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I see what you’re saying, but I would think the real reason that four white students were accepted with lower scores for every black student is strictly a numbers game.
That. Is the point. There is VERY little reason for a white student to be upset with affirmative action programs because they (more likely than not) don't impact them in the slightest. The harm that BLADE et al have expressed: "black students are taking the places of better white/asian students", isn't a serious concern when viewed in this light. The meritocracy that BLADE et al are trying to protect doesn't really exist when we look at MCAT scores this way.
At those two points, the black student still has about 56% chance and 67% chance respectively of being admitted. A white candidate with those low scores has an 8% and 14% chance of admission. The overall population of applicants is far greater for whites because the overall acceptance rate is not very far off from the overall white acceptance rate and nowhere near the elevated black acceptance rate, so it stands to reason that there would be far greater white people accepted who got a lower score than there would be black people. Strictly by sheer numbers of applicants.
This is all true. But the HARM done on the unaccepted white student isn't due to the black student being admitted. It's much more likely due to other dumber white students getting admitted. So if I was a white student with average scores, I should be much more upset at the dumber white student who got in despite poorer scores than the rare black student who got in.
However, I’m not sure I follow the leap of faith to state that missing 1-2 questions is the equivalent of the overall impact of these AA/DEI policies. The low GPA/low MCAT (22-24) section for blacks is a 56% acceptance rate. To approach that rate for whites, they have to have mid range GPA and a high MCAT (30-32) and then their acceptance rate jumps to 48%. The only group that is higher acceptance rate for whites is the high GPA/high MCAT group, which rises to an acceptance rate of 63%. An acceptance rate just slightly higher (but in the same ballpark) than the acceptance rate of the black student with low GPA and low MCAT.
I'm taking figure 4 from the stats page I linked as true. If you disagree with that table (which it sounds like you do), then there's not much more to argue. That table purports to show odds for white/black students likelihood of "taking your spot".
To me, there is no way having a cold and missing an additional 1-2 questions is the equivalent of those stats. I’m just not sure I draw the same conclusions from that data chart that you do. I’m open to hearing if you are able to help me understand your point of view better.
I think if you recognize just how few black students apply to medical school each year (and that number has actually been going down in recent years) that might explain the disconnect. Demonstrating that the average black score is lower than the average white score does not mean that the unaccepted white student was significantly harmed by the lower scoring black student. The article suggests that some white students lost out to black students due to affirmative action policies, but those are a very very small percentage of students and I would argue the benefits of the policies far outweigh that harm.
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