URM Status.. that big of a deal?

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A.D.

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I'm fairly new to the forum and the med school process, but I've noticed pretty heated debates about how being a URM helps/ is unfair.. so i was just wondering is it really that big of an advantage?

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yes, URM is a very big advantage. I think AAMC did a study on the average GPA/MCAT of URM matriculants vs. Asian/White matriculants. The difference is considerable.
 
you can check mdapplicants.com and see unscientifically that urm's get by with lower mcat and gpa's than their non-urm counterparts. Whether you agree with the URM-AA philosophy or not, it is undeniable that URM status is beneficial. That being said, URMs don't just waltz into med schools either. I am not in a position to say that URMs with lower numbers in the objective measures are actually less fit to enter MD programs. After all, there is more to med school admissions than numbers.
 
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Let's just say that you would put your kids further along the road to success if you used URM sperm for babies than if you gave your kids a top rate education; when the gene for dark skin color comes out, my kid is getting it.

The effect of that thinking is pretty self-evident. Race has no place in America, good or bad, URM's are just hurting everyone by selfishly perpetuating stereotypes. They continue to trash MLK's grave.

That being said, ethnic diversity is real and valuable as long as its identification is by evidenced experience in that diverse environment (i.e. living where you are a minority or experiencing something that your minority typically experiences) and not by checkboxes.

A URM with ethics would not choose URM status on AMCAS or med apps and would instead talk about their URM in an essay or personal statement.

A black kid brought up by rich white parents should not get URM status, IMO, right now they do.
 
I think the clearly URMs receive an advantage in the application process over non-URM's. How significant an advantage would be difficult to determine. Since it is unlikely that anyone could provide a better response than "maybe" to the question posed in the thread title, I am closing the thread.

AA threads often turn out bad, and this question is much too subjective to yield an agreed upon answer.
 
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