<p>Why is that? Is that because competition is so fierce, that minorities would stand less of a chance?</p>
<p>I don’t know that it is. What statistics are you relying on?</p>
<p>Most stats suggest that minority acceptance rates are the same or lower than average.</p>
<p>Sorry, not what I meant. I don’t know that AA is stronger in Grad/Professional admissions than it is in Undergraduate admissions. If there are statistics to show I’m wrong, by all means fire away.</p>
<p>Sorry, I meant that minority stats for MEDICAL school acceptance are lower than average medical school acceptance stats. I also don’t know how they compare to undergrad, but I just wanted to emphasize the relatively low effect it has in med school.</p>
<p>Well, that might not be the proper metric, depending on which angle you’re approaching it from. Admissions percentages would be a good way to compare the strength of affirmative action against the strength of whatever factors are creating the disparity.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if one is concerned with the relative merits of any particular applicant, then you’d want to examine the average qualifications of the students who are admitted by racial group.</p>
<p>Men vs Women
[AAMC:</a> FACTS Table23: MCAT Scores and GPAs for Matriculants to U.S. Medical Schools by Sex](<a href=“http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mcatgpabysex4mat.htm]AAMC:”>http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mcatgpabysex4mat.htm)</p>
<p>Race:</p>
<p>[AAMC:</a> FACTS Table 19: MCAT Scores and GPAs for Applicants and Matriculants to U.S. Medical Schools by Race and Ethnicity](<a href=“http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mcatgparaceeth08.htm]AAMC:”>http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mcatgparaceeth08.htm)</p>
<p>Note that 1/3 of african americans make it, so even though there is some clear boost for URMs, it isn’t a free pass if you don’t have what it takes.</p>
<p>Also interesting to note is that asians have a huge jump in scores from applicant (which is about on par with the white applicant) to accepted. Sorry asians!</p>
<p>You would think that somewhere AAMC would be publishing a chart that gave the same data for (one example) White Women Applicants and Matriculants. I know they could provide greater information to potential applicants should they choose to do so. Right now you have to squint and guesstimate it.</p>
<p>mmcdowe, i never implied that minorities didn’t have what it takes. I believe that all minorities who are accepted are qualified in one way or another. </p>
<p>I began to notice this because my uncle (undergrad admissions counselor at UMiami) told me Affirmative Action was more prevalent in grad schools. But who knows? That is the reason I asked :)</p>
<p>On a purely unstatistical basis, I’d say maybe because minorities are even more underrepresented in post-graduate education (med, dent, grad, etc.) and so maybe it helps a bit more.</p>
<p>Just speculating.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen any data to suggest that affirmative action is stronger in medical school than in undergraduate admissions. The test-score disparity, even among admitted students, is very hard to compare between the MCAT and the SAT. Studies by Espenshade et. all indicate that **the SAT gap is about 360 points<a href=“out%20of%202400”>/B</a>. (Blacks relative to whites; add another 75 for Asians.)</p>
<p>AAMC charts indicate that African American matriculants score about 26.1/3.3; white matriculants score 31.3/3.64; Asian Americans 32.2/3.62; Mexican-Americans 28/3.4. Since 0.1 GPA point ~= 1 MCAT point, the gap from African Americans to whites is about 8.6 MCAT points. (Add another 0.6 for Asians.)</p>
<p>I have no idea how to compare those two ranges. From turning in a blank test (3) to the usual national maximum (~42), inclusive, the MCAT spans 40 points. 8.6 points is 21.5% of that span. A blank SAT (600) to the national max (2400) spans 1800 points, and 360 is 20% of that span. Is this a legit way to handle it? I doubt it, since the two tests are calibrated very differently and the percentiles vary along the bell curve a little differently.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, one discussion board seems to think that affirmative action can be worth about about 13 LSAT points. In a testable span of 60, that’s 21.7%.</p>
<p>So there’s a lot of problems with this method (percentiles, calibration, etc.) but we’re getting pretty consistent results from it.</p>
<p>Hey Bigweight, I wasn’t directing that towards anyone, so no worries
I have heard that affirmative action is worth 5-10 points on the MCAT. I have no way to justify it. 10 seems a little too high.</p>
<p>I don’t see any huge differences between Asians and Whites. Can someone care to enlighten me?</p>
<p>LB: How do you mean?</p>
<p>According to what BDM posted, Asian Ameriacn matriculants are higher on MCAT (by about 1 point) and a lower GPA (by 0.02).</p>
<p>At the medical school admission level, Asian Americans need to compete with the best of the best from all ethnic groups. At the college admission level, the competition is not so fierce (maybe with the exception in ECs.)</p>
<p>At such a fierce competition level, it is only natural that a lower percentage of Asian Americans can perform that well, as the exceptional “inner capabilities” are fairly distributed among most races (except for URMs, who, on average, tend to grow up in a not-so-nurturing environment.) </p>
<p>Another of my speculation here: A higher percentage of Asian American premeds may major in some harder majors, e.g., BME, Biochemistry, (harder in terms of GPA), resulted in a somewhat lower GPA. Maybe Asian Americans tend to be concentrated in too few colleges; some of these colleges are too selective for their capabilities. That is, higher percentage of Asian Americans tend to go to the highest ranking college they manage to get into, ignoring the “fit” issue. They do not like to be a big fish in a small pond. (Fewer of them like to go to mid-tier LACs, for example.)</p>
<p>I also suspect that some Asian Americans who should not be in the premed program in the first place (due to varieties of reasons) still stay on the premed track. Some of them thus may not fare particularly well in some pre-req classes due to the lack of intrinsic motivation.</p>
<p>I can not understand why MCAT scores for Asian Americans are slightly higher. At the high school level, Asian Americans as a group have advantages on SAT Math only, but MCAT contains no Math at all.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that these are numbers from eventual matriculants – that is, the pool of students who were eventually accepted and attended.</p>
<p>At this post-screening level, test-score gaps are more accurately explained by differences in the admissions process, not group-based differences in performance. The numbers for overall applicants are more useful for that purpose:</p>
<p>African Americans: 21.9/3.03
Mexican Americans: 25/3.21
White: 29/3.46
Asian Americans: 29.1/3.41</p>
<p>You can see that here, the white/Asian gap disappears.</p>
<p>I did not understand the reasoning behind this statement:</p>
<p>
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<p>The jump between Admitted and applicants is only about 1 point per section, which isn’t a whole lot different from the White group. I don’t see how the Asians have a (statistically significant) difference in that regard.</p>
<p>As to why Asians need a slightly higher MCAT to get accepted, I believe it’s because a lot of Asians overemphasize standardized testing and grades, which could trade off with other areas. I hate making sweeping statements (I’m Asian myself), but among my Asian friends, there is a much greater concern about GPA/MCATS.</p>