-20 Med students that we had lunch with. There were about 5 african americans. My student interview was with a Hispanic American student. Who cares what the interviewees were like. What matters is what the actual student body will be like. If its going to be a bunch of white upper middle class kids, I know I personally wouldn't want to go half way across the continent to detroit for it. The reason I applied to UM from (way) out of state is because it is a diverse med school and has a great AA program and is one the very very few public schools that make a point to enroll the best students that they can from instate or out of state. (BTW I am NOT a URM or any kind of M for that matter)
 
Any UMichers have anything interesting to say?
 
yeah, i went to umich undergrad and loved it. ann arbor is not a conservative place (some, myself not included, may even say it is a bit *too* liberal/PC). umich also has nice diversity in their student body, in my opinion. however, at least at the undergrad level, there was some self-segregation b/w races (back to that dreaded "eat lunch w/your own race" mess) but by and large, other than that militant BAMN group - if you're from umich, you know who i'm talking about - the race/diversity thing was never an issue. at least i didn't notice it, i had friends from all walks of life, but i made a intentional point to try and not self-segregate. some people do, but i feel you'll find that everywhere you go.

just my $0.02. :)
 
Kreno--- u of m is not a conservative school- it is in fact very liberal. the tour guide's sexual preference should not have surprised you. ann arbor is a diverse community. also, i think that you have kind of a chip on your shoulder- you refer to kids as being from "rich" cities. you will run into these students wherever you go- especially in graduate programs--------- i just find it hard to believe that these two things were shockers to you. maybe, you are from out of state?
 
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