Supreme Court Ruling, Race based admissions.

[summerdoc321]

I think affirmative action is important and necessary, but its execution was flawed. The only people to blame are those universities (all universities? idk) who enabled and enacted it’s poor execution. Much of this debate has pitted minorities against others and I think it’s sad. I hope that a better system for evaluating applicants/people in light of affirmative action decision can be found. I honestly don’t know what a new system of evaluation would be.

Here are my thoughts (they probably don’t matter in the large scheme of things). Apologies if they’re garbled! Disclaimer: These thoughts are not to minimize the experience of traditionally underrepresented groups in medicine, education, leadership positions, etc. These thoughts are present hopefully to provide insight into another side of AA! Thanks for reading.

I would like to begin by focusing on Justice Jackson’s eloquent, well written and enlightening opinion. I really enjoyed reading it and it was a refreshing read with lots of important historical facts and thoughts. However, one thing I noticed is the word Asian only appeared three times in the entire opinion piece. Justice Jackson did not extensively evaluate or acknowledge the oppression that asians experience at various points during America’s lengthy history. This sentiment and incomplete evaluation seems to be evident across most pro-AA writings. None focus on the experience of Asian Americans. It’s sad. I hope to speak to that.

On pg 7, Justice Jackson references the government’s attempt to increase opportunities for upward mobility, but these opportunities were scarce for Black people. According to the piece, “Despite these barriers, Black people persisted” (pg 7). She goes on to highlight racist zoning policies, high pricing for subpar housing, etc. This is incredibly sad and oppressive. However, in my reading of House of Rothschild, by Niall Ferguson, it was evident that such similar oppressions existed against the Jewish communities at the turn of nearly every century. In Mayer Rothschild’s day, there were images in Frankfurt, Germany like the Judensau, which depicted Rabbi’s drinking excrement from a pig. Their people were restricted to the Frankfurt ghetto’s and the children “swam in filth.” They were not allowed to be doctors or lawyers. Jewish communities were allowed only to engage in banking on behalf of “superior” people. Yet, despite these incredibly oppressive and health-deteriorating conditions, the Jewish communities rose up and continue to rise up, despite receiving poor treatment. The key here is that it took time and strong communities. It started from the bottom up. As of 2022, Harvard has a $50.2 billion endowment, yet I have never heard of the university opening any educational centers/facilities/pipelines in Compton, or the south side of Chicago. Yet, the university admins want to place subjective measures of personality, courage, etc from the top down. The university admins want to make broad generalizations after you tick Asian, Black, White, etc. However, everyone’s experience with their race/ethnicity is individual. I think that is the issue highlighted at the court case. It would be better to increase educational funding to those underserved areas. We need admissions advisors who have a diversity of life experiences from all races and ethnicities, so unique experiences can be advocated for.

Justice Roberts said universities may still consider, “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise.” Yes, this is important. Universities need to put in the work to evaluate one’s experiences with race in the context of that individual’s life. This will be incredibly challenging, as it will likely require universities to read more carefully and sort through more applications. At the very least, traditionally ORM students who don’t get accepted to universities will no longer be able to use the crutch that it was a minority student who stole their spot. That mentality is absurd anyway. When I was rejected from medical school my first application, I didn’t think that way and I certainly hope others don’t either.

My last point to make is that even amongst traditionally overrepresented groups like Asians, there is nuances within them. Let’s take a look at India, where the caste system still has a hold. In India certain opportunities and upward mobility exists only for those of a higher caste (Brahmins for example). However, what happens if your a Dalit (an untouchable). People don’t want to be near you, they don’t want you to touch their food. They don’t even want to touch you. Then when these people flee to America, they experience casteism in the workplace from other Indians. Even amongst Indians, there is oppression against their own people. How does that work in the context of AA? This is never talked about. How about if you are a darker colored Indian? Although you are Asian, you are likely to experience discrimination on the basis of your skin, even though your checking the box of Asian would indicate otherwise. Many south Indians have dark skin and have felt/heard similar racist remarks that a Hispanic or Black individual might. I know I have. I’ve been called curry n-word and sand n-word by a white TA I worked with regularly! Yet, I’m not sure my experience is overrepresented? How about poorer Asians from Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian or Korean descent. They check Asian, but their lived experiences are not overrepresented. How about my Chinese friends whose parents were doctors in China, but fled after Tiananmen Square massacre? They couldn’t get physicians jobs and work as lab techs in my lab! How about the Japanese internment camps, where upwards of $2-5 billion worth of property was taken away from Japanese families and never redistributed. How about the indentured servant conditions of the Chinese railway laborers (who were called Coolies!)? How about the Anti-Chinese sentiment during the Covid Pandemic? My friend went to Kentucky for one year to do research before beginning his MD-PhD and he was called Chink and told to go home regularly. People through trash at him when he walked alone in the streets. This is the same friend whose parents made only $40,000 a year and yet he won multiple scholarships and fellowships (Goldwater, published in high school, one year masters in Cambridge, etc.) Justice Jackson never touched on this...

Change takes time. It starts with more traditionally underrepresented minorities taking positions in tech (as coders), being PAs, etc... slowly breaking into fields which were closed off to them. It must be done as a community from the bottom up. Asian communities who immigrate to the US and their kids rise to the top are done by emphasizing a culture of poverty and understanding that education is the only way up and out. I hope this isn't tone deaf. I feel much of the pro-AA stuff is tone deaf as well. Idk...

I could go on and on. You may read this and think this is anecdotal. However, I hope this highlights that even amongst “ORM” applicants there is diversity of life experience. In the end, I hope more Black, Hispanic, Native American, women, etc. apply to and get accepted to medical school. My dad always emphasized the importance of diversity of thought, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. I agree with that sentiment. I just hope schools find a better way to do it. I need to go write some secondaries now lol. Best of luck to everyone in the process!

edit - Side note: Furthermore, I didn't even realize I could talk about my unique experiences in my essays until recently. It sounds very naive but all my counselors and standard wisdom would indicate since I'm Asian I can't have unique racial, ethnic, and educaitional experiences... Why? Idk man... Best of luck and sending lots of good vibes and peace to everyone.

I appreciate aspects of your comment here, but what I would say the difference is when it comes to African-Americans is the lack of reparations.

Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, as well as Japanese interment camp victims received reparations. African-Americans have received none. Much easier to lift one self to a better future when you are given the tools to do so, naturally. Affirmative action, in lieu of reparations, what a incredible modest attempt to integrate African Americans into mainstream life. Yet even that, the mere *consideration* of race, which affirmative action called for, was attacked since its inception and eventually taken away.

I think the problem is that we routinely fail to put affirmative action in its greater context, which was to account for historical injustices towards African-Americans to achieve equality, after centuries of exploitation. This has NEVER been done in any meaningful way. It is STILL to this day something that has not been meaningfully done, and in fact, when an attempt is done, African-Americans are accused of cheating the system. It's cynical and maintains White supremacy

As MLK Jr, said, "It's all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps."

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[docdoc912]

I think affirmative action is important and necessary, but its execution was flawed. The only people to blame are those universities (all universities? idk) who enabled and enacted it’s poor execution. Much of this debate has pitted minorities against others and I think it’s sad. I hope that a better system for evaluating applicants/people in light of affirmative action decision can be found. I honestly don’t know what a new system of evaluation would be.

Here are my thoughts (they probably don’t matter in the large scheme of things). Apologies if they’re garbled! Disclaimer: These thoughts are not to minimize the experience of traditionally underrepresented groups in medicine, education, leadership positions, etc. These thoughts are present hopefully to provide insight into another side of AA! Thanks for reading.

I would like to begin by focusing on Justice Jackson’s eloquent, well written and enlightening opinion. I really enjoyed reading it and it was a refreshing read with lots of important historical facts and thoughts. However, one thing I noticed is the word Asian only appeared three times in the entire opinion piece. Justice Jackson did not extensively evaluate or acknowledge the oppression that asians experience at various points during America’s lengthy history. This sentiment and incomplete evaluation seems to be evident across most pro-AA writings. None focus on the experience of Asian Americans. It’s sad. I hope to speak to that.

On pg 7, Justice Jackson references the government’s attempt to increase opportunities for upward mobility, but these opportunities were scarce for Black people. According to the piece, “Despite these barriers, Black people persisted” (pg 7). She goes on to highlight racist zoning policies, high pricing for subpar housing, etc. This is incredibly sad and oppressive. However, in my reading of House of Rothschild, by Niall Ferguson, it was evident that such similar oppressions existed against the Jewish communities at the turn of nearly every century. In Mayer Rothschild’s day, there were images in Frankfurt, Germany like the Judensau, which depicted Rabbi’s drinking excrement from a pig. Their people were restricted to the Frankfurt ghetto’s and the children “swam in filth.” They were not allowed to be doctors or lawyers. Jewish communities were allowed only to engage in banking on behalf of “superior” people. Yet, despite these incredibly oppressive and health-deteriorating conditions, the Jewish communities rose up and continue to rise up, despite receiving poor treatment. The key here is that it took time and strong communities. It started from the bottom up. As of 2022, Harvard has a $50.2 billion endowment, yet I have never heard of the university opening any educational centers/facilities/pipelines in Compton, or the south side of Chicago. Yet, the university admins want to place subjective measures of personality, courage, etc from the top down. The university admins want to make broad generalizations after you tick Asian, Black, White, etc. However, everyone’s experience with their race/ethnicity is individual. I think that is the issue highlighted at the court case. It would be better to increase educational funding to those underserved areas. We need admissions advisors who have a diversity of life experiences from all races and ethnicities, so unique experiences can be advocated for.

Justice Roberts said universities may still consider, “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise.” Yes, this is important. Universities need to put in the work to evaluate one’s experiences with race in the context of that individual’s life. This will be incredibly challenging, as it will likely require universities to read more carefully and sort through more applications. At the very least, traditionally ORM students who don’t get accepted to universities will no longer be able to use the crutch that it was a minority student who stole their spot. That mentality is absurd anyway. When I was rejected from medical school my first application, I didn’t think that way and I certainly hope others don’t either.

My last point to make is that even amongst traditionally overrepresented groups like Asians, there is nuances within them. Let’s take a look at India, where the caste system still has a hold. In India certain opportunities and upward mobility exists only for those of a higher caste (Brahmins for example). However, what happens if your a Dalit (an untouchable). People don’t want to be near you, they don’t want you to touch their food. They don’t even want to touch you. Then when these people flee to America, they experience casteism in the workplace from other Indians. Even amongst Indians, there is oppression against their own people. How does that work in the context of AA? This is never talked about. How about if you are a darker colored Indian? Although you are Asian, you are likely to experience discrimination on the basis of your skin, even though your checking the box of Asian would indicate otherwise. Many south Indians have dark skin and have felt/heard similar racist remarks that a Hispanic or Black individual might. I know I have. I’ve been called curry n-word and sand n-word by a white TA I worked with regularly! Yet, I’m not sure my experience is overrepresented? How about poorer Asians from Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian or Korean descent. They check Asian, but their lived experiences are not overrepresented. How about my Chinese friends whose parents were doctors in China, but fled after Tiananmen Square massacre? They couldn’t get physicians jobs and work as lab techs in my lab! How about the Japanese internment camps, where upwards of $2-5 billion worth of property was taken away from Japanese families and never redistributed. How about the indentured servant conditions of the Chinese railway laborers (who were called Coolies!)? How about the Anti-Chinese sentiment during the Covid Pandemic? My friend went to Kentucky for one year to do research before beginning his MD-PhD and he was called Chink and told to go home regularly. People through trash at him when he walked alone in the streets. This is the same friend whose parents made only $40,000 a year and yet he won multiple scholarships and fellowships (Goldwater, published in high school, one year masters in Cambridge, etc.) Justice Jackson never touched on this...

Change takes time. It starts with more traditionally underrepresented minorities taking positions in tech (as coders), being PAs, etc... slowly breaking into fields which were closed off to them. It must be done as a community from the bottom up. Asian communities who immigrate to the US and their kids rise to the top are done by emphasizing a culture of poverty and understanding that education is the only way up and out. I hope this isn't tone deaf. I feel much of the pro-AA stuff is tone deaf as well. Idk...

I could go on and on. You may read this and think this is anecdotal. However, I hope this highlights that even amongst “ORM” applicants there is diversity of life experience. In the end, I hope more Black, Hispanic, Native American, women, etc. apply to and get accepted to medical school. My dad always emphasized the importance of diversity of thought, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. I agree with that sentiment. I just hope schools find a better way to do it. I need to go write some secondaries now lol. Best of luck to everyone in the process!

edit - Side note: Furthermore, I didn't even realize I could talk about my unique experiences in my essays until recently. It sounds very naive but all my counselors and standard wisdom would indicate since I'm Asian I can't have unique racial, ethnic, and educaitional experiences... Why? Idk man... Best of luck and sending lots of good vibes and peace to everyone.

I would like to point out what someone else expressed earlier, and that is, that Justice Jackson recused herself from the Harvard lawsuit because it was her alma mater and that may have had something to do with the reason she didn't address Asian-Americans in her opinion. To pretend as though she is somewhat against Asians really feeds into a false narrative.

Comparing racial slurs to hundreds of years of systemic racism is questionable. Your argument seems like the good ol "pull yourself by your bootstraps" "if we did it you can too." Seeing as though most of the rights you have in this country came from the civil rights movement that many black people died for is insulting. And what's the point in comparing the history of Jewish people in Germany, to African Americans? Its.... weird.

 

[Goro]

The entire purpose of the application process is to pick applicants that will best serve patients.

It’s not to pick the smartest scientist. It’s not to pick the best test taker.

And not every school is looking for the same exact thing, because hey have different missions. Some are looking to train the best physician scientists. Many are looking to train physicians who will best serve the population of students in their particular locale, which is why residency is often used.

This is what you fundamentally don’t seem to get.

It would be worth pointing out to those who obsessively think that med school admissions should be based upon stats only, that those who are unteachable get dismissed from med school or residency.

 

[darkamgine]

I am wondering why people are always complaining about American health care system ? I dont think the schools have any extraordinary mission. Only thing I see is top schools have median MCAT/GPA scores high and low tier schools and DO schools have lower median MCAT/GPA. At the end the schools will advertise if thier alumni accomplish something big. Dont know how many schools advertise or has top tier name based on their doctors serving underserved population ( which is important, but don't see Harvard or Yale advertising big percent of their alumni serving under represented community or underserved area ). So it seems the current admission process has some big flaw.

Oof, I feel like it is spoken by a true pre-med.

There are many flaws with the american health care system, too many to elaborate in one post. There is the cost to customers and profit of insurance and pharma companies, provider shortage, and health inequalities based on determinants of health. I assume you want to discuss the shortage of providers.

Top medical schools are generally more interested in research and thus have big names and celebrate those accomplishments. They also send more students to competitive specialties and sub-specialties. Meanwhile, lower tier schools and DO schools have more interest in primary care or serving the underserved. More of their students will go into FM, IM, Peds.

Top medical school basically require you to do research if you want to get in. This is because you are offered resources and opportunities that other schools do not have and they want you to take advantage of it.

Low tier MD and DO schools have more patients that they want students to take care of. Some in particular like Rush and Tulane have heavy emphasis on volunteering hours to demonstrate their commitment to serving. I believe USC has an interest in the underserved too. Go through the school lists, some are explicit, others have match list that demonstrate it.

However, most students want to live in desirable areas and do certain specialties so there is a distribution issue. Once again, schools cannot force students to choose specialties or location but may select students because they are likely to go into current specialties. Medical schools are not monolithic so while there is an issue, it is not the responsibility of any single medical school to suddenly divert tons of resources to focus on primary care.

 

[Plut0]

Comments?

With End of Affirmative Action, a Push for a New Tool: Adversity Scores

To build a diverse class of students, the medical school at U.C. Davis ranks applicants by the disadvantages they have faced. Can it work nationally?

www.nytimes.com

A Short Introduction to Federal Title VI Litigation and Potential Effects on Medical Schools

Under the Grutter v. Bollinger precedent, institutions of higher education, including medical schools, are effectively shielded from Title VI racial discrimination lawsuits as the consideration of race was legal under the holistic admission framework. This regime came to an abrupt end when the Supreme Court effectively overturned Grutter in the SFFA v. Harvard/UNC cases. Explicit consideration of race is no longer legal, and any applicant who believes they were intentionally discriminated against on the basis of race in the medical school admission process can seek relief from federal courts under 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (hereinafter Title VI).

What would this process look like? What are the standards of evidence, and who bears the burden of proof? Will medical schools be able to continue business as usual by shifting focus from race to race-relevant essays? I hope to inform discussions on this important topic with a brief introduction to Federal Title VI Litigation, using the Title VI Legal Manual from the Department of Justice as a reference.

When suing under Title VI, the goal for applicant plaintiffs is to prove intentional discrimination based on race from medical schools that rejects them. The federal courts have developed several analytical frameworks to determine if the alleged action meets the legal standard for intentional discrimination, and the plaintiff would succeed if the evidence satisfy one framework.

The most straightforward framework focuses on direct evidence, which comes in two types. Express classifications explicitly classify people by race and give or withhold benefits on that basis. In school admissions, this takes the form of a racial "check box" either completed by the applicant or by the admissions guessing the race using a combination of variables like last names, zip codes, or essay responses. Comments or conduct by decision-makers stating an intention to discriminate is also considered direct evidence. These could include statements from decision-makers directly involved in the admission process, senior university administrators, and official statements of missions.

Generally, in Title VI litigations, direct evidence is rare because discriminators learn to hide the evidence and keep their mouths shut. But medical schools now are in a quite different situation. For decades, medical schools (outside states that banned AA) have been openly and constantly engaged in expressed classification of race. And many medical school admission or diversity and inclusion deans have openly extolled the success of their affirmative action programs or stated intentions to increase underrepresented minorities on campus. What would be a noble sentiment yesterday is today smoking gun evidence of an illegal intent to discriminate. I speculate that medical schools wishing to survive the most simple direct evidence test must nevertheless make substantial and convincing reforms to their admission process, including potential personnel changes.

Because discriminators can relatively easily conceal direct evidence of intentional discrimination, the courts also allow circumstantial evidence. The courts developed two analytical frameworks to evaluate circumstantial evidence, called Arlington Heights and McDonnell-Douglas after the eponymous Supreme Court decisions.

The Arlington Heights framework allows a mosaic of factors to collectively prove intentional discrimination. Factors considered by the court include the following

• Statistics demonstrating a clear pattern of discriminatory effect;
• The historical background of the decision and other decisions on comparable matters;
• The sequence of events leading up to the decision, as compared to other decisions on comparable matters;
• Departures from normal procedures or substantive conclusions;
• Relevant legislative or administrative history; and
• Consistent pattern of actions of decision-makers that impose much greater harm on minorities than on non-minorities.

Medical schools that wish to retain a large number of Black and Hispanic students after the SFFA decision would find the deck stacked against them. As mentioned above, the "historical background," "relevant administrative history," and "consistent pattern of actions" all establish medical schools as suspect actors with a long history of engaging in activities that, under today's standards, constitute illegal discrimination.

According to AAMC national-level data, in 2022 Black and Hispanic matriculants had substantially lower average GPA and MCAT. This gap no doubt existed in individual schools as well, but today a statistically significant difference could constitute "statistics demonstrating a clear pattern of discriminatory effect." Similarly, analysis shows that at each MCAT/GPA bracket, there are significantly different odds of admission for the different races. Going forward, medical schools would want to ensure they are approximately the same. These restrictions would significantly limit the size of the "essay/hardship bonus" medical school could give to Black and Hispanic students.

Can medical schools retain a statistically significant gap between their URM and ORM matriculants but try to explain the gap by pointing to hardships, either assumed or described in essays, for the URM students? I do not doubt that some schools will try, but it will be an uphill battle. For one, studies, including those from the AAMC, showed that MCAT and GPA are not systematically unfair to URMs—they hold the same predictive value on pre-clinical coursework and Step 1/2 performance for ORMs and URMs. Moreover, systematically assigning a higher level of hardship to URM but not ORMs, particularly Asians who suffered historical and ongoing discrimination, could itself be statistical evidence of discrimination.

Medical schools have one more test ahead of them: the McDonnell-Douglas framework. This is a three-step process. In step 1, the applicant plaintiff establishes a prima facie case by showing that they are a member of a particular protected group, was eligible for the program, was not accepted, but a similarly situated individual from a different group was admitted. In step 2, the medical school respondent would articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. In step 3, the plaintiff must demonstrate pretext. That is, the reason offered by the medical school is not the true reason but actually the cover story for prohibited discriminatory intent.

In the SFFA opinion, Chief Justice Roberts endorsed the practice of "considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise." Thus, Medical schools can argue that bonuses given to Blacks or Hispanics are not given on account of race but on account of the "challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned" that these URM applicants demonstrate through their essays. But federal courts have compelling reasons to believe that this is a pretext: medical schools and AAMC have repeatedly justified URM's preferential admissions by delivering better health outcomes for underserved patients and building a diverse, demographically representative physician workforce. No matter how sensible these goals may be, legally, in admissions today, they constitute prohibited discriminatory intent.

Consider Duke School of Medicine's Movement to Movement initiative, an action plan that aimed to "enhance racial diversity," "advance careers among underrepresented racial and ethnic(URE) groups in medicine," and "reduce racial health disparities." If Duke gives out essay bonuses to URMs, would a federal court believe that the bonuses are genuinely meant to reward "experiences as an individual" or pretexts to achieve the aforementioned goals?

One additional factor bears emphasis. Asians are a protected group. Harvard owes its defeat in part to its indefensible assignment of lower personality scores to its Asian applicants. Federal courts are unlikely to look kindly on medical schools that assign vastly different ratings to essays on overcoming discrimination for similarly situated Black, Hispanics, and Asians.

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The day of reckoning is upon medical schools. Having for decades extolled their diversity programs as not only justified but virtuous, medical schools must now come to terms with the new legal realities, where the same statements could become exhibit #1 in future court cases.

Like businesses, banks, and government agencies before them, medical schools may be tempted to cheat federal anti-discrimination laws by making their overt racial classifications covert. Multiple analytical tools were developed by the courts specifically to combat this. Since medical schools routinely screen thousands of applicants, robust statistical tests would put any new admission scheme under microscopic scrutiny.

Medical schools in states where affirmative action is already illegal should not assume they are unaffected. Federal courts may not be as sympathetic to the diversity objective as California state courts. The recent victory for SFFA also means that activist legal groups wanting total race-blind admissions may be actively recruiting the next plaintiff.

While many things remain uncertain, it appears that medical schools must indeed take affirmative actions to comply with the law.

 

[Angler]

Comments?

With End of Affirmative Action, a Push for a New Tool: Adversity Scores

To build a diverse class of students, the medical school at U.C. Davis ranks applicants by the disadvantages they have faced. Can it work nationally?

www.nytimes.com

Too bad this is behind a paywall. I believe that the concept of a "disadvantage" score is great. At the end of the day, however, it is just a score. And scores can be gamed, once you know the rules. And the privileged can play this game better than the disadvantaged.

 

[darkamgine]

Too bad this is behind a paywall. I believe that the concept of a "disadvantage" score is great. At the end of the day, however, it is just a score. And scores can be gamed, once you know the rules. And the privileged can play this game better than the disadvantaged.

Here are the main quotes.

In his role at the medical school at the University of California, Davis, Dr. Henderson has tried to change that, developing an unorthodox tool to evaluate applicants: the socioeconomic disadvantage scale, or S.E.D.

The scale rates every applicant from zero to 99, taking into account their life circumstances, such as family income and parental education. Admissions decisions are based on that score, combined with the usual portfolio of grades, test scores, recommendations, essays and interviews.

The disadvantage scale has helped turn U.C. Davis into one of the most diverse medical schools in the country — notable in a state that voted in 1996 to ban affirmative action

Word has gotten out about the U.C. Davis scale. Dr. Henderson said that about 20 schools had recently requested more information. And there are other socioeconomic measurements, including Landscape, released in 2019 from the College Board, the nonprofit that administers the SATs. That tool allows undergraduate admissions offices to assess the socioeconomic backgrounds of individual students.

But skeptics question whether such rankings — or any kind of socioeconomic affirmative action — will be enough to replace race-conscious affirmative action. And schools that use adversity scales may also find themselves wandering into legal quagmires, with conservative groups promising to fight programs that are simply stand-ins for race.

The U.C. Davis scale has drawn attention because of its ability to bring in diverse students using what the schools says are “race-neutral” socioeconomic models.

In its most recent entering class of 133 students, 14 percent were Black and 30 percent were Hispanic. Nationally, 10 percent of medical school students were Black and 12 percent were Hispanic. A vast majority of the U.C. Davis class — 84 percent — comes from disadvantaged backgrounds, and 42 percent are the first in their family to go to college.

The overall acceptance rate has been less than 2 percent.

In the Davis scale, first used in 2012, eight categories establish an adversity score for each candidate. Factors include family income, whether applicants come from an underserved area, whether they help support their nuclear families and whether their parents went to college.

The higher an applicant rates on the disadvantage scale, the bigger the boost.

There is no set formula on how to balance the scale with the academic record, Dr. Henderson said, but a simulation of the system revealed that students from underrepresented groups grew to 15.3 percent from 10.7 percent. And the share of economically disadvantaged students tripled, to 14.5 percent of the class from 4.6 percent.

Still, it’s not easy to persuade medical schools to upend admissions standards, particularly anything that undermines the value of test scores and grades. Dr. Henderson said he had received pushback from his own colleagues.
“Doctors say their kids got into medical school elsewhere, and they didn’t get in here,” he said.
As the children of doctors, he said, those applicants earned an S.E.D. score of zero.
A number of scholars, including Richard D. Kahlenberg, have promoted using class-conscious preferences, which they say could address racial inequities in education without fostering the resentment often prompted by racially based diversity plans.
And President Biden said on Thursday that his administration would develop a “new standard for colleges taking into account the adversity a student has overcome.”

“The kid who faced tougher challenges has demonstrated more grit, more determination,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House, “and that should be a factor that colleges should take into account in admissions.”

 

[deleted1156722]

A Short Introduction to Federal Title VI Litigation and Potential Effects on Medical Schools

Under the Grutter v. Bollinger precedent, institutions of higher education, including medical schools, are effectively shielded from Title VI racial discrimination lawsuits as the consideration of race was legal under the holistic admission framework. This regime came to an abrupt end when the Supreme Court effectively overturned Grutter in the SFFA v. Harvard/UNC cases. Explicit consideration of race is no longer legal, and any applicant who believes they were intentionally discriminated against on the basis of race in the medical school admission process can seek relief from federal courts under 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (hereinafter Title VI).

What would this process look like? What are the standards of evidence, and who bears the burden of proof? Will medical schools be able to continue business as usual by shifting focus from race to race-relevant essays? I hope to inform discussions on this important topic with a brief introduction to Federal Title VI Litigation, using the Title VI Legal Manual from the Department of Justice as a reference.

When suing under Title VI, the goal for applicant plaintiffs is to prove intentional discrimination based on race from medical schools that rejects them. The federal courts have developed several analytical frameworks to determine if the alleged action meets the legal standard for intentional discrimination, and the plaintiff would succeed if the evidence satisfy one framework.

The most straightforward framework focuses on direct evidence, which comes in two types. Express classifications explicitly classify people by race and give or withhold benefits on that basis. In school admissions, this takes the form of a racial "check box" either completed by the applicant or by the admissions guessing the race using a combination of variables like last names, zip codes, or essay responses. Comments or conduct by decision-makers stating an intention to discriminate is also considered direct evidence. These could include statements from decision-makers directly involved in the admission process, senior university administrators, and official statements of missions.

Generally, in Title VI litigations, direct evidence is rare because discriminators learn to hide the evidence and keep their mouths shut. But medical schools now are in a quite different situation. For decades, medical schools (outside states that banned AA) have been openly and constantly engaged in expressed classification of race. And many medical school admission or diversity and inclusion deans have openly extolled the success of their affirmative action programs or stated intentions to increase underrepresented minorities on campus. What would be a noble sentiment yesterday is today smoking gun evidence of an illegal intent to discriminate.

The long history of engaging in activities that are illegal by today's standards puts medical schools in a challenging position. I speculate that medical schools wishing to survive the relatively easy direct evidence test must nevertheless make substantial and convincing reforms to their admission process, including potential personnel changes.

Because discriminators can relatively easily conceal direct evidence of intentional discrimination, the courts also allow circumstantial evidence. The courts developed two analytical frameworks to evaluate circumstantial evidence, called Arlington Heights and McDonnell-Douglas after the eponymous Supreme Court decisions.

The Arlington Heights framework allows a mosaic of factors to collectively prove intentional discrimination. Factors considered by the court include the following

• Statistics demonstrating a clear pattern of discriminatory effect;
• The historical background of the decision and other decisions on comparable matters;
• The sequence of events leading up to the decision, as compared to other decisions on comparable matters;
• Departures from normal procedures or substantive conclusions;
• Relevant legislative or administrative history; and
• Consistent pattern of actions of decision-makers that impose much greater harm on minorities than on non-minorities.

Medical schools that wish to retain a large number of Black and Hispanic students after the SFFA decision would find the deck stacked against them. As mentioned above, the "historical background," "relevant administrative history," and "consistent pattern of actions" all establish medical schools as suspect actors with a long history of engaging in activities that, under today's standards, constitute illegal discrimination.

According to AAMC national-level data, in 2022 Black and Hispanic matriculants had substantially lower average GPA and MCAT. This gap no doubt existed in individual schools as well, but today a statistically significant difference could constitute "statistics demonstrating a clear pattern of discriminatory effect." Similarly, analysis shows that at each MCAT/GPA bracket, there are significantly different odds of admission for the different races. Going forward, medical schools would want to ensure they are approximately the same. These restrictions would significantly limit the size of the "essay/hardship bonus" medical school could give to Black and Hispanic students.

Can medical schools retain a statistically significant gap between their URM and ORM matriculants but try to explain the gap by pointing to hardships, either assumed or described in essays, for the URM students? I do not doubt that some schools will try, but it will be an uphill battle. For one, studies, including those from the AAMC, showed that MCAT and GPA are not systematically unfair to URMs—they hold the same predictive value on pre-clinical coursework and Step 1/2 performance for ORMs and URMs. Moreover, systematically assigning a higher level of hardship to URM but not ORMs, particularly Asians who suffered historical and ongoing discrimination, could itself be statistical evidence of discrimination.
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Medical schools have one more test ahead of them: the McDonnell-Douglas framework. This is a three-step process. In step 1, the applicant plaintiff establishes a prima facie case by showing that they are a member of a particular protected group, was eligible for the program, was not accepted, but a similarly situated individual from a different group was admitted. In step 2, the medical school respondent would articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. In step 3, the plaintiff must demonstrate pretext. That is, the reason offered by the medical school is not the true reason but actually the cover story for prohibited discriminatory intent.

In the SFFA opinion, Chief Justice Roberts endorsed the practice of "considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise." Thus, Medical schools can argue that bonuses given to Blacks or Hispanics are not given on account of race but on account of the "challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned" that these URM applicants demonstrate through their essays. But federal courts have compelling reasons to believe that this is a pretext: medical schools and AAMC have repeatedly justified URM's preferential admissions by delivering better health outcomes for underserved patients and building a diverse, demographically representative physician workforce. No matter how sensible these goals may be, legally, in admissions today, they constitute prohibited discriminatory intent.

Consider Duke School of Medicine's Movement to Movement initiative, an action plan that aimed to "enhance racial diversity," "advance careers among underrepresented racial and ethnic(URE) groups in medicine," and "reduce racial health disparities." If Duke gives out essay bonuses to URMs, would a federal court believe that the bonuses are genuinely meant to reward "experiences as an individual" or pretexts to achieve the aforementioned goals?

One additional factor bears emphasis. Asians are a protected group. Harvard owes its defeat in part to its indefensible assignment of lower personality scores to its Asian applicants. Federal courts are unlikely to look kindly on medical schools that assign vastly different ratings to essays on overcoming discrimination for similarly situated Black, Hispanics, and Asians.

The day of reckoning is upon medical schools. Having for decades extolled their diversity programs as not only justified but virtuous, medical schools must now come to terms with the new legal realities, where the same statements could become exhibit #1 in future court cases.

Like businesses, banks, and government agencies before them, medical schools may be tempted to cheat federal anti-discrimination laws by making their overt racial classifications covert. Multiple analytical tools were developed by the courts specifically to combat this. Since medical schools routinely screen thousands of applicants, robust statistical tests would put any new admission scheme under microscopic scrutiny.

Medical schools in states where affirmative action is already illegal should not assume they are unaffected. Federal courts may not be as sympathetic to the diversity objective as California state courts. The recent victory for SFFA also means that activist legal groups wanting total race-blind admissions may be actively recruiting the next plaintiff.

While many things remain uncertain, it appears that medical schools must indeed take affirmative actions to comply with the law.

Such a nuanced and thoughtful analysis. Much appreciated!
Maybe the moderators can pin this post to the top of this thread (and also the other post from Plut0 #145) to help those interested in understanding the details, including the legal/technical aspects of this verdict without the “lawyerly speak”?

 

[Goro]

Too bad this is behind a paywall. I believe that the concept of a "disadvantage" score is great. At the end of the day, however, it is just a score. And scores can be gamed, once you know the rules. And the privileged can play this game better than the disadvantaged.

Go to Google secret mode, and type in the title in the Google search field.

This allows you to bypass the paywall.

 

[Angler]

Go to Google secret mode, and type in the title in the Google search field.

This allows you to bypass the paywall.

I read the article. My daughter has a subscription. She actually sent me the article before I found it in this thread. I get Netflix and Disney Plus at home, so I can't afford a NYT subscription.

My daughter, incidentally, was a Davis undergraduate. Top stats & EC's for med school apps. ORM. "Privileged." Never got an II when she applied there. But she and I are very ok with this.

 

[anonymoustiger]

Hey thanks so much all for the replies. So I would like to begin be reaffirming that I said and still standby the importance of AA! I would reiterate that it is my thought that the execution of it is bad. Black, hispanic, women, and other URM groups should be more represented. Absolutely. Race concordance is important.

However, the status quo use of AA prior to the courts decision was reductive and too generalized against the unique and nuanced experiences of those within traditionally ORM groups. That’s the heart of the issue.

I would hope and imagine most people believe that the American treatment of black, Hispanic, women, and Native American people is bad. I certainly do. I just don’t like that the lived experiences of many Asians are not taken into account. The racial slurs are modern anecdotal examples of historical racism against various groups of Asians.

The descendants of internment camps have not had their billions of land returned to them yet they have persisted. No one marched and advocated for Chinese grandmas during the pandemic. Yet rather than allow their circumstances to dictate their futures they continued to focus on education.

Bringing up Dalit’s and caste and Vietnamese/Bhutanese/Cambodian immigrants is to highlight that they too fled oppressive environments but are given no advantage in the educational system. The prior AA methods of evaluation may have largely overlooked that, because a racial checkbox hid the deeper lived experiences. Does America, a beacon of hope and better future/equality for all, not have a duty to improve the outcomes of Dalit’s as well? They have experienced millenniums of oppression in India and little to no help in America. Not just centuries. This highlights what responsibility America and AA has for good people fleeing for a better life here.

Most of the Indian doctors you see with the last name Singh or whatever do not represent the difficulty lower caste descendants faced fleeing to America for a better life. No money and no connections. If America is a land of opportunity for all, how is focusing only on specific URM groups enough?

Yes, the black community has been the forefront of rights for all people. This must be respected and valued. In fact the Dalit Panthers of India took inspiration from the Black Panthers and CRM in America, just as much as MLK took inspiration from Gandhi. We must work together bro!
Highlighting Jewish communities in Germany is to show that they didn’t ask for nor receive the level of reparation attempts in Germany or abroad, like other traditionally URM groups. This is to the best of my knowledge. Yet they have thrived in the face of adversity. It was to highlight their strong knit communities and their focus on putting one foot in front of the other. In America, they still face anti semitism but still thrive.

People have been highlighting a disadvantaged score. Excellent. That will force committees to better evaluate how each individual’s experience with race and ethnicity and what drives them and who they are.

My thoughts were to offer a nuanced view from the “other side.” Realistically I and hopefully everyone want the same thing. No sides just the pursuit of excellent, equitable, accessible healthcare for all. However, the methods of achieving it are just as important as the goal itself!
I am not celebrating this decision. I am both sad and torn. AA is important but people were unhappy with the flaws execution. If we can find a better way, then let’s take it to the max man! Please let me know if I can offer more clarities.

 

[KoolGirlKaye123]

You have reached your goal and settled. So , it is easier to say “lLife is not fair. Move on”. It is not that easy for those who endured the torture through four or five cycles and the ones with 3.9+ and 520+ and returned empty handed after toiling during premed, mcat prep, 1000s of hours of research and clinical hours hoping to realize their lifelong dreams.

Settling? I’ll be honest here. If your stats and ECs are that amazing and you still haven’t gotten in after 4-5 cycles, then that means schools are sensing red flags in your writing or interviews.

 

[summerdoc321]

Hey thanks so much all for the replies. So I would like to begin be reaffirming that I said and still standby the importance of AA! I would reiterate that it is my thought that the execution of it is bad. Black, hispanic, women, and other URM groups should be more represented. Absolutely. Race concordance is important.

However, the status quo use of AA prior to the courts decision was reductive and too generalized against the unique and nuanced experiences of those within traditionally ORM groups. That’s the heart of the issue.

I would hope and imagine most people believe that the American treatment of black, Hispanic, women, and Native American people is bad. I certainly do. I just don’t like that the lived experiences of many Asians are not taken into account. The racial slurs are modern anecdotal examples of historical racism against various groups of Asians.

The descendants of internment camps have not had their billions of land returned to them yet they have persisted. No one marched and advocated for Chinese grandmas during the pandemic. Yet rather than allow their circumstances to dictate their futures they continued to focus on education.

Bringing up Dalit’s and caste and Vietnamese/Bhutanese/Cambodian immigrants is to highlight that they too fled oppressive environments but are given no advantage in the educational system. The prior AA methods of evaluation may have largely overlooked that, because a racial checkbox hid the deeper lived experiences. Does America, a beacon of hope and better future/equality for all, not have a duty to improve the outcomes of Dalit’s as well? They have experienced millenniums of oppression in India and little to no help in America. Not just centuries. This highlights what responsibility America and AA has for good people fleeing for a better life here.

Most of the Indian doctors you see with the last name Singh or whatever do not represent the difficulty lower caste descendants faced fleeing to America for a better life. No money and no connections. If America is a land of opportunity for all, how is focusing only on specific URM groups enough?

Yes, the black community has been the forefront of rights for all people. This must be respected and valued. In fact the Dalit Panthers of India took inspiration from the Black Panthers and CRM in America, just as much as MLK took inspiration from Gandhi. We must work together bro!
Highlighting Jewish communities in Germany is to show that they didn’t ask for nor receive the level of reparation attempts in Germany or abroad, like other traditionally URM groups. This is to the best of my knowledge. Yet they have thrived in the face of adversity. It was to highlight their strong knit communities and their focus on putting one foot in front of the other. In America, they still face anti semitism but still thrive.

People have been highlighting a disadvantaged score. Excellent. That will force committees to better evaluate how each individual’s experience with race and ethnicity and what drives them and who they are.

My thoughts were to offer a nuanced view from the “other side.” Realistically I and hopefully everyone want the same thing. No sides just the pursuit of excellent, equitable, accessible healthcare for all. However, the methods of achieving it are just as important as the goal itself!
I am not celebrating this decision. I am both sad and torn. AA is important but people were unhappy with the flaws execution. If we can find a better way, then let’s take it to the max man! Please let me know if I can offer more clarities.

"Yet rather than allow their circumstances to dictate their futures they continued to focus on education."
.."millenniums of oppression in India and little to no help in America. Not just centuries.."
"Highlighting Jewish communities in Germany is to show that they didn’t ask for nor receive the level of reparation attempts in Germany or abroad, like other traditionally URM groups"

It's statements like that that sadly overshadow the point you are making. You seem like you are being genuine in your concern, then make the above statements which serve to pit people against each other as well as take swipes at them, instead of work in solidarity with others so that all can thrive.

 

[darkamgine]

Does America, a beacon of hope and better future/equality for all, not have a duty to improve the outcomes of Dalit’s as well? They have experienced millenniums of oppression in India and little to no help in America. Not just centuries. This highlights what responsibility America and AA has for good people fleeing for a better life here.

As I previously stated, you are misunderstanding the point of AA. After listing so much of Asian and Jewish history, you fail to account for the reason AA exist in the U.S. If you think the U.S. and education in the U.S. is a charity for the poor and suffering in this world, you are mistaken.

After reading these posts in this thread, I feel even more strongly than ever that essays and interviews are much more important than a point or two on the MCAT. The most basic part of a med school interview is whether you would like to work with the person. Yet, I feel I cannot say I would for a number of people in this thread, not because of opposing views, but a level of basic respect and humility.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Bringing up Dalit’s and caste and Vietnamese/Bhutanese/Cambodian immigrants is to highlight that they too fled oppressive environments but are given no advantage in the educational system

Correct me if I am wrong but I think some California schools do consider these as underrepresented. Some of us are aware.

I think the issue is that most people think they got in because of their grades and scores. Very few are "proud" to say they got in because a school saw value in their back story, even if many schools promote these students. Trying to change the perception that you got in because you had sufficient competency development is a challenge.

 

[anonymoustiger]

"Yet rather than allow their circumstances to dictate their futures they continued to focus on education."
.."millenniums of oppression in India and little to no help in America. Not just centuries.."
"Highlighting Jewish communities in Germany is to show that they didn’t ask for nor receive the level of reparation attempts in Germany or abroad, like other traditionally URM groups"

It's statements like that that sadly overshadow the point you are making. You seem like you are being genuine in your concern, then make the above statements which serve to pit people against each other as well as take swipes at them, instead of work in solidarity with others so that all can thrive.

Thanks for the thoughts. Again, those things are true though. I agree with cultural solidarity, which is why i mentioned Gandhi and King's long standing friendship. They both learned from each other's thoughts and cultures... I'm not saying minorities should not be able to get into higher education, just that method used to achieve it didn't take into account nuances in experience. Part of cultural solidarity is taking positives from each culture and incorporating it into your own. Again AA is important, but had a flawed, lazy execution.

I mean look at @darkammgine's latest post:

"As I previously stated, you are misunderstanding the point of AA. After listing so much of Asian and Jewish history, you fail to account for the reason AA exist in the U.S. If you think the U.S. and education in the U.S. is a charity for the poor and suffering in this world, you are mistaken."

Bro, hispanics fled Mexico for access to better education and upward mobility, as well. You guys are saying I'm tone deaf and pitting people against each other, but what's up with that comment? However, I agree with the thoughts on essays and interviews over mcat scores.

Maybe I'm not expressing myself properly, but I'm not disagreeing with you both, just questioning the methods.

 

[sugasathya]

As I previously stated, you are misunderstanding the point of AA. After listing so much of Asian and Jewish history, you fail to account for the reason AA exist in the U.S. If you think the U.S. and education in the U.S. is a charity for the poor and suffering in this world, you are mistaken.

After reading these posts in this thread, I feel even more strongly than ever that essays and interviews are much more important than a point or two on the MCAT. The most basic part of a med school interview is whether you would like to work with the person. Yet, I feel I cannot say I would for a number of people in this thread, not because of opposing views, but a level of basic respect and humility.

I am sure people will be creating stories in essays and practice 10 mock interviews of what Adcoms want to hear in interviews than what they type in here. People could sit in volunteer work at Dad's friend clinic and get clinical hours. But MCAT, GPAs are all real thing and cannot exaggerate. It needs consistent effort to maintain 3.9+ with so many courses and extraordinary work and commitment to get 515+. Can't fake this. That is the main reason why concrete stats matter.

 

[eigen]

Bro, hispanics fled Mexico for access to better education and upward mobility, as well. You guys are saying I'm tone deaf and pitting people against each other, but what's up with that comment?

Ironically, you continue to misunderstand the point of affirmative action despite multiple, pointed attempts to explain it to you.

It's not broadly to help people who have been disadvantaged.

It's to help right wrongs done to specific groups within the US by government policies that have prevented them from having equal access.

You also are making a lot of assumptions about what AA is (i.e., only considering race-conscious admissions) when AA is a wide net that can mean many things (including targeted recruiting, bridge programs, etc.)

And I'll second the point that your posts include comments (like those highlighted) that display a shocking lack of understanding and compassion for what some groups have been through.

 

[eigen]

But MCAT, GPAs are all real thing and cannot exaggerate. It needs consistent effort to maintain 3.9+ with so many courses and extraordinary work and commitment to get 515+.

I refer you back to the point I made earlier:

Height is something that cannot be exaggerated either. But it's not the most relevant factor to consider for admissions.

The fact that MCAT scores are a "real thing" that is "objective" doesn't really matter when they aren't considered that critical of a factor for whether someone will be an effective physician.

And GPA's vary immensely from school to school and program to program and there are tons of ways to game them. And I say this as someone who got a 4.0. They're "objective" (kinda) and are a concrete thing, but aren't a good metric for what schools need to assess. My strongest recommendations often don't go to the student in the class who scored highest for a reason.

You keep trying to argue that medical school admissions should be based on things that everyone is telling you aren't good measures.

 

[Plut0]

Ironically, you continue to misunderstand the point of affirmative action despite multiple, pointed attempts to explain it to you.

It's not broadly to help people who have been disadvantaged.

It's to help right wrongs done to specific groups within the US by government policies that have prevented them from having equal access.

You also are making a lot of assumptions about what AA is (i.e., only considering race-conscious admissions) when AA is a wide net that can mean many things (including targeted recruiting, bridge programs, etc.)

And I'll second the point that your posts include comments (like those highlighted) that display a shocking lack of understanding and compassion for what some groups have been through.

You are the one who do not know what AA is. You are repeating false, illegal justifications for AA that haven't been the reason for almost 50 years.

The only legal reason for AA, until 3 days ago, was to obtain the educational benefits a diverse class.

 

[SnailPo]

GPA and MCAT are just like the score of a sports game: It doesn’t tell the whole story

 

[darkamgine]

I am sure people will be creating stories in essays and practice 10 mock interviews of what Adcoms want to hear in interviews than what they type in here. People could sit in volunteer work at Dad's friend clinic and get clinical hours. But MCAT, GPAs are all real thing and cannot exaggerate. It needs consistent effort to maintain 3.9+ with so many courses and extraordinary work and commitment to get 515+. Can't fake this. That is the main reason why concrete stats matter.

So I guess they will triple and quadruple down to make sure to get rid of the fakes.

Patients don't care about 4.0. So what if someone got a 99 percentile on a test. If they can't communicate with patients and make them feel like they have their best interest, they will not be a good physician. If you can't work well with others, what use is your knowledge? If you have basic character flaws, no patient or medical school wants you. After a certain point, schools don't care about your MCAT/GPA. Are you still comparing your SAT/ACT and high school GPAs to other premeds? That is exactly what the MCAT and GPA is in med school, no one really cares anymore.

 

[sugasathya]

I refer you back to the point I made earlier:

Height is something that cannot be exaggerated either. But it's not the most relevant factor to consider for admissions.

The fact that MCAT scores are a "real thing" that is "objective" doesn't really matter when they aren't considered that critical of a factor for whether someone will be an effective physician.

And GPA's vary immensely from school to school and program to program and there are tons of ways to game them. And I say this as someone who got a 4.0. They're "objective" (kinda) and are a concrete thing, but aren't a good metric for what schools need to assess. My strongest recommendations often don't go to the student in the class who scored highest for a reason.

You keep trying to argue that medical school admissions should be based on things that everyone is telling you aren't good measures.

Not everyone is telling this. Handfull of people typing in this forum doesn't mean everyone is telling. The fact that Top tier like John Hopkins, Harvard, NYU has median MCAT above 520 and GPA 3.9+ denies this. The fact that 85% of 3.8+ and 517+ get admitted says defy that argument. As I told people could create stories in essay and practice interview to give different answers. That's the main issue of credibility of essay and interviews.

 

[eigen]

You are the one who do not know what AA is. You are repeating false, illegal justifications for AA that haven't been the reason for almost 50 years.

The only legal reason for AA, until 3 days ago, was to obtain the educational benefits a diverse class.

You seem to be referring to AA only in terms of race-conscious admissions, here, which again is a small part of what AA encompasses. Even past that, AA doesn't only apply to racial and ethnic groups, and from my reading of the recent decision, only race-based affirmative action was discussed at all.

Affirmative Action is a broad class of policies found across a wide range of nations with a root cause of redressing past wrongs against groups that have been historically excluded.

So no, I'm quite aware of what Affirmative Action is. I'm not sure you are.

::edit:: Typos, clarity.

 

[Hong_bing]

Not everyone is telling this. Handfull of people typing in this forum doesn't mean everyone is telling. The fact that Top tier like John Hopkins, Harvard, NYU has median MCAT above 520 and GPA 3.9+ denies this. The fact that 85% of 3.8+ and 517+ get admitted says defy that argument. As I told people could create stories in essay and practice interview to give different answers. That's the main issue of credibility of essay and interviews.

Yes, I do agree. With so many books, pre-med coaching, the candidates could write stories in essays and practice mock interviews. The candidates could present differently in interviews. Essays are like open exams, only with few more people helping you to write. Interview in 30-60 Mts could be depend on view of interviewer. It is hard for ranking so many candidates with quantifiable outcomes. Finally I am sure Adcom also base on MCAT score and the type of hard courses the candidate took, constant GPA, load of activities in parallel to school when they make a decision. It takes a lot of effort to get good grades in hard schools and get high MCAT score. But I do understand that adversity also prevent people to not have strong basics in high school and hence could follow to university GPA. That is why Med school also looks at upward trend.

 

[eigen]

Not everyone is telling this. Handfull of people typing in this forum doesn't mean everyone is telling. The fact that Top tier like John Hopkins, Harvard, NYU has median MCAT above 520 and GPA 3.9+ denies this. The fact that 85% of 3.8+ and 517+ get admitted says defy that argument. As I told people could create stories in essay and practice interview to give different answers. That's the main issue of credibility of essay and interviews.

Honestly, this tells me you haven't sat on the other side of an interview table. Can people game it? Sure.

But it's a lot easier to tell with experience than you seem to think.

 

[darkamgine]

Not everyone is telling this. Handfull of people typing in this forum doesn't mean everyone is telling. The fact that Top tier like John Hopkins, Harvard, NYU has median MCAT above 520 and GPA 3.9+ denies this. The fact that 85% of 3.8+ and 517+ get admitted says defy that argument. As I told people could create stories in essay and practice interview to give different answers. That's the main issue of credibility of essay and interviews.

If they can fake it that well, they can fake it in front of patients, team members, and people in general. At that point, you can't tell the fake from the real. Well, guess what, they can fake being a good physician and pass it off as real too. The interview isn't about finding your darkest secret or if you will truly commit to serving the underserved. If you want to fake it, go ahead and try.

 

[sugasathya]

Honestly, this tells me you haven't sat on the other side of an interview table. Can people game it? Sure.

But it's a lot easier to tell with experience than you seem to think.

No. Not Med school interviews yet. But in research Labs, Work related interviews I always be like me. I am hoping my work will speak for me during the interview. When people put enough work to maintain good GPA, MCAT score, Research work, Volunteer work experience, it will speak for themselves. All are correlated. But as you mentioned whether people game it, Sure.. unfortunately

 

[john7991]

No. Not Med school interviews yet. But in research Labs, Work related interviews I always be like me. I am hoping my work will speak for me during the interview. When people put enough work to maintain good GPA, MCAT score, Research work, Volunteer work experience, it will speak for themselves. All are correlated. But as you mentioned whether people game it, Sure.. unfortunately

I think @eigen was saying that you haven’t interviewed anyone before.

 

[sugasathya]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think some California schools do consider these as underrepresented. Some of us are aware.

I think the issue is that most people think they got in because of their grades and scores. Very few are "proud" to say they got in because a school saw value in their back story, even if many schools promote these students. Trying to change the perception that you got in because you had sufficient competency development is a challenge.

Not sure about Vietnamese/Cambodian refugees. To the best of my knowledge caste was never considered in any US admission process. Unfortunately because societies evolved differently based on geographical location and mingled in last 200-300 years, we are having hard time having consensus on fairness when we try to unify a single socio-economic doctrines. In India, societies ( invading Aryans and local dravidians ) mingled about 3000-5000 years ago and established caste system. It helped co-exist and the expectation of people were managed, even though in hindsight it is wrong. I am afraid removing affirmative action will bring in a type of future caste system in US ( If our societies would survive AI and climate change in long run ).

 

[Plut0]

You seem to be referring to AA only in terms of race-conscious admissions, here, which again is a small part of what AA encompasses.

The thread is focused on AA in terms of admissions in medical school. Because most other forms of AA has long been ruled illegal, AA in higher education is in effect the only AA left (until 3 days ago).

Even past that, AA doesn't only apply to racial and ethnic groups, and from my reading of the recent decision, only race-based affirmative action was discussed at all.

In effect, AA applied overwhelming to racial and ethnic groups.

Affirmative Action is a broad class of policies found across a wide range of nations with a root cause of redressing past wrongs against groups that have been historically excluded.

This has not been the case in the US for at least 20 years.

It seems you are trying to dilute the problematic aspects of AA (racial classification) by claiming that there are more benign polices also called AA.This is logically fallacious.

 

[anonymoustiger]

Ironically, you continue to misunderstand the point of affirmative action despite multiple, pointed attempts to explain it to you.

It's not broadly to help people who have been disadvantaged.

It's to help right wrongs done to specific groups within the US by government policies that have prevented them from having equal access.

You also are making a lot of assumptions about what AA is (i.e., only considering race-conscious admissions) when AA is a wide net that can mean many things (including targeted recruiting, bridge programs, etc.)

And I'll second the point that your posts include comments (like those highlighted) that display a shocking lack of understanding and compassion for what some groups have been through.

I see. I didn't realize AA does cast a wide net, but targeted recruiting and bridge programs to my knowledge shouldn't be affected. Right? Universities can still heavily advertise educational opportunities based on zipcode/low SES regions. That's their right. That's what I was trying to get at with the endowment part.

I was never wanting to argue that AA should have been done away. I was questioning that there must be a better way to do race-conscious admissions in particular. I didn't realize doing away AA would jeopardize the other programs. If that's the case, my bad.

I still think university admins and admission faculty are to blame for this debacle. AA as I understand is designed to correct past wrongs and future wrongs both. The intent of universities is to comply and help achieve those measures. However, maybe the way in which they did so made individuals feel discriminated against. All racial classes are protected by law. So, the arguments at the SCOTUS showed that current/future discrimination via improper execution of AA. Idk.

@eigen Not to be too testy, but one might argue that you yourself display a shocking lack of compassion for what some subgroups have been through as well! The alarming part is you're faculty. Admitting that some races were negatively affected by shady standards does not make your point wrong. This whole time I've atleast tried to help illuminate nuanced viewpoints, but I haven't seen anyone offer solutions or alternatives. If the particular admissions method in question was perfect, we wouldn't be dealing with the fallout of the decision.

@eigen please see below; these must have been edited/updated after you posted your comments!

On the Vietnamese experience:

Perceived discrimination, psychosocial resources, and mental distress in Vietnamese Americans

This study examines how the mental health of Vietnamese Americans is influenced by a life stressor (perceived discrimination) and psychosocial resources (social network, religiosity, and acculturation). Data came from 513 Vietnamese Americans who were ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

On the Dalit/Casteism experience:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158687243/seattle-becomes-the-first-u-s-city-to-ban-caste-discrimination

I don't want AA to ruin Black, Hispanic, Native American, women, etc enrollment percentages. The harsh reality is I can't understand what individuals from those groups experience regularly, but neither do they about certain groups/subrgoups of Asians. I was just trying to show a little compassion and understanding could go along way for both sides. Again, I would like to reaffirm no one should take away an individual's experience with race, regardless of where they're from, color of their skin, caste, etc.

 

[eigen]

@eigen Not to be too testy, but one might argue that you yourself display a shocking lack of compassion for what some subgroups have been through as well!

Please, point out anywhere I've done so.

::edit:: To be clear, I'm not trying to be snarky: if I'm coming across displaying lack of compassion, I would absolutely like to know where so I can change how I refer to things in the future.

 

[anonymoustiger]

Please, point out anywhere I've done so.

My understanding is you are focusing on certain groups (black, hispanic, etc.) I agree with that, but I feel you haven't addressed anywhere the reality that not every Asian population is well represented. That to me shows lack of compassion and understanding. Again, that doesn't mean AA needs to be done away with, but it would be nice to see you or anyone atleast acknowledge that in the discussion!

Edit: What would be nice is if anyone or AAMC published breakdowns of percentages. What percentage of Asian physicians are chinese, indian, bhutanese, etc.? Not addressing that although certain groups or subgroups of Asians are present in healthcare doesn't address how Vietnamese, or other underrepresented asian groups might experience healthcare. Language barriers exist. How many Vietnamese interpreters are present across the US in health facilities. Again, none of this is to take away the experience of past and future discrimination of other groups. Racial concordance is an important topic and it works not for some races, but all. That is also not to say that providers of different colors and races cannot provide excellent care to races different from their own. @eigen [edit: here is some potential insensitivity]

Quote from the NPR article: "The report on the survey's results said that two-thirds of members of the lowest caste, called Dalits, said they have faced workplace discrimination due to their caste. Forty-one percent have experienced discrimination in education because of it. And a quarter of Dalits say they've faced physical assault — all in the United States." @eigen [edit: here is some more potential insensitivity]

I hope there's a good solution.

 

[eigen]

My understanding is you are focusing on certain groups (black, hispanic, etc.) I agree with that, but I feel you haven't addressed anywhere the reality that not every Asian population is well represented. Again, that doesn't mean AA needs to be done away with, but it would be nice to see you or anyone atleast acknowledge that in the discussion!

Sorry, I thought that was well covered.

I hate the term ORM personally, and agree that the concept of grouping all Asians together leads to great harm. I didn't think that was in question.

And for the record I think what Harvard was doing is wrong, and was absolutely anti-Asian discrimination.

But I also think race-blind admissions is a bad practice that will hurt students from historically undeserved groups, including many of the PI populations I work with heavily.

 

[senecca]

I refer you back to the point I made earlier:

Height is something that cannot be exaggerated either. But it's not the most relevant factor to consider for admissions.

The fact that MCAT scores are a "real thing" that is "objective" doesn't really matter when they aren't considered that critical of a factor for whether someone will be an effective physician.

And GPA's vary immensely from school to school and program to program and there are tons of ways to game them. And I say this as someone who got a 4.0. They're "objective" (kinda) and are a concrete thing, but aren't a good metric for what schools need to assess. My strongest recommendations often don't go to the student in the class who scored highest for a reason.

You keep trying to argue that medical school admissions should be based on things that everyone is telling you aren't good measures.

MCAT is not considered critical and doesn’t matter to be a good physician. GPAs are subjective and can be gamed . Ok. I agree. Please tell me exactly what makes someone a good physician. I have been following medschool admissions for six years now. Everyone says stats don’t matter . But no one has said what exactly does matter and cannot be gamed? No one ever. Honestly, I am just being curious.

 

[darkamgine]

MCAT is not considered critical and doesn’t matter to be a good physician. GPAs are subjective and can be gamed . Ok. I agree. Please tell me exactly what makes someone a good physician. I have been following medschool admissions for six years now. Everyone says stats don’t matter . But no one has said what exactly does matter and cannot be gamed? No one ever. Honestly, I am just being curious.

Have you been a patient or been in a situation where you observed the physician-patient interaction? Reflect on the scenario and you might glean some insights.

 

[Goro]

So I guess they will triple and quadruple down to make sure to get rid of the fakes.

Yup. And our BS detectors are pretty good, too.

 

[senecca]

Have you been a patient or been in a situation where you observed the physician-patient interaction? Reflect on the scenario and you might glean some insights.

I like to hear from you. You have a pile of medical school applications in front of you and you have to select a subset for offering interviews. GPA and MCAT don’t matter to be a good physician. How do you go about it? I am just being curious. Please do not say “it depends “. Because if people are so sure that GPA AND MCAT don’t matter, they must know what exactly that matters and cannot be gamed. I couldn’t get the answer from anyone for six years.

 

[deleted961749]

I thought the debate over the value of GPA and MCAT was over and done with. To date, I have yet to be shown a convincing source proving the new MCAT does not strongly correlate with medical school performance even up to the highest score percentiles. If medical school performance (including clerkship grades, aka evaluations by real physicians) is not a good indicator of future physician potential, then what is?

Sure, MCAT and GPA should not be the only factors that are considered. But given the data we have on their predictive validity, they should be and are the most important factors by far.

 

[eigen]

I like to hear from you. You have a pile of medical school applications in front of you and you have to select a subset for offering interviews. GPA and MCAT don’t matter to be a good physician. How do you go about it? I am just being curious. Please do not say “it depends “. Because if people are so sure that GPA AND MCAT don’t matter, they must know what exactly that matters and cannot be gamed. I couldn’t get the answer from anyone for six years.

You still haven't answered my question about whether you have any personal experience with the process / are planning to go to medical school.

 

[darkamgine]

I feel so sad that premeds are convinced that a high GPA and MCAT are the most important aspect of being a physician. I guess 50 or 100 years ago, physicians were crappy because their scores were much lower. This question isn't even that hard but if you need someone else to answer it, you are missing the fundamental part of being a physician.

Can you tell who is a good physician by observing their actions? If you need to know their MCAT/GPA/STEP scores to make that judgment, I think it is better if you consider other careers.

 

[deleted1156722]

The thread is focused on AA in terms of admissions in medical school. Because most other forms of AA has long been ruled illegal, AA in higher education is in effect the only AA left (until 3 days ago).

In effect, AA applied overwhelming to racial and ethnic groups.

… trying to dilute the problematic aspects of AA (racial classification) by claiming that there are more benign polices also called AA.This is logically fallacious.

Well stated!
And this misunderstanding is due to prevalence of the logically fallacious equivalency of Race conscious Affirmative Action with Reparations for African Americans.
Affirmative Action in higher education was never meant to be a reparations program as ruled in Bakke, and educational diversity was the only permissible reason ( and that failed the compelling interest test because the universities’ “diversity” based admission policies was not narrowly tailored and did not pass strict scrutiny).
Neither Harvard nor North Carolina asserted a remedial justification for their respective affirmative action programs. When Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned UNC’s attorney, Ryan Y. Park, about the relevance of UNC’s history of racial exclusion, Park replied, “We’re not pursuing any sort of remedial justification for our policy.” David Hinojosa, representing the UNC case, similarly told Justice Sotomayor, “We are not suggesting, as I understand the university is not either, that the limited consideration of race in this case is being used as a remedial order.”
Harvard and UNC made it clear that Affirmative Action is not equivalent to Reparation programs for America’s original sin of slavery.

 

[deleted961749]

I feel so sad that premeds are convinced that a high GPA and MCAT are the most important aspect of being a physician. I guess 50 or 100 years ago, physicians were crappy because their scores were much lower. This question isn't even that hard but if you need someone else to answer it, you are missing the fundamental part of being a physician.

Can you tell who is a good physician by observing their actions? If you need to know their MCAT/GPA/STEP scores to make that judgment, I think it is better if you consider other careers.

That’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m saying that hard scientific research data has shown that the MCAT is strongly correlated with, among other things (including the Step scores you alluded to EDIT: misspoke here, meant to say medical school grades in general which have themselves been previously found to correlate with PGY1 evals), clerkship GPA. If clerkship evaluations by actual doctors do not give a good indication of a student’s potential, what does? If they do, then does it not make sense for the MCAT to be as valued as it currently is?

Sources
Data from AAMC about the predictive validity of the new MCAT (see pages 20-25)
Study showing that medical school performance is a good predictor of PGY-1 evals (see Table II). Ignore the MCAT findings: that was for the old MCAT. If you compare their calculated correlations with the correlations reported in the above AAMC link for the new MCAT, you can see the uplift is astonishing.

 

[eigen]

Well stated!
And this misunderstanding is due to prevalence of the logically fallacious equivalency of Race conscious Affirmative Action with Reparations for African Americans.
Affirmative Action in higher education was never meant to be a reparations program as ruled in Bakke, and educational diversity was the only permissible reason ( and that failed the compelling interest test because the universities’ “diversity” based admission policies was not narrowly tailored and did not pass strict scrutiny).
Neither Harvard nor North Carolina asserted a remedial justification for their respective affirmative action programs. When Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned UNC’s attorney, Ryan Y. Park, about the relevance of UNC’s history of racial exclusion, Park replied, “We’re not pursuing any sort of remedial justification for our policy.” David Hinojosa, representing the UNC case, similarly told Justice Sotomayor, “We are not suggesting, as I understand the university is not either, that the limited consideration of race in this case is being used as a remedial order.”
Harvard and UNC made it clear that Affirmative Action is not equivalent to Reparation programs for America’s original sin of slavery.

Using two universities defending themselves from obvious discrimination to judge the entire history and purpose of AA at 4000+ colleges and universities over 80 years is... An interesting metric.

::edit to add details:: The history of the term "Affirmative Action" goes back to the late 1800s, and has been used in a number of different contexts. Many of the original purposes were absolutely focused on reparation.

As the decades have passed, purposes have varied across states, institutions, and populations served.

But suggesting that the root of affirmative action was not in redressing populations who were specifically prevented from accessing higher education misses a lot of important history and context.

As a sidebar, this highlights one issue I have with a lot of the terminology. URM/ORM focus on representation. And that's certainly an important metric, given the context. But there's a reason that folks who study issues of inclusion and belonging in higher education have swapped increasingly to using "historically underserved" or "historically excluded" as terms: it's not just that these are populations who lack representation, but are often populations who have been either not well served by systems that exist or directly excluded from participation.

 

[Med Ed]

That’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m saying that hard scientific research data has shown that the MCAT is strongly correlated with, among other things (including the Step scores you alluded to which have themselves been previously found to correlate with PGY1 evals), clerkship GPA. If clerkship evaluations by actual doctors do not give a good indication of a student’s potential, what does? If they do, then does it not make sense for the MCAT to be as valued as it currently is?

Can you post links to the specific studies you are referencing?

 

[eigen]

As part of the discussion here, I think this article from a few years ago was an excellent piece on how recent discussions, especially in media, have colored how Affirmative Action is viewed and a lot of the myths about what it is and isn't.

SFFA v. Harvard: How Affirmative Action Myths Mask White Bonus

In the ongoing litigation of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, Harvard faces allegations that its once-heralded admissions process discriminates against Asian Americans. Public discourse has revealed a dominant narrative: affirmative action is viewed as the presumptive cause of...

scholarship.law.bu.edu

This article, on what happened in the late 90s in California when the state banned AA is also worth reading: https://cshe.berkeley.edu/sites/def...ps.cshe.10.2020.bleemer.prop209.8.20.2020.pdf

Ending affirmative action caused UC's 10,000 annual underrepresented minority (URM) freshman applicants to cascade into lower-quality public and private universities. URM applicants' undergraduate and graduate degree attainment declined overall and in STEM fields, especially among lower-testing applicants. As a result, the average URM UC applicant's wages declined by five percent annually between ages 24 and 34, almost wholly driven by declines among Hispanic applicants. By the mid-2010s, Prop 209 had caused a cumulative decline in the number of early-career URM Californians earning over $100,000 by at least three percent. Prop 209 also deterred thousands of qualified URM students from applying to any UC campus. Enrolling at less-selective UC campuses did not improve URM students' performance or persistence in STEM course sequences.

 

[deleted961749]

Can you post links to the specific studies you are referencing?

Absolutely. They were mentioned upthread, but here they are again for convenience.

Data from AAMC about the predictive validity of the new MCAT (see pages 20-25)
Study showing that medical school performance is a good predictor of PGY-1 evals (see Table II). Ignore the MCAT findings: that was for the old MCAT. If you compare their calculated Step correlations with the correlations reported in the above AAMC link for the new MCAT, you can see the uplift is astonishing.

Turns out I got the Step score correlation with PGY-1 evals wrong. It was just medical school performance metrics like GPAs that were truly predictive on that front. Apologies for the mistake.

 

[Plut0]

My problem is with some affirmative action proponents is that they make intellectually dishonest and bad faith arguments.

It is entirely possible to logically justify a policy to reduce the number of Whites and Asians and increase the number of Blacks and Hispanics. I can respect a utilitarian argument that says, for example, the better health outcomes for Blacks from having more Black physicians overrides fairness or equality.

I have no respect for arguments that obfuscate the issue, are intellectually dishonest, or logically irrelevant, such as arguing:

• that there are non-discriminatory practices outside of admissions (e.g. outreach programs) that are also called AA - obfuscating the issue
• that AA mostly benefited White women - irrelevant and untrue
• that AA does not harm Whites or Asians - intellectually dishonest
• that since Asians have a higher share of desirable social outcomes, they cannot be victims of discrimination - intellectually dishonest or statistically illiterate
• that the campaign against AA is led by a White male conservative - irrelevant
• that past a certain point applicants are all "equally qualified" so that the bar was not lowered for Blacks and Hispanics in AA - intellectually dishonest

 

[deleted1156722]

Using two universities defending themselves from obvious discrimination to judge the entire history and purpose of AA at 4000+ colleges and universities over 80 years is... An interesting metric.

::edit to add details:: The history of the term "Affirmative Action" goes back to the late 1800s, and has been used in a number of different contexts. Many of the original purposes were absolutely focused on reparation.

As the decades have passed, purposes have varied across states, institutions, and populations served.

But suggesting that the root of affirmative action was not in redressing populations who were specifically prevented from accessing higher education misses a lot of important history and context.

As a sidebar, this highlights one issue I have with a lot of the terminology. URM/ORM focus on representation. And that's certainly an important metric, given the context. But there's a reason that folks who study issues of inclusion and belonging in higher education have swapped increasingly to using "historically underserved" or "historically excluded" as terms: it's not just that these are populations who lack representation, but are often populations who have been either not well served by systems that exist or directly excluded from participation.

Given academia’s reactionary and liberal leanings, one would expect all these elite universities to defend affirmative action as a “reparation program for the historically underserved/ historically excluded”- which mainly applies to generational African Americans-along the lines of what you are stating. Not that this reason would have passed the muster with SCOTUS, but that might have atleast influenced public discourse and debates on the reparation programs which seems to be a hot take now in several liberal states.

However, the elite universities and their deans/ DEI counsels’ exclusive focus on “ educational benefits of diversity” as a justification for affirmative action, intentional stereotyping and discrimination against another minority groups ( Asian Americans), and the implicit co-opting of this flawed admission policy to benefit its ALDC students, sealed the fate of AA.

Quoting Chief Justice Roberts, "Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,"