MCATs, Affirmative Action, and DEI, Oh My

[Emily Lake]

Sadly, it is not only conservatives who are racist.

It is often very difficult for nice, well meaning people to recognize ways in which our society is very racist Abd that racism is hard based into our society’s laws and structures. And even harder to recognize how most of us gave absorbed some racism, however unconsciously.

Except that our society really isn't very racist at all, Toni. It really isn't.

We have, however, had a couple of decades of being told over and over and over again that racism is as bad as it's ever been, it's all over the place everywhere, constantly, and black people are persistently suffering under the overwhelming and inescapable racism of the US, and the only solution is for white people to acknowledge and accept our original sin and make amends for the audacity of having been descended from ancestors with lower melanin content.

 

[Toni]

Sadly, it is not only conservatives who are racist.

It is often very difficult for nice, well meaning people to recognize ways in which our society is very racist Abd that racism is hard based into our society’s laws and structures. And even harder to recognize how most of us gave absorbed some racism, however unconsciously.

Except that our society really isn't very racist at all, Toni. It really isn't.

We have, however, had a couple of decades of being told over and over and over again that racism is as bad as it's ever been, it's all over the place everywhere, constantly, and black people are persistently suffering under the overwhelming and inescapable racism of the US, and the only solution is for white people to acknowledge and accept our original sin and make amends for the audacity of having been descended from ancestors with lower melanin content.

I don't know where you live but I've lived most of my life in the midwest. I grew up in a family with a father who was quite bigoted. I used to have to leave the room when All in the Family was on TV. My father loved it. But it hit way too close to home, with my dad being a small town/straight off the farm midwestern version of Archie Bunker. Dad was a feminist where his daughters were concerned but not for anyone else. My mother was silent on all things political. We kids found out more than a decade after his death that her stepfather was a member of the Klan. It was shocking but also not surprising. He said some very ugly racist things to me when I was a young child, too young to actually understand what he was implying, but the ugly came through loud and clear. Other than that sort of thing everybody was really nice, hard working, as honest as they could be, hard working, generous as they were able to be. Not much drinking, zero drugging or gambling or running around on spouses, etc.

Unless you were not white. Almost everyone was. Or straight. Again: almost everyone was. Those who were not mostly hid. A couple of people I went to school with were actually NA but somehow, most of us had no idea and apparently those who did not made life pretty difficult for them.

I genuinely believed that it was just my family/home town/county who were still like that: polite racist. I went to a college campus that was reputed to be pretty liberal and it was, for the area. But black friends were still being steered away from sciences and into social science and urban development, even if they were extremely talented in math and science. And I learned a lot about casual racism that people faced every day if their skin was not white and their ancestors were not European. Moved to DC area which was extremely international, and worked in an international setting, with the overwhelming majority of the people I worked with and all of the people I worked for from other parts of the world, mostly the Mid-East. And I learned a lot about how ubiquitous racism and colorism is all over the world. As I got to know more people from every continent except Antarctica, it's 100% true. The (European and it's former colonies) world is pretty set on the idea, however unconscious, the whiter the better. Asia is it's own thing, of course but yeah, Asian girls bleach their skin as well.....

So I live in a different part of the mid west than where I grew up and people are mostly pretty nice about it but there is still plenty of racism. Photos of people arrested appear in local papers.....if they are not white. There is a lot of ugly animus against NA people and against different immigrant populations. 30 years ago it was mostly directed against people from S.E. Asia mostly because there were hardly any black people in town or nearby. I could go weeks to months without seeing anyone who did not have 100% or nearly so European ancestry. A while back, I was shocked and delighted to notice that in my small grocery store, I actually saw --in the same aisle! a black family, an Hispanic family and an Asian family. At the same time! Progress!

But plenty of backlash against immigrants from other parts of the world than where grandma and grandpa's grandparents immigrated from. The darker the skin, the worse the backlash.

Sure, laws on the books are pretty much color blind, but enforcement is not and policing is not. School discipline is not. I see it on the streets where I live. I saw it in my kids' schools. My kids saw it, too.

And it's still here.

I am pretty sure it's where you live as well. You may not see it much. It may not be obvious. But it's there.

 

[Derec]

Pure hate fueled fantasy.

No, it isn't. I provided data. All you have is casting baseless accusations around.
Is that how you teach your classes too?

Not nearly as damning as the racist crap that counts as ‘evidence’.

This is similar to Politesse's lazy non-answer.
Calling people names is not a substitute to actually engaging with people's arguments. It is not a rebuttal to evidence to simply dismiss it as "racist crap" just because it says something you disagree with on ideological grounds.

 

[Derec]

There is a major problem with discrimination "research"--finding "discrimination" is always treated as an endpoint. No, look for what's causing it!

That is the entire point of critical theory. Funny how conservatives hate that more than anything.

No, it isn't. Being a college professor, you should know that "critical" in "critical theory" doesn't mean application of critical thinking to problems.
It's a specific term of art for a school of thought that applies Marxist ideas about the conflict between "oppressors" and "oppressed" to areas other than economics.
 Critical theory

Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups.[1] Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society through praxis and collective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose.[2][3][4]
[...]
The historical evolution of critical theory traces back to the first generation of the Frankfurt School in the 1920s. Figures like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and others sought to expand traditional Marxist analysis by incorporating insights from psychology, culture, and philosophy, moving beyond pure economic determinism.[18][page needed][19][20][21][22] Their work was significantly influenced by Freud's psychoanalytic theories, particularly how subjective experience shaped human consciousness, behavior, and social reality.[3][19][23][24] Freud's concept that an individual's lived experience could differ dramatically from objective reality aligned with critical theory's critique of positivism, science, and pure rationality.[19][23][24]

As you see, the "critical" in "critical theory" is very specific criticism of modern thought. No wonder it's so popular among PoMo "thinkers".

 

[Derec]

I'm not convinced that they have different thresholds for different cohorts. But I wouldn't be surprised if the thresholds had been lowered across the board in order to attain a higher percentage of a cohort that has a lower mean or a skew.

The data still shows different standards by racial/ethnic cohort. Note that Asian applicants have a higher mean that black matriculants. If it was just about lowering the threshold for everyone equally, admission rate for Asian applicants would have to be close to 100%.

 

[Derec]

Strong evidence, yes. If someone failed the exam I would see that as a pretty significant red flag.

Unlike USMLE and COMLEX, there is no failing score. So nobody has ever "failed" the MCAT. You just get a low score.
The problem is that a low score (esp. <505 or so for MD) is the kiss of death if you are white or Asian, but still ok if you are black, Hispanic and especially American Indian, which have the lowest scores.

But that's not what we're talking about. Opposing a hardships-based rebalancing of a score

But race-based diversity driven rebalancing is very different than looking at individual hardships.
The white daughter of an Appalachian coal miner is still white to adcoms. The son of the Korean drycleaner from LA is still Asian to adcoms.
On the other hand, the son of a black Coca Cola vice president form Atlanta is still black to adcoms.

means considering the application of a candidate who perhaps got a few questions wrong. Not who performed atrociously.

Getting a "few questions wrong" is the difference between 528 and, say, 520. You have to get a lot of questions wrong to get in the 505ish range, and even more to get to around 500.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

But race-based diversity driven rebalancing is very different than looking at individual hardships.
The white daughter of an Appalachian coal miner is still white to adcoms.

From Google AI:

Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine requires a minimum MCAT score of 505 for general consideration, though preferences and averages vary by residency status.

MCAT Score Requirements

Hard Minimum: A minimum score of 505 is officially required for application consideration, though it does not guarantee an interview or admission.

In-State vs. Out-of-State Preferences: An MCAT score of 500 or greater is preferred for West Virginia residents and specific designated surrounding counties (in Ohio and Kentucky). An MCAT score of 505 or greater is preferred for out-of-state applicants.

Average/Median Scores: Matriculating students typically have an average or median MCAT score of 504 to 506

Also from Google AI:

West Virginia is significantly less racially and ethnically diverse than the United States as a whole, with a population that is over 90% White.

And this:

At the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, the student body's racial and ethnic breakdown is predominantly White, with reported percentages around 82% White, 9.7% Asian, 2.34% Black or African American, 1% Hispanic/Latino, and 0.33% American Indian or Alaska Native.

The in-state acceptance rate is 36.15% and out of state acceptance rate is 1.21%.

 

[Politesse]

But race-based diversity driven rebalancing is very different than looking at individual hardships.
The white daughter of an Appalachian coal miner is still white to adcoms. The son of the Korean drycleaner from LA is still Asian to adcoms.
On the other hand, the son of a black Coca Cola vice president form Atlanta is still black to adcoms.

Which is exactly why they DON'T do as you are claiming.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Getting a "few questions wrong" is the difference between 528 and, say, 520. You have to get a lot of questions wrong to get in the 505ish range, and even more to get to around 500.

There are schools of medicine where the median MCAT score is less than that. Also, there are schools where the racial demographics are very different from the US generally. Each school doesn't have the same thresholds nor the same racial breakdown.

You know about HBCUs. There's also some schools in Puerto Rico.

Here is an example from Google AI:

San Juan Bautista School of Medicine requires a minimum MCAT score of 492 (with 495 often cited as the threshold for interviews), and has a median/average MCAT score of 499 for accepted students.

Here also are the racial demographics at San Juan Bautista School of Medicine from Google AI:

San Juan Bautista School of Medicine

Hispanic or Latino: ~91.3%

White: ~4.9%

Asian: ~2.8%

American Indian or Alaska Native / Black: ~0.5% combined

 

[Politesse]

There is a major problem with discrimination "research"--finding "discrimination" is always treated as an endpoint. No, look for what's causing it!

That is the entire point of critical theory. Funny how conservatives hate that more than anything.

No, it isn't. Being a college professor, you should know that "critical" in "critical theory" doesn't mean application of critical thinking to problems.
It's a specific term of art for a school of thought that applies Marxist ideas about the conflict between "oppressors" and "oppressed" to areas other than economics.
 Critical theory

Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups.[1] Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society through praxis and collective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose.[2][3][4]
[...]
The historical evolution of critical theory traces back to the first generation of the Frankfurt School in the 1920s. Figures like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and others sought to expand traditional Marxist analysis by incorporating insights from psychology, culture, and philosophy, moving beyond pure economic determinism.[18][page needed][19][20][21][22] Their work was significantly influenced by Freud's psychoanalytic theories, particularly how subjective experience shaped human consciousness, behavior, and social reality.[3][19][23][24] Freud's concept that an individual's lived experience could differ dramatically from objective reality aligned with critical theory's critique of positivism, science, and pure rationality.[19][23][24]

As you see, the "critical" in "critical theory" is very specific criticism of modern thought. No wonder it's so popular among PoMo "thinkers".

Well, yes, it is. A very specific theoretical paradigm that Wikipedia summarizes accurately and you did not. ??? More or less the entirety of critical theory is, as Loren put it, "looking for what's causing it". Marxism is part of the stew, but critical theory was also a response to and partial rejection of oversimplified Marxist explanations. Disastisfaction with convential emotionalist or knowledge deficit theories of racism was a driving force in the revival of critical race theory in particular.

I never understand why conservatives so predictably post links to things that contradict what they themselves say. Were you hoping I perhaps did not know how to read?

 

[Emily Lake]

I'm not convinced that they have different thresholds for different cohorts. But I wouldn't be surprised if the thresholds had been lowered across the board in order to attain a higher percentage of a cohort that has a lower mean or a skew.

The data still shows different standards by racial/ethnic cohort. Note that Asian applicants have a higher mean that black matriculants. If it was just about lowering the threshold for everyone equally, admission rate for Asian applicants would have to be close to 100%.

Depends entirely on the distribution around the mean, not just the mean.

Let's do a super oversimpified demonstration. Imagine we only have two cohorts, A and B.

A has a mean of 50, with a standard deviation of 25. That gives us about 2/3 of the cohort falling between 25 and 75.
B has a mean of 55, with a standard deviation of 10. That gives us 2/3 falling between 45 and 65.

If the threshold is set at 60, you will end up with a higher percentage of cohort A being above the threshold than of cohort B, even though B has a higher mean. The same threshold can produce different results based on the standard deviation.

Now if you lowered that threshold to 50, you would flip that result - you'd end up with quite a bit more of B in your result than A.

The means and distributions didn't change. The threshold did. But it changed for EVERYONE, it wasn't selectively altered for some.

ETA: If you were morbidly inclined, you might consider it score gerrymandering - adjust the aggregate threshold until you get a mix that suits your objectives.

 

[Emily Lake]

There is a major problem with discrimination "research"--finding "discrimination" is always treated as an endpoint. No, look for what's causing it!

That is the entire point of critical theory. Funny how conservatives hate that more than anything.

No, it isn't. Being a college professor, you should know that "critical" in "critical theory" doesn't mean application of critical thinking to problems.
It's a specific term of art for a school of thought that applies Marxist ideas about the conflict between "oppressors" and "oppressed" to areas other than economics.
 Critical theory

Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups.[1] Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society through praxis and collective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose.[2][3][4]
[...]
The historical evolution of critical theory traces back to the first generation of the Frankfurt School in the 1920s. Figures like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and others sought to expand traditional Marxist analysis by incorporating insights from psychology, culture, and philosophy, moving beyond pure economic determinism.[18][page needed][19][20][21][22] Their work was significantly influenced by Freud's psychoanalytic theories, particularly how subjective experience shaped human consciousness, behavior, and social reality.[3][19][23][24] Freud's concept that an individual's lived experience could differ dramatically from objective reality aligned with critical theory's critique of positivism, science, and pure rationality.[19][23][24]

As you see, the "critical" in "critical theory" is very specific criticism of modern thought. No wonder it's so popular among PoMo "thinkers".

Well, yes, it is. A very specific theoretical paradigm that Wikipedia summarizes accurately and you did not. ??? More or less the entirety of critical theory is, as Loren put it, "looking for what's causing it". Marxism is part of the stew, but critical theory was also a response to and partial rejection of oversimplified Marxist explanations. Disastisfaction with convential emotionalist or knowledge deficit theories of racism was a driving force in the revival of critical race theory in particular.

I never understand why conservatives so predictably post links to things that contradict what they themselves say. Were you hoping I perhaps did not know how to read?

Interesting that what critical theory finds to be the "cause" always seems to be someone oppressing someone else.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This site is interesting:

Does MCAT Score Predict Success? Research Reveals Answer

Does MCAT score predict success? Explore research on exam predictability and discover how our MSMS program offers an alternative path to medical school success.

msms.tiberhealth.com

MCAT Success Doesn’t Seem to Translate to Clinical or Residency Success​

A study published in Military Medicine in 2015 looked at whether students with high MCAT scores were more likely to be evaluated as having strong clinical performance and professionalism later in medical school. The researchers looked at the GPAs, USMLE scores, and overall evaluations of students at the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University (USU) of the Health Sciences in 2010 and 2011. They found that high MCAT scores were:

• Associated with success on the USMLE step 1, the USMLE step 2 clinical knowledge exam, and the USMLE step 3
• Somewhat linked to higher GPAs during medical school
• Not consistently associated with success in clinical-based evaluations during the last two “clerkship” years of medical school, including the USMLE step 2 clinical skills evaluation
• Not associated with success on clinical evaluations during the first year of residency after graduating from medical school

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I'm not convinced that they have different thresholds for different cohorts. But I wouldn't be surprised if the thresholds had been lowered across the board in order to attain a higher percentage of a cohort that has a lower mean or a skew.

The data still shows different standards by racial/ethnic cohort. Note that Asian applicants have a higher mean that black matriculants. If it was just about lowering the threshold for everyone equally, admission rate for Asian applicants would have to be close to 100%.

Depends entirely on the distribution around the mean, not just the mean.

Let's do a super oversimpified demonstration. Imagine we only have two cohorts, A and B.

A has a mean of 50, with a standard deviation of 25. That gives us about 2/3 of the cohort falling between 25 and 75.
B has a mean of 55, with a standard deviation of 10. That gives us 2/3 falling between 45 and 65.

If the threshold is set at 60, you will end up with a higher percentage of cohort A being above the threshold than of cohort B, even though B has a higher mean. The same threshold can produce different results based on the standard deviation.

Now if you lowered that threshold to 50, you would flip that result - you'd end up with quite a bit more of B in your result than A.

The means and distributions didn't change. The threshold did. But it changed for EVERYONE, it wasn't selectively altered for some.

ETA: If you were morbidly inclined, you might consider it score gerrymandering - adjust the aggregate threshold until you get a mix that suits your objectives.

Because we are discussing standardized tests, there are hard minimum and maximum boundaries. In your hypothetical, a minimum score of 0 corresponds to two standard deviations below the mean. Since it's impossible to score below 0, the data cannot follow a perfect bell curve—it has to be skewed.

I know you are well aware of skews, but I bring this up because the actual MCAT has hard boundaries: a minimum of 472 and a maximum of 528. Let's look at a cohort with a mean of 515 and a standard deviation of 9. In a perfectly normal distribution, roughly 7.5% of that population would score above 528 (which is ~1.44 SDs above the mean). Because a score above 528 is logically impossible, the distribution is heavily constrained and bunched up at the top (a left skew).

HOWEVER: the 99th percentile for the MCAT is about 522. If we map a 515 mean and 9 SD to Asian applicants (who make up almost 30% of matriculants), a normal distribution would suggest that a massive chunk of them are achieving perfect or near-perfect scores, which is contradicted by the actual top 1% statistic: (If we use 514.3 mean and 8.5 stdev from tables, we still get more than 5% of Asians who ought to have a perfect score or higher and we would have to bump that up slightly in percent since there is a hard stop to keep the mean where it is. So it still may be near to 7%, but 7% of Asians would be 2.1% of the general population of matriculants. So the 98th percentile would be 528 merely on the basis of Asians not to mention other cohorts. However, the 99th percentile is only 522. === And let's look at this another way. === If the Asian cohort is normally distributed with a mean of 514.3 and stdev of 8.5, then we expect about 18.5% of Asians to have a score of 522 or higher. Since Asians make up 30% of matriculants, we could then say that at least 6% of the general population of matriculants has a score of 522 or higher. It's going to be higher by quite a bit due to other races achieving 522. However, it is only 1% actually.)

So, how can we confidently discuss these as normal distributions when we can mathematically see there are skews?

This gets even more complicated when we introduce confounding variables. For example:

• Socioeconomics: Research shows that factoring in parental education and family income virtually eliminates racial differences in MCAT scores.
• Preparation Capacity: Total hours dedicated to test prep is a strong predictor of MCAT success, which correlates with the financial capacity to afford extra educational resources and the free time to use them.

This raises bigger questions. When we group distributions purely as a function of race, are we actually looking at multi-modal, distinctly non-normal distributions driven by class and income?

Ultimately, this only underscores your broader point: we really do not know as much as we think we do from these tables, and people are making assumptions based on flawed, uni-dimensional models.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I'm not convinced that they have different thresholds for different cohorts. But I wouldn't be surprised if the thresholds had been lowered across the board in order to attain a higher percentage of a cohort that has a lower mean or a skew.

The data still shows different standards by racial/ethnic cohort. Note that Asian applicants have a higher mean that black matriculants. If it was just about lowering the threshold for everyone equally, admission rate for Asian applicants would have to be close to 100%.

Depends entirely on the distribution around the mean, not just the mean.

Let's do a super oversimpified demonstration. Imagine we only have two cohorts, A and B.

A has a mean of 50, with a standard deviation of 25. That gives us about 2/3 of the cohort falling between 25 and 75.
B has a mean of 55, with a standard deviation of 10. That gives us 2/3 falling between 45 and 65.

If the threshold is set at 60, you will end up with a higher percentage of cohort A being above the threshold than of cohort B, even though B has a higher mean. The same threshold can produce different results based on the standard deviation.

Now if you lowered that threshold to 50, you would flip that result - you'd end up with quite a bit more of B in your result than A.

The means and distributions didn't change. The threshold did. But it changed for EVERYONE, it wasn't selectively altered for some.

ETA: If you were morbidly inclined, you might consider it score gerrymandering - adjust the aggregate threshold until you get a mix that suits your objectives.

...

HOWEVER: the 99th percentile for the MCAT is about 522. If we map a 515 mean and 9 SD to Asian applicants (who make up almost 30% of matriculants), a normal distribution would suggest that a massive chunk of them are achieving perfect or near-perfect scores, which is contradicted by the actual top 1% statistic: (If we use 514.3 mean and 8.5 stdev from tables, we still get more than 5% of Asians who ought to have a perfect score or higher and we would have to bump that up slightly in percent since there is a hard stop to keep the mean where it is. So it still may be near to 7%, but 7% of Asians would be 2.1% of the general population of matriculants. So the 98th percentile would be 528 merely on the basis of Asians not to mention other cohorts. However, the 99th percentile is only 522. === And let's look at this another way. === If the Asian cohort is normally distributed with a mean of 514.3 and stdev of 8.5, then we expect about 18.5% of Asians to have a score of 522 or higher. Since Asians make up 30% of matriculants, we could then say that at least 6% of the general population of matriculants has a score of 522 or higher. It's going to be higher by quite a bit due to other races achieving 522. However, it is only 1% actually.)
...

It looks like I am mistaken about this section because the percentiles released are reflective of total test takers, not only matriculants. I am still looking into this and trying to confirm and understand what kind of distribution would best fit the data.

 

[thebeave]

This site is interesting:

Does MCAT Score Predict Success? Research Reveals Answer

Does MCAT score predict success? Explore research on exam predictability and discover how our MSMS program offers an alternative path to medical school success.

msms.tiberhealth.com

MCAT Success Doesn’t Seem to Translate to Clinical or Residency Success​

A study published in Military Medicine in 2015 looked at whether students with high MCAT scores were more likely to be evaluated as having strong clinical performance and professionalism later in medical school. The researchers looked at the GPAs, USMLE scores, and overall evaluations of students at the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University (USU) of the Health Sciences in 2010 and 2011. They found that high MCAT scores were:

• Associated with success on the USMLE step 1, the USMLE step 2 clinical knowledge exam, and the USMLE step 3
• Somewhat linked to higher GPAs during medical school
• Not consistently associated with success in clinical-based evaluations during the last two “clerkship” years of medical school, including the USMLE step 2 clinical skills evaluation
• Not associated with success on clinical evaluations during the first year of residency after graduating from medical school

The big title in bold is not consistent with the last underlined bullet quote, as the bullet quote says,"...during the first year of residency...". There are still several years of residency after the first year, and those are arguably more important for success as a full fledged doctor. Also, the bolded title makes a claim that "MCAT success doesn't seem to translate to... residency success", but that is not supported by any of the bullet points.

The study is from just one medical school and and during a two year period, so not really that comprehensive. It is odd though, why the first year is an exception.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This site is interesting:

Does MCAT Score Predict Success? Research Reveals Answer

Does MCAT score predict success? Explore research on exam predictability and discover how our MSMS program offers an alternative path to medical school success.

msms.tiberhealth.com

MCAT Success Doesn’t Seem to Translate to Clinical or Residency Success​

A study published in Military Medicine in 2015 looked at whether students with high MCAT scores were more likely to be evaluated as having strong clinical performance and professionalism later in medical school. The researchers looked at the GPAs, USMLE scores, and overall evaluations of students at the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University (USU) of the Health Sciences in 2010 and 2011. They found that high MCAT scores were:

• Associated with success on the USMLE step 1, the USMLE step 2 clinical knowledge exam, and the USMLE step 3
• Somewhat linked to higher GPAs during medical school
• Not consistently associated with success in clinical-based evaluations during the last two “clerkship” years of medical school, including the USMLE step 2 clinical skills evaluation
• Not associated with success on clinical evaluations during the first year of residency after graduating from medical school

The big title in bold is not consistent with the last underlined bullet quote, as the bullet quote says,"...during the first year of residency...". There are still several years of residency after the first year, and those are arguably more important for success as a full fledged doctor. Also, the bolded title makes a claim that "MCAT success doesn't seem to translate to... residency success", but that is not supported by any of the bullet points.

You are framing PGY-1 as an "exception," but logically, why would we expect MCAT scores to suddenly start predicting clinical success in Years 2–5 of residency if they fail to do so in Year 1?

In medical education, PGY-1 is the point where classroom knowledge is freshest. As a doctor advances through residency, clinical experience, procedural practice, and bedside decision-making heavily outweigh standardized test-taking aptitude. If a score doesn't correlate with clinical evaluations at the start of that practical training, there is no sound mechanism by which it would develop a correlation later on.

The study is from just one medical school and and during a two year period, so not really that comprehensive. It is odd though, why the first year is an exception.

You are missing the trend if you only observe an exception. The last 2 years of medical school are different in nature than previous years, i.e. more "clerkship." You should be seeing "associated" in earlier years with knowledge tests, then "somewhat linked" to GPA (again more knowledge), but then not consistently associated during clerkships...so the more hands-on work is done, the less the correlation holds. To finally full on residency, which lacks an association to success.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This site is interesting:

Does MCAT Score Predict Success? Research Reveals Answer

Does MCAT score predict success? Explore research on exam predictability and discover how our MSMS program offers an alternative path to medical school success.

msms.tiberhealth.com

MCAT Success Doesn’t Seem to Translate to Clinical or Residency Success​

A study published in Military Medicine in 2015 looked at whether students with high MCAT scores were more likely to be evaluated as having strong clinical performance and professionalism later in medical school. The researchers looked at the GPAs, USMLE scores, and overall evaluations of students at the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University (USU) of the Health Sciences in 2010 and 2011. They found that high MCAT scores were:

• Associated with success on the USMLE step 1, the USMLE step 2 clinical knowledge exam, and the USMLE step 3
• Somewhat linked to higher GPAs during medical school
• Not consistently associated with success in clinical-based evaluations during the last two “clerkship” years of medical school, including the USMLE step 2 clinical skills evaluation
• Not associated with success on clinical evaluations during the first year of residency after graduating from medical school

Curious, when interviewing for residencies, do they even ask about the MCAT?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Strong evidence, yes. If someone failed the exam I would see that as a pretty significant red flag.

Unlike USMLE and COMLEX, there is no failing score. So nobody has ever "failed" the MCAT. You just get a low score.
The problem is that a low score (esp. <505 or so for MD) is the kiss of death if you are white or Asian, but still ok if you are black, Hispanic and especially American Indian, which have the lowest scores.

But that's not what we're talking about. Opposing a hardships-based rebalancing of a score

But race-based diversity driven rebalancing is very different than looking at individual hardships.
The white daughter of an Appalachian coal miner is still white to adcoms. The son of the Korean drycleaner from LA is still Asian to adcoms.
On the other hand, the son of a black Coca Cola vice president form Atlanta is still black to adcoms.

Can you please demonstrate that poor rural white people who worked the farm while going to college and got a 504 on the MCAT didn't get accepted into Med School?

I'm starting to think you don't understand that examples and hypotheticals don't count as actual evidence.

 

[Toni]

Pure hate fueled fantasy.

No, it isn't. I provided data. All you have is casting baseless accusations around.
Is that how you teach your classes too?

Not nearly as damning as the racist crap that counts as ‘evidence’.

This is similar to Politesse's lazy non-answer.
Calling people names is not a substitute to actually engaging with people's arguments. It is not a rebuttal to evidence to simply dismiss it as "racist crap" just because it says something you disagree with on ideological grounds.

Some arguments and statements simply do not merit discussion ad nauseam. Giving racism and racist rhetoric the time and effort to dissect—yet again —racist statements and arguments and repeated attempts to explain or illustrate the reasons something is racist at this point, on this particular forum and perhaps in the greater world simply gives racist arguments oxygen and allows the racists to bask in the attention and belief that their arguments have enough merit to engage other people in conversation between people with equally valid points.

Trump gives people who are bigoted, racist, sexist, xenophobic validation by espousing the same shitty ideas, and promoting them through official policy. And also by getting time and attention from those who push back and argue vehemently against these odious ideas. It fans the flames.

We are not better off when people —often very good people—try to parse racist and bigoted ideas to tease out what might be some valid points, as if racism and bigotry held some kernels of truth.

They don’t.

But some people are so invested in the notion that white and ( certain) Asian people —especially males—are discriminated against because they are no longer first in line for all good things that they feel compelled to bring up MCAT scores in a totally unrelated discussion.

That’s pretty fucked up.