@medkid260,
So the entire University of Missouri System is encompassed by: UM-Columbia (known as Mizzou), UMKC (Kansas City), UMSL (St. Louis), and Missouri S&T (used to be called UM-Rolla). The main public flagship university for the state is Mizzou, and the UM President who resigned recently was president of that entire system, while the Chancellor who will resign by the end of this year was for Mizzou only. I would say Kansas City is quite different from Columbia. Columbia is much more like a college town, and much different than KC or St. Louis, which are the closest you will get to actual cities in Missouri. Kansas City is about 125 miles, or 2 hours away, from Columbia.
As @blugrn6 mentioned, I don’t think there were blatant acts of racism that occured even when I was there, whether at the Volker campus or at the medical school. I don’t know of any incidences to where, for example, a student is walking on campus, and another student shouts the N-word at them. Or to where, for example, Asian students are badgered and harassed, due to their race. See @blugrn6’s third paragraph that talks about UMKC being a commuter school, I really can’t say it much better than that. Undergrads at UMKC usually go to class, do when they need to do, maybe stay on campus to study or finish up work, and then they drive home to their off-campus residence. UMKC is not going to be like your typical public state flagship schools: UCLA, LSU, UC-Berkeley, University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, Ohio State, etc. where everyone is always in constant contact, since the majority of the student body lives in dorms on campus. UMKC does not even have enough dorms for every single undergrad to live on campus, even if they wanted to, for that to be an option. As a Year 1 BA/MD student though, you are REQUIRED to live in the dorms the first year, even if your parents live locally.
I have never had a problem in terms of being respected by fellow UMKC undergraduate students. There are some really nice UMKC undergrad students. I also liked many of the older adult undergrad students who come back and takes classes which you might see in some of your Arts & Sciences classes who contribute and were reliable.
As a 6 year BA/MD student, you will have very little total interaction with the undergraduate segment of the university – except when you’re living in the dorms in Year 1, and in undergraduate science & non-science courses, and in your Year 4 campus semester (although you’ll be much more concentrating on studying for your boards at this point if your campus is in the Fall or Spring). That undergrad interaction will probably be increased somewhat if you were to join one of the fraternities or sororities on campus (positives and negatives to doing this, like anything in life). But as @blugrn6 mentioned, most of your interaction thru the 6 years will only be with other 6 year BA/MD students (and any MD-only students who enter in Year 2 Spring to make up for attrition), for better or for worse.
So with that being said, are there students in the BA/MD program who are racist? Generally not. Back when it was 90% in-state, and 10% out-of-state, there were quite a few in-staters from very rural areas (not many, most are from around KC and around St. Louis), who had never even had an Asian person in their HS class or even living in their town. Hard to believe, I know. Were they racist? No. Part of what everyone realizes is that when you go to college, you are going to meet new people, so I think that helps, as well as being with the same people for 6 years. Also, it’s well known in this program, and according to one article, that about 40% or greater of the BA/MD class ends up being Asian: http://kcur.org/post/med-school-express.
Now in a particular UMKC BA/MD class, do students tend to form cliques? Yes. Is it always based on race? Not necessarily. Often times, it’s knowing someone very well or being roommates in Year 1 at the dorms, being on the same docent team, being “Greek” (lol) or having rushed in the same fraternity/sorority, being of the same race, or being of a relatively similar socioeconomic status (of which UMKC’s BA/MDers tend to be more towards the top on average), having the same interests outside of school-related academics, etc. People tend to freely associate with people they are similar to, feel like they would have something in common with, or feel comfortable with. That’s more just our inherent reflexive biases, than racial animus at work. Also added onto all of this, realize these are high school graduates we’re talking about, who surprise surprise (lol), will still act like people from high school. This will definitely change, however, also as you progress thru the six years and get to know others within your class. Is it going to be any different if you went somewhere else? I really don’t know, since I never did a traditional 4 year undergrad, but you’ll see the same contributors in the real world as well.
As to your isolation question, I could actually very much understand if someone who is Black and/or Latino at UMKC would feel culturally isolated as they make up only 12% and 6% of the total student population respectively at UMKC – and that’s for the ENTIRE university, so the actual percentages specifically for the BA/MD program for Black and Latino will actually be much smaller. But yes, UMKC (as an entire university) is overwhelmingly white (caucasian) – but that’s really a lot of the Midwest/Bible Belt, save for few select urban areas. The best way I think I’ve heard it described from people not from Missouri or the Midwest is that it’s a definite culture shock for them, especially if they’ve come from a much more diverse city and/or high school: http://priceonomics.com/the-most-and-least-diverse-cities-in-america/ (KC is #28). Needless to say KC, and thus by default UMKC, is just not going to have the demographics that the Top 10 most populated cities in the United States have: http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0763098.html
TL;DR I would not use the news coverage of what happened at Mizzou to solely guide your decision as to whether or not to attend UMKC, as they are very different campuses in many respects.
