Wow

[Shades McCool]

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I was just looking over MDapplicants and some of the numbers jump out at me. It is great how some people with really low MCAT and GPA's get into great places such as Harvard and Hopkins.

This is what I was wondering about. When schools talk about how they want diversity, does that just mean race and majors? Do they also mean ways of thinking? I mean techincally I think I could add to diversity just because of where I am from. Being a good ole boy from south Alabama I have different perspectives on a whole range of topics. I know I would probably be in the minority in my views if I were to go a school that was in the Northeast. Do you think schools ever think about things in that way? I really think I could diversify the student body just by my views and I know I would be willing to listen to other people's also.

Give me what you all think!!!!

 

[Mutterkuchen]

Bear in mind that this is a self-report. Most of us will give honest information, but there are some that won't. Obviously, this is a valuable resource, but don't look at it as authoritative and verifiable.

 

[Shades McCool]

Well the thought just crossed my mind as I was looking over it and I was curious to get other people's opinions.

 

[streetdoc]

I agree, Shades.
i'm just a southern girl from the middle of nowhere SC. i put a nice spin on it at my interviews and i think people respect rural students going into medicine. i guess they think you'll go back...which i plan to do. I even got into a state school in WV as an out-of-state resident...i guess they look a geographical diversity too.
best of luck to you
streetdoc

 

[Shades McCool]

Well I am just a good ole boy and I will see what people think of that. Sometimes I think that it carries a negative connotation but we shall see. Good luck to you too StreetDoc.

 

[lytesnsyrens]

i'm gonna reply since everyone seems to be afraid to.

i should certainly hope that med schools look beyond majors and/or race for diversity. i mean, people from different parts of the country, or different backgrounds (family life etc.) can bring different thoughts and ways of doing things to the school. if we all thought the same, then no one would ever progress. mankind has progressed because someone had different ways of thinking. if no one broke the mold we'd still think the world was flat.

 

[streetdoc]

just be sure to speak properly during the interviews. some people looked at me like i couldn't be from SC because i formed a complete and logical thought.

streetdoc

 

[lytesnsyrens]

Originally posted by streetdoc
just be sure to speak properly during the interviews. some people looked at me like i couldn't be from SC because i formed a complete and logical thought.

streetdoc

lol

i happen to love you southerners. the accent is great.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

One of my interviewers in Chicago was a jacka$$ who wanted to know how I would be able to handle living in a city with a lot of diversity, having lived in SC most of my life. I so badly wanted to tell him where to shove his stereotypes. I took great pleasure informing U of C that I would be attending Hopkins in the fall. 😀

It's boggling that people outside the South seem surprised that white Southerners work and live with people of other races. Duh. We assume that VW from SC, where Caucasians make up less than 2/3 the population, will of course be uncomfortable around black people, but XY from Iowa (98% white) is an expert on diversity ...

Oh, and I did get asked frequently how come I don't have an accent.

Anyway, diversity DOES include things like major, experiences, perspectives, etc. I don't know how well your "good ole boy" shtick will go over, but to answer your question, race is not the only definition of diversity.

 

[Shades McCool]

Well do not think that I am going to sit in the interview and dip or something. Hahaha.

I also think it is funny that people outside the south have a hard time thinking that we Southerners have a hard time being around people of different races(my hometown is 70% black). I also love the stigma that we are all rednecks or something. It's disappointing at times that this is what they think.

 

[oldtown]

geographical diversity definitely has something to do with the admissions process- otherwise, every medical school in the country could be filled with CA residents since there are so damn many of us

 

[SunnyS81]

At my vanderbilt interview, the people coming from California seemed surprised that everyone in Nashville didn't wear cowboy boots and hats all the time. I think they were expecting something out of a western movie.

Anyways, I do think they look for geographical diversity. One of my interviewers at Pitt did his undergrad at Harvard and was rejected at their medical school. Later in life, he encountered the dean of admissions (or something similar) again, and the dean told him, "As a national university, we try to get a school that is representative of the country. If 10% of the country's population is from New York (where my interview was from), then we will try to make our class that way also. I can tell you that you would have done a lot better than many of the people we accepted. There is no doubt you would be in the top 200 (or whatever) applicants we recieved, it is just that you weren't in the top 20 or so from the state of new york (given the 10% thing)."

My interviewer is semi-retired, but I have a feeling he is still somewhat bitter. A nobel-laureate was his advisor or wrote his recommendation (this is like 50 years ago), and told him, "oh don't worry, you're from Harvard, just apply to John Hopkins, Harvard, and Yale (or it may have been some other big name school)." He got rejected at all of them and had to take a year off.

As for the Southern thang: I met a girl (Emory Med) who was from Alabama who interviewed at Harvard for residency. Her interviewer asked if she had running water in their house growing up, and questioned weather she had the intelligence to handle medicine being from Alabama.

Just anecdotes I thought I would throw in......

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Originally posted by SunnyS81

As for the Southern thang: I met a girl (Emory Med) who was from Alabama who interviewed at Harvard for residency. Her interviewer asked if she had running water in their house growing up, and questioned weather she had the intelligence to handle medicine being from Alabama.

Just anecdotes I thought I would throw in......

I think I heard that story before. I would have walked out.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Originally posted by Shades McCool
Well do not think that I am going to sit in the interview and dip or something. Hahaha.

Sorry 😉 I didn't mean to imply that you would show up barefoot in your straw hat and overalls. Just meant to say that playing to the stereotype ("good ole boy") could work against you.

I think I might have missed a couple of interviews b/c I went to a public school in the South, but the overwhelming majority of schools judged me only by my performance and experience.

popeyepete, I don't think your attitude is negative so much as naive. This thread is about how med schools judge applicants, not how they ought to judge them. There are approximately eight billion AA threads for you to discuss your ideals about medical school admissions, but in this one we are talking about how medical schools actually define diversity. I don't mean to jump on you, b/c you're entitled to your opinion, but I hate to see another perfectly good thread turn into an AA dead-end.

 

[SunnyS81]

I agree with VW's thinking that going to a public southern school might be a disadvantage. I was talking about this the other night with some friends because two of my roommates and I applied to medical school last year and none of us got interviews at certain schools. The guy who is going to WashU MD/PhD didn't even get an interview at Penn, Harvard, or Stanford. I just thought it was wierd, but whatever......that game is over for me.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Hmm ... Wash U and Hopkins seem the most open-minded of the very top schools ... got an interview at Penn then a soft rejection. No interview at Harvard or Stanford for me, either. I found a list of recent matriculants at Harvard over the past several years (on their Web site--I tried to find it again a few days later and it was gone)--NONE were from public schools in the South, except maybe one or two from UVa or UNC.

I don't want to chalk it up ONLY to going to school in the South, though. Stanford's class is very small and Harvard, well, is Harvard, so I don't feel I was owed an interview just because other top schools interviewed me. I do think being from SC might have been a factor, although certainly not the only one. If your numbers are strong and you express yourself well in your essays, most places will be objective.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Originally posted by lytesnsyrens
lol

i happen to love you southerners. the accent is great.

Don't you mean, "I happen to love y'all?" 😉

 

[ironey]

Originally posted by Shades McCool
Well do not think that I am going to sit in the interview and dip or something. Hahaha.

I also think it is funny that people outside the south have a hard time thinking that we Southerners have a hard time being around people of different races(my hometown is 70% black). I also love the stigma that we are all rednecks or something. It's disappointing at times that this is what they think.

You mean you all don't have red necks?? I thought it was genetic . . . . .I'm so very disappointed.

😛

 

[nvaishnavi]

I think that going to a southern public school is a slight disadvantage. I remember when interviewing at Yale, my interviewers questioned whether I was truly qualified for med school - since I went to a public southern engineering school (and I wasn't an engineer). At another interview, they asked me if I went to a public high school - because they thought all public schools in the south are terrible -- they asked me how I overcame the challenges of being in a public school. I almost burst out laughing 🙂 There's a lot of randomness involved in med school admissions - but I still think that if you do well at any school, you'll end up getting in to med school - it might be harder to break into the old school ivy leagues (Harvard, Yale, etc.), though.

 

[banannie]

it seems pretty much impossible for any school to have diversity of every kind (ethnic, geographic, intellectual, etc) without relying on some sort of ridiculous algorithm that would make the whole application process a farce. so i think that a lot of schools choose to focus on a certain kind of diversity.

for example, it seems that the new york city schools really emphasize ethnic diversity, not just the # of URMs, but really having a class with a large number of ethnicities represented . . . at the same time, they often sacrifice geographic diversity.

I think you can add Duke to the list of top schools that are open-minded. They seem to have a great mix of public and private schools students, from all around the country. However, they don't seem to stress ethnic diversity as much. While there is a lot of URM representation, it seems (although I could be wrong) that the vast majority of their students are white or african-american.

You also have to keep in mind, when considering why schools aren't giving enough attention to non-northeast state school applicants, that most schools are looking to take students that are very likely to matriculate if accepted. I don't think it would be a stretch to imagine that a lot of adcomms will look at an applicant from a southern state, note that the applicant chose to stay in-state and go to a low-cost state school for college, and then draw the (often incorrect) assumption that that particular student won't, in the end, choose to go to an extremely expensive private school very far away from home in a region that probably has a completely different culture. Or, even if the student chose to matriculate, he/she might not have enough of a support system close by to help them through such a huge transition.

I'm not saying that these are good assumptions to make, and it certainly isn't fair, but I guess sometimes when you're trying to screen through 10,000 applications, you need to look for ways to be nitpicky.

 

[SunnyS81]

Originally posted by nvaishnavi
At another interview, they asked me if I went to a public high school - because they thought all public schools in the south are terrible -- they asked me how I overcame the challenges of being in a public school. I almost burst out laughing 🙂 .

The Wood-hood is a terrible place to school. The graduating classes a full of a bunch of bums who can barely get into college much less go to grad school 🙂

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Originally posted by banannie

You also have to keep in mind, when considering why schools aren't giving enough attention to non-northeast state school applicants, that most schools are looking to take students that are very likely to matriculate if accepted. I don't think it would be a stretch to imagine that a lot of adcomms will look at an applicant from a southern state, note that the applicant chose to stay in-state and go to a low-cost state school for college, and then draw the (often incorrect) assumption that that particular student won't, in the end, choose to go to an extremely expensive private school very far away from home in a region that probably has a completely different culture. Or, even if the student chose to matriculate, he/she might not have enough of a support system close by to help them through such a huge transition.

These are very good points, and you are right that the assumptions are inaccurate. I don't think they would have applied in my case, as I studied and worked abroad while in college, but applicants should be prepared to answer why they stayed in-state. More often than not, it's because they were saving their money for med school, which I believe most adcoms will respect. A friend made this point at every interview, that she would choose her med school based solely on the program itself, not finances, b/c she had no debt from undergrad. (She just graduated from Wash U.) But I can see how one might unimaginatively conclude that people who stay in state are just homebodies.

 

[SunnyS81]

I think all the assumptions are fair on the AdCom's part. If you want to have a high rate of marticulation (sp?), you target people who you think will come. People who historically spend money on education, are from the region, and have interests that match the school's.

VW, of all public schools in the south, I would imagine UVA and UNC would be the most respected. I'm no USNews buff, but I imagine they are amongst the nation's top public schools. It is pretty sad if they overlook people who attend those schools. Maybe I'm just really fiscially conservative, but I only think it is worth paying two or three times your instate tuition if you get your money's worth. What you think has "worth" is an individual decision.

I'll stop rambling......

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Originally posted by SunnyS81
I think all the assumptions are fair on the AdCom's part. If you want to have a high rate of marticulation (sp?), you target people who you think will come. People who historically spend money on education, are from the region, and have interests that match the school's.

VW, of all public schools in the south, I would imagine UVA and UNC would be the most respected. I'm no USNews buff, but I imagine they are amongst the nation's top public schools. It is pretty sad if they overlook people who attend those schools. Maybe I'm just really fiscially conservative, but I only think it is worth paying two or three times your instate tuition if you get your money's worth. What you think has "worth" is an individual decision.

I'll stop rambling......

I'm not challenging the right of adcoms to target students they think will come, and it IS a reasonable assumption that students with family near the school are more likely to come than students whose families are across the country. It is NOT a reasonable assumption to assume that students who stayed in-state for UG are not willing to leave the area, or as you (rather obnoxiously) assume, value their education less than other people. Some people CANNOT AFFORD to go to a private UG school when they know they will also need loans for professional school. Also, parents have a significant amount of control over the UG decision relative to grad/prof. I didn't turn 18 until a month or so after I matriculated undergrad. My parents decided I was staying in state and that was that. So I must disagree with you on the question of whether the assumptions that people who stay in-state do so because they don't care about their education or don't want to ever leave the region are valid.

A private school hardly guarantees quality. I was a TA at Duke, and I was astonished the first time I graded papers. I would be furious if someone had spent at least $100k on my education so far and my writing was THAT dreadful. The advantage of prestigious schools appears to lie mainly in the networking opportunities (which I admit are valuable) rather than the quality of the instruction. Given the small number of PhDs who are able to secure ANY teaching position, even at state schools you are getting professors who know their stuff.

 

[SunnyS81]

VW,

Sorry that I came off obnoxious. Last time I went to a private school was 2nd grade, and I have no plans in the near future of going to one. I'm glad I'm debt free, and got an unbeatable education. I stayed in-state, and I have my own opinions regarding dishing out a ton of cash for an undergrad degree.

I was just implying that if I want to hedge bets on people spending a lot of money, it would be on people who historically spend a lot of money (i.e. the guy driving a year old BMW is more likely to buy a new BMW than the guy in a Geo Metro). I had never thought of that method of discrimination until this thread came up. I had thought about the regional discrimination but not the spending habits of the person. I wonder if a person who went out of state to UNC (or some other southern state school like UVA) would be treated differently? I think I misused the word assumption. How about this: The schools want to maximize the Probability(percentage of admits attending | they know some of the admitted students' histories). Without conditioning the probability, they wouldn't be able to optimize their admissions process. THAT is what I was thinking, but couldn't think of a way to phrase it in non-math terms.....sad but true.

Now that I sound like a geek, I'll stop.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Originally posted by SunnyS81
How about this: The schools want to maximize the Probability(percentage of admits attending | they know some of the admitted students' histories). Without conditioning the probability, they wouldn't be able to optimize their admissions process. THAT is what I was thinking, but couldn't think of a way to phrase it in non-math terms.....sad but true.

Now that I sound like a geek, I'll stop.

Geeks, unite! 😀 Sometimes, it's just easier to speak in math ... sigh ...

I can't blame adcoms for operating under simplifying assumptions, but people go to state schools for so many reasons, it's inappropriate to generalize. My view is, if the GPA is good and the MCAT confirms the achievement, who the hell cares where you went to undergrad?

Anyway, sorry if I came off as hot-headed ... 😛

 

[Hawaiiandoc04]

I am from the MOST SOUTHERN state in the U.S. ..... HAWAII....!!! Will schools give me an advantage because of this? I grew up in a grass shack and surfed to school... thats diversity for you!