MCATs, Affirmative Action, and DEI, Oh My

[Toni]

Quite so. But by itself, pointing out additional criteria is utterly incapable of accounting for any systematic difference in odds of getting accepted between two students with the same scores but different ethnicities. To account for that, you'd also need a reason to think one ethnicity systematically does better on that criterion.

For example, if someone says "They reject Asians and accept Native Americans with 509 MCATs; that sure looks like racial discrimination.", then to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too." explains nothing. It isn't a counterargument. It's immaterial. It's noise. It's no different from saying "But they also flip a coin and give extra points if it comes up heads". Adding a random factor cannot cause a systematic discrepancy. Schools can throw in as many random factors as they please but if after all of them are added in they still reject Asians and accept Native Americans with the same MCATs, then it still looks like racial discrimination. To get an explanation, a counterargument, a material consideration, you need a nonrandom factor. You need to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too, and Native Americans come with systematically better recommendation letters than Asians.". That last part is a vital component of any refutation of the racial discrimination hypothesis.

So you tell me. You posted a long list of additional criteria. Is there something on that list you think Native Americans do a lot better on than Asians?

Maybe GPA's can explain how one 509 MCATs is rejected over another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or interviews, resumes and letters of recommendation..

 

[Gospel]

Quite so. But by itself, pointing out additional criteria is utterly incapable of accounting for any systematic difference in odds of getting accepted between two students with the same scores but different ethnicities. To account for that, you'd also need a reason to think one ethnicity systematically does better on that criterion.

For example, if someone says "They reject Asians and accept Native Americans with 509 MCATs; that sure looks like racial discrimination.", then to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too." explains nothing. It isn't a counterargument. It's immaterial. It's noise. It's no different from saying "But they also flip a coin and give extra points if it comes up heads". Adding a random factor cannot cause a systematic discrepancy. Schools can throw in as many random factors as they please but if after all of them are added in they still reject Asians and accept Native Americans with the same MCATs, then it still looks like racial discrimination. To get an explanation, a counterargument, a material consideration, you need a nonrandom factor. You need to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too, and Native Americans come with systematically better recommendation letters than Asians.". That last part is a vital component of any refutation of the racial discrimination hypothesis.

So you tell me. You posted a long list of additional criteria. Is there something on that list you think Native Americans do a lot better on than Asians?

Maybe GPA's can explain how one 509 MCATs is rejected over another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or interviews, resumes and letters of recommendation..

But merely listing other criteria doesn't explain a systematic disparity!! Merely listing race does!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But I’m actually less bothered by AA/DEI itself than I am by the argument always being about minorities getting positions they didn’t fully earn on merit.

That's the whole idea of AA/DEI though.

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. ...

And that's a perfectly coherent argument for racial gerrymandering. But a school or a profession is not a bleeding legislature. People don't become students or doctors or whatever in order to represent anyone.

The notion that an Asian with an MCAT of 509 who gets turned away for being Asian from the same school that delightedly snaps up a Native American with a 509 MCAT has received "fair treatment", and is "represented" because the school accepted some other Asian with a 515 MCAT, is absurd on its face. The guys who got in represent no one but themselves; and claiming the guy who got rejected on account of his race was treated fairly because of what color some other guy is is an utter betrayal of the whole concept of fairness.

Of one must choose between two candidates with the same MCAT score, why shouldn’t the one who is from a group with less representation be admitted?

But they aren't remotely equal in this case.

Make the case.

Make the case that MCAT plus GPA should be the only things that count.

As I’ve said, I know people who are quite intelligent t n the science way, with stellar GOAs and MCAT scores who dud not get into Ned school because they were not particularly good at the people portion of the job. I like them, abd respect them but no one who knew them thought they’d be good doctors despite everyone being blown away by their brilliance.

I don't see anyone saying it should only be MCAT and GPA. We are saying it should be things that can be measured with a consistent yardstick. None of us are rejecting other yardsticks, we are just asking that they be fair. And we are noting that no such fair yardstick has been suggested.

 

[Toni]

But I’m actually less bothered by AA/DEI itself than I am by the argument always being about minorities getting positions they didn’t fully earn on merit.

That's the whole idea of AA/DEI though.

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. ...

And that's a perfectly coherent argument for racial gerrymandering. But a school or a profession is not a bleeding legislature. People don't become students or doctors or whatever in order to represent anyone.

The notion that an Asian with an MCAT of 509 who gets turned away for being Asian from the same school that delightedly snaps up a Native American with a 509 MCAT has received "fair treatment", and is "represented" because the school accepted some other Asian with a 515 MCAT, is absurd on its face. The guys who got in represent no one but themselves; and claiming the guy who got rejected on account of his race was treated fairly because of what color some other guy is is an utter betrayal of the whole concept of fairness.

Of one must choose between two candidates with the same MCAT score, why shouldn’t the one who is from a group with less representation be admitted?

But they aren't remotely equal in this case.

Make the case.

Make the case that MCAT plus GPA should be the only things that count.

As I’ve said, I know people who are quite intelligent t n the science way, with stellar GOAs and MCAT scores who dud not get into Ned school because they were not particularly good at the people portion of the job. I like them, abd respect them but no one who knew them thought they’d be good doctors despite everyone being blown away by their brilliance.

I don't see anyone saying it should only be MCAT and GPA. We are saying it should be things that can be measured with a consistent yardstick. None of us are rejecting other yardsticks, we are just asking that they be fair. And we are noting that no such fair yardstick has been suggested.

Again, how are the two so desperate?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Job interviews often don't care as much about metrics (if at all), as much as personality, compatibility, and competence. Interviewers are often measuring intangibles, signs that they look for in a good match for employment. The graduation rates for medical students in spite of the MCAT is incredible. While some have spun 92% graduation rate for a relatively meager MCAT score as awful, 92% is empirically high, all things considered. Which implies the medical schools are looking for and finding the right attributes for medical school students even if the MCAT and/or GPA wasn't as shiny.

That's a bizarre inference. Graduation rates for med students were high in the 1950s too; do you think that implies the medical schools were looking for and finding the right attributes for medical school students back then? They were discriminating against black students! All a high grad rate means is they're good at excluding students who can't cut it.

Indeed, that was my point.

The Admissions boards are good at excluding students who can't cut their program and vindicates their selection process. Meaning that their admission standards, whatever they are, are "good" at admitting QUALIFIED students. This means that they are good at finding the attributes in applicants that suggest to the Admissions Board that any particular applicant can cut their program and graduate successfully, vindicating their admission standards.

It implies that some people in this thread are overly weighting the importance of testing metrics in their attempt to demonstrate systemic problems regarding identity where little actually exists.

Asians being admitted at high rates isn't a reason to think there isn't a thumb on the scale against them; Asians being admitted at high rates is precisely the reason schools put a thumb on the scale against them.

And my point is that your full of crap when you use the word "them". 45% to 50% acceptance rate indicates Asian medical school applicants are taken VERY seriously and to consider that admissions boards are discriminating "them" is just ignorant.

Congress passed a law against it in 1964, the Civil Rights Act: the same law that says you can't thumb the scale against black people says you can't thumb the scale against any ethnicity.

You must think I am incredibly dumb to not notice the difference between a Federal Law designed to stop a class of people from being segregated from White Society and Admissions Standards that look at each student's qualities, achievements, and potential individually regardless of race. The Civil Rights Act wasn't trying to manage minor thumb scaling trying to balance some diversity, it was passed to deal with treating African Americans as fourth class citizens who were isolated from White America.

Asians have higher acceptance rates while African American have lower acceptance rates. That is the actual racial disparity. It is explained by showing the average scores for Asians is higher than African Americans. The numbers work out. Better numbers generally have better acceptance rates.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Make the case.

Make the case that MCAT plus GPA should be the only things that count.

As I’ve said, I know people who are quite intelligent t n the science way, with stellar GOAs and MCAT scores who dud not get into Ned school because they were not particularly good at the people portion of the job. I like them, abd respect them but no one who knew them thought they’d be good doctors despite everyone being blown away by their brilliance.

I don't see anyone saying it should only be MCAT and GPA.

Actually, this thread is obsessed with it. Bomb#20 doesn't think they are important, but then hinges on them. You are doing likewise.

We are saying it should be things that can be measured with a consistent yardstick. None of us are rejecting other yardsticks, we are just asking that they be fair. And we are noting that no such fair yardstick has been suggested.

Medical school admissions policies are vindicated when they have high graduation rates. You want them to use a fair "yardstick", but don't have a damn clue what their actual admissions policies are, so how in the heck can you raise objections when admission policies are letting students with better scores in at higher rates than those with lower scores, but the ones with lower scores are still graduating?

 

[Toni]

Make the case.

Make the case that MCAT plus GPA should be the only things that count.

As I’ve said, I know people who are quite intelligent t n the science way, with stellar GOAs and MCAT scores who dud not get into Ned school because they were not particularly good at the people portion of the job. I like them, abd respect them but no one who knew them thought they’d be good doctors despite everyone being blown away by their brilliance.

I don't see anyone saying it should only be MCAT and GPA.

Actually, this thread is obsessed with it. Bomb#20 doesn't think they are important, but then hinges on them. You are doing likewise.

We are saying it should be things that can be measured with a consistent yardstick. None of us are rejecting other yardsticks, we are just asking that they be fair. And we are noting that no such fair yardstick has been suggested.

Medical school admissions policies are vindicated when they have high graduation rates. You want them to use a fair "yardstick", but don't have a damn clue what their actual admissions policies are, so how in the heck can you raise objections when admission policies are letting students with better scores in at higher rates than those with lower scores, but the ones with lower scores are still graduating?

Not just the graduation rate but also the three stage USMLE.

Since everybody is so in love with standardized tests..

 

[Gospel]

And my point is that your full of crap when you use the word "them". 45% to 50% acceptance rate indicates Asian medical school applicants are taken VERY seriously and to consider that admissions boards are discriminating the Asian race is just stupid.

They are being discriminated against if race itself is being used to advantage or disadvantage applicants in the admissions process, regardless of the overall acceptance rate. It sounds stupid at first, but when you actually think it through, it makes sense. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Harvard acknowledged that it used race as a factor in admissions, and the evidence showed that some Asian applicants who were rejected would have been admitted had race not been considered.

 

[laughing dog]

But I’m actually less bothered by AA/DEI itself than I am by the argument always being about minorities getting positions they didn’t fully earn on merit.

That's the whole idea of AA/DEI though.

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. ...

And that's a perfectly coherent argument for racial gerrymandering. But a school or a profession is not a bleeding legislature. People don't become students or doctors or whatever in order to represent anyone.

The notion that an Asian with an MCAT of 509 who gets turned away for being Asian from the same school that delightedly snaps up a Native American with a 509 MCAT has received "fair treatment", and is "represented" because the school accepted some other Asian with a 515 MCAT, is absurd on its face. The guys who got in represent no one but themselves; and claiming the guy who got rejected on account of his race was treated fairly because of what color some other guy is is an utter betrayal of the whole concept of fairness.

Of one must choose between two candidates with the same MCAT score, why shouldn’t the one who is from a group with less representation be admitted?

But they aren't remotely equal in this case.

Make the case.

Make the case that MCAT plus GPA should be the only things that count.

As I’ve said, I know people who are quite intelligent t n the science way, with stellar GOAs and MCAT scores who dud not get into Ned school because they were not particularly good at the people portion of the job. I like them, abd respect them but no one who knew them thought they’d be good doctors despite everyone being blown away by their brilliance.

I don't see anyone saying it should only be MCAT and GPA. We are saying it should be things that can be measured with a consistent yardstick. None of us are rejecting other yardsticks, we are just asking that they be fair. And we are noting that no such fair yardstick has been suggested.

Why are you repeating verbatim your post 526? Two other clones have been removed already.

I get you don’t really pay attention to the posts you respond to, but it seems you don’t pay attention to your own posts.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And my point is that your full of crap when you use the word "them". 45% to 50% acceptance rate indicates Asian medical school applicants are taken VERY seriously and to consider that admissions boards are discriminating the Asian race is just stupid.

They are being discriminated against if race itself is being used to advantage or disadvantage applicants in the admissions process, regardless of the overall acceptance rate. It sounds stupid at first, but when you actually think it through, it makes sense. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Harvard acknowledged that it used race as a factor in admissions, and the evidence showed that some Asian applicants who were rejected would have been admitted had race not been considered.

But that isn't discrimination of a race. And over 40% of the latest Harvard class 2029 is Asian.

Using race to thumb a scale (at some point) isn't "discrimination of a race" and when Bomb#20 uses the term "them", that is the implication. It can become a bias in the calculus, on an individual basis. Is it black and white morally fair. Newsflash! There is no black and white morally fair. Is it perfect? No. Can our society maintain open and free access to medical school for all races with this being the policy. Heck yes!

Asians are killing it in collegiate admissions. And people are complaining, but they aren't killing it enough.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Quite so. But by itself, pointing out additional criteria is utterly incapable of accounting for any systematic difference in odds of getting accepted between two students with the same scores but different ethnicities. To account for that, you'd also need a reason to think one ethnicity systematically does better on that criterion.

For example, if someone says "They reject Asians and accept Native Americans with 509 MCATs; that sure looks like racial discrimination.", then to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too." explains nothing. It isn't a counterargument. It's immaterial. It's noise. It's no different from saying "But they also flip a coin and give extra points if it comes up heads". Adding a random factor cannot cause a systematic discrepancy. Schools can throw in as many random factors as they please but if after all of them are added in they still reject Asians and accept Native Americans with the same MCATs, then it still looks like racial discrimination. To get an explanation, a counterargument, a material consideration, you need a nonrandom factor. You need to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too, and Native Americans come with systematically better recommendation letters than Asians.". That last part is a vital component of any refutation of the racial discrimination hypothesis.

So you tell me. You posted a long list of additional criteria. Is there something on that list you think Native Americans do a lot better on than Asians?

Maybe GPA's can explain how one 509 MCATs is rejected over another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Perhaps Asians apply less frequently to schools with no or lower requirements. In fact, HBCUs on average have lower thresholds and very little Asian enrollment. I think it's like 1%. HBCUs are only a subset of such schools.

_Some_ Asians are foreigners who can only apply to a few elite schools. This is not true for the AN/NA cohort.

Perhaps Asians more often would not want to go to a safety school, but would rather go into pharma, biotech, biomedical engineering etc. We use acceptance rates and matriculant rates as the same, but Stanley Zhong shows one can get accepted but not go.

Perhaps less Asians show willingness to participate in missions to work in underserved communities. Examples: tribal areas/reservations.

None of this is intended to state there are no issues of discrimination against Asians. Just that it is an assumption that all or most of the observed differences are due to discrimination.

ETA: So perhaps it is also true that Harvard, Yale, and a few other medical schools use race to adjust admission criteria/scores and a majority of medical schools do not do that.

 

[Gospel]

Perhaps less Asians show willingness to participate in missions to work in underserved communities. Examples: tribal areas/reservations.

This is the strongest point of them all. I wonder whether anyone has actually looked at it and whether it could be cross-referenced with other available data. I’m not brainy enough to do that analysis myself, but I’m also brainy enough not to jump to conclusions based on the existing data alone.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Perhaps less Asians show willingness to participate in missions to work in underserved communities. Examples: tribal areas/reservations.

This is the strongest point of them all. I wonder whether anyone has actually looked at it and whether it could be cross-referenced with other available data. I’m not brainy enough to do that analysis myself, but I’m also brainy enough not to jump to conclusions based on the existing data alone.

There's a study that has a table. I have only skimmed some sparse text around the table. Something like there was a survey of doctors working for the Indian Health Services, not everyone responded. The goal of the survey was not demographics, I don't think, but questions were asked and this racial/ethnic breakdown is in the table for respondents:

Race/ethnicity*
White 261 (78)
American Indian/ Alaska Native 48 (14)
Hispanic 32 (9)
Asian 26 (8)
Black 13 (4)
Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander 1 (1)
Other 1 (1)

I don't think it is entirely unreasonable to extrapolate this, but again I have not read the study in full. What I immediately observe is there are only 8% Asian doctors but Asian doctors in the general population are much larger than that. Also, there are 14% NA/AN doctors but NA/AN doctors in the general population of doctors are like less than 1%.

There's also a more general study:

Racial and ethnic minority physicians are more likely to practice primary care and serve in underserved communities. However, there are micro-practice patterns within primary care specialties that are not well understood. To examine the differences among primary care physician practice locations by specialty and race/ethnicity, a retrospective study was conducted on U.S. medical graduates who were direct patient care physicians in 2012. The group-specific contributions to primary care accessibility were decomposed by individual group of minorities underrepresented in medicine (URM). Results confirm significant differences not only in their distribution across underserved areas but also in their racial/ethnic composition by primary care specialties, with internist most diverse and family physicians least diverse. However, stratified analysis shows that within each primary care subspecialty, URM physicians were more likely to practice in underserved areas than their White peers regardless of specific specialties.

Let's call this supporting evidence that establishes at a minimum the idea is not far-fetched.

 

[Gospel]

I don't think it is entirely unreasonable to extrapolate this, but again I have not read the study in full. What I immediately observe is there are only 8% Asian doctors but Asian doctors in the general population are much larger than that. Also, there are 14% NA/AN doctors but NA/AN doctors in the general population of doctors are like less than 1%.

Maybe Asian doctors are applying to work in underserved communities but keep receiving suspiciously low “personality scores” from the hiring committees.

Joking aside, I suspect much of this reflects people wanting to serve their own communities. That could also help explain some admissions differences without reducing everything to “who stole whose spot.” If medical schools know that applicants from certain communities are more likely to return and practice in areas with serious physician shortages, then selecting them may serve a legitimate workforce need, not merely satisfy a racial preference.

That doesn’t prove discrimination never occurs. It just means MCAT averages and racial disparities alone cannot tell us why individual admissions decisions were made.

 

[Bomb#20]

I'm sorry, maybe your point flew unheeded over my head. ...

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify. My point wasn't that Derec is secretly racist, and it wasn't about women in general. That's exactly why changing “White women” to “women” changes the argument. I'm talking specifically about the framing in this thread. The title is “MCATs, Affirmative Action, and DEI, Oh My.” Nothing about that limits the discussion to Black and Hispanic beneficiaries. Yet when people here start talking about preferential treatment, lower qualifications, or somebody “taking” somebody else's position, the beneficiaries being scrutinized are overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic.

That's why I brought up White women specifically. They have also benefited from affirmative-action/equal-opportunity efforts aimed at discrimination, yet nobody here seems interested in figuring out which White or Asian man had his position “taken” by a White woman. I'm not saying that proves anybody is racist. I'm asking why the rhetoric about supposedly undeserving beneficiaries is so selectively focused on Black and Hispanic people when the subject we're supposedly discussing is AA/DEI more broadly.

That's the point I wanted addressed. Turning “White women” into “women” removes the very comparison I was making.

Anyway, even if someone argues that White women, on average, have higher MCAT scores than Black or Hispanic applicants, that doesn’t really address my point. A higher group average doesn’t mean every White woman admitted had a higher score than every person who was rejected. If a White woman with a 510 gets a seat over an Asian or White man with a 515, then by the logic being used throughout this thread, somebody with a lower score just “took” a higher-scoring applicant’s spot. Yet nobody here seems remotely interested.

And White women aren't outsiders to the history of affirmative action and equal-opportunity policy. Women were explicitly included in federal affirmative-action requirements decades ago. So my question remains: in a thread supposedly about affirmative action and DEI as a whole, why does the discussion of supposedly undeserving beneficiaries keep revolving around Black and Hispanic people?

My two cents' worth: I remain of the opinion that it's happening because of the specific circumstances of the thread -- its origin in the flap over Arday at Cambridge. Somebody brought up MCATs in the Arday thread; that's why we have an MCAT thread in the first place. People brought up MCATs because they thought it was relevant, and they thought it was relevant because the AAMC publishes data that implies there's a lot of AA on behalf of black people going on, so somebody cited it.

Of course you're perfectly right that white women have been heavily on the receiving end of AA preferences; but the AAMC data doesn't show this specifically for MCATs -- to find examples you'd need to look elsewhere. For instance, white women went from about 35% of college degrees before the civil rights era to about 55% now. So imagine a world where we had some BAT test that predicted ability to do what it takes to earn a bachelor's degree, and somebody published a table showing white women had substantially lower BAT scores than could account for their dominance of the degree statistics, and argued it proves colleges are discriminating in favor of them and against groups with higher BAT scores. Then we could have all had a politically charged thread about BATs, Affirmative Action and DEI, Oh My, focusing on how white women are getting spots their qualifications don't account for, and whether they should get them anyway. My point is, we could have had that conversation, but we would not have, because nobody would have posted that table of BAT scores in the first place, because Arday is not a white woman.

Here's a third cent's worth: I think framing this as about scrutinizing beneficiaries is not what's going on. The people being scrutinized are the medical school admissions committees. Nobody is attacking Black and Hispanic people; they're attacking leftists. Nobody here seems interested in figuring out which White or Asian person had his position “taken” by a Black or Hispanic person either, or in which Black or Hispanic person "took" one -- whom they're interested in is who is putting a thumb on the scale. I haven't seen anyone suggest the beneficiaries of AA policies did anything wrong by accepting positions offered to them, even if somebody thinks the policy that led to the offer was misguided. The beneficiaries can thank their lucky stars that what they had turned out to be what the admissions officers were looking for, same as the rest of us do who got accepted anywhere.

I can cite my personal history, because by odd accident I happen to know exactly who took "my" spot and how. Pace Poli, no, I do not believe firmly in my heart I was told "no" because of discrimination against straight white guys. I believe firmly in my heart it was because of discrimination against nonmusicians. Should that guy have gotten into the engineering school that rejected me simply because he plays an instrument and I don't? I don't think so. (And the fact that all that teaching eventually went to waste when he subsequently abandoned his engineering career and became a professional musician backs me up.) But that's a dig at the school, not at him. Good for him for learning to play, good for him for having talent, good for him for exploring all his options while he took the time to find out where his true joy lay. Did he have some moral obligation to turn down engineering school and apply to Juilliard? Not on your life.

 

[Bomb#20]

...
An Asian applicant averaging higher MCAT scores than a Native American or Black applicant doesn’t tell me that this particular Asian applicant lost his seat to this particular lower-scoring minority applicant because of race. To establish that, I’d want to know what the school actually considered in those two applications and whether race changed the outcome.

Bomb is right that simply saying “there are other criteria” doesn’t automatically explain a systematic racial difference. But the reverse is also true: a systematic racial difference in aggregate outcomes doesn’t automatically tell us the causal reason for each individual decision. If we have evidence that a school deliberately gave racial preference, criticize the racial preference. Hell, I’ll join you. But if all we have is “Group A averaged 515 and Group B averaged 505,” that does not establish that some identifiable 515 applicant was rejected because a 505 applicant of another race took his seat.

Those are two different claims, and I don’t see why opposing AA/DEI requires me to pretend they’re the same one.

That's perfectly right -- and it's the difference that allowed the cigarette industry to duck responsibility for killing its customers, for decades. What it takes to prove overall statistical causality versus what it takes to prove causality in an individual case are mathematically entirely different problems. It's why in spite of the huge amount of sound and fury over AA, actual court cases showing a particular person was harmed by illegal behavior are few and far between -- plaintiffs usually lose on standing, before anybody looks at the evidence.

Maybe part of what we’re seeing is simply competition within different score ranges rather than race. Applicants aren’t distributed evenly across the MCAT scale, and schools have a limited number of seats. If one group is heavily concentrated in a particular score range, applicants in that range could face much more competition from one another than applicants in another range. In that case, different acceptance rates by race could emerge even if race itself never entered the decision.

Thank you, Senator Hruska.

(Nixon nominated Judge Carswell to the SC. Carswell was widely criticized as mediocre. Hruska defended the nomination, saying "Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.")

If in fact a school is deliberately holding high scores against someone in order to dumb down its student body, I don't think it would ever admit it.

Especially when we’re looking at aggregate data, how do we know we’re not seeing differences in where applicants cluster, which schools they apply to, or how competitive those particular applicant pools are?

We don't know for sure, but the law of large numbers is against that scenario. The average would-be med student applies to 16 or 17 schools. That's going to wash out most effects unique to individual schools.

 

[Politesse]

Is there an unspoken assumption here that absent any sort of discrimination, enrollments would be exactly equal between men and women, exactly proportionate to racial disposition in the general population, and so forth? That seems deeply unlikely to me. What would be more concerning to me us if there is evidence that a broad populational group is submitting applications, but being disproportionately turned down from jobs, loans, housung, educational opportunities, grants, or other consistently measurable social goods. I have FAR more female than male students, and more white than non-white students by a slim margin, but that isn't because men or non-whites are being turned down for a seat. It can't be that, because we have open registration in the community college system, no one who manages to complete the application is barred from attending. Presumably, different social and economic forces are being exerted on the various social classes that encourage or discourage enrollment. It drives me crazy when administrators talk about rates of first enrollment as something faculty could conceivably "fix".

 

[bilby]

So my question remains: in a thread supposedly about affirmative action and DEI as a whole, why does the discussion of supposedly undeserving beneficiaries keep revolving around Black and Hispanic people?

My guess is that it's because there is one word too many here:

Derec is secretly racist

 

[bilby]

My two cents' worth: I remain of the opinion that it's happening because of the specific circumstances of the thread -- its origin in the flap over Arday at Cambridge. Somebody brought up MCATs in the Arday thread; that's why we have an MCAT thread in the first place. People brought up MCATs because they thought it was relevant, and they thought it was relevant because the AAMC publishes data that implies there's a lot of AA on behalf of black people going on, so somebody cited it.

The people who brought up MCATs because they thought it was relevant were, as I pointed out in that thread, flat out wrong.

US medical school admissions are completely irrelevant to Cambridge University's postgraduate hiring practices.

Different legal jurisdictions with different rules, customs, practices and histories, in which different institutions doing different things hire different people for different purposes to different ends? There's no relevance at all.

Oh, and Sociology of Language is, I suspect, not a very closely related discipline to Medicine.

People here started talking about MCATs because they are Americans, and are familiar with MCATs (or at least with the US practice of administering standardised tests for college* admissions), and unfamiliar with literally everything about Cambridge University. So rather than discuss the case at hand, they flew off on an irrelevant tangent that had the sole merit of not being a complete mystery to them.

From my own perspective, in which US practices and testing systems are the alien topic, and the bizarre customs and practices of Cambridge University are, if not sensible, at least familiar (both my father and brother went to Cambridge, and my father remains a Fellow at Christ's), this diversion into the completely unrelated US way of doing things seems truly pointless.

The only** link I can discern between the Arday case and MCAT is the hobbyhorse topic of alleged bias against what the (allegedly fictional) American Socialist White People's Party described as "decent, law-abiding white folk, just like you".








* Even the word "college" means a different thing in the US to what it means in the UK, and within the UK means a different thing in relation to Cambridge University than it means in relation to the wider education system.

** Well, there's also the fact that my brother read Natural Sciences at King's, and that course is often abbreviated to "NatSci", which is a close homophone to "Nazi". Still, that's also a very tenuous link...

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

We don't know for sure, but the law of large numbers is against that scenario. The average would-be med student applies to 16 or 17 schools. That's going to wash out most effects unique to individual schools.

Back in my day I applied to two schools, I liked them both, even if one was my dream school and I was accepted into both of them. Also back then, a rare person could apply to 5 schools and virtually guarantee getting in because applying meant something, dammit! Now we've got automation, common applications, AI and colleges have to make projections of who will attend for revenue. (See Tufts Syndrome). Everyone applying to 15 schools has normalized it, forced reaction of the schools to look for signals in engagement, mission fitness, etc in applications. Applying to 15 schools is no longer an advantage so experts say to apply to 25-30 schools!

True story: I helped my son write a resume for a job. I used AI to write his cover letter. He got hired and now I see sometimes a robot does his job. Plus, I strongly suspect AI was used to screen his resume and approve his cover letter. It makes me wonder where is he in the whole process.

So where the heck are we headed?