A reader, “E,” sent the following, which seems worth posting as is.
In the game of elite college admissions with race preferences, Asian Americans pay the highest “bill” or price by being the only non-preferred group in the schema of race based Affirmative Action used by the politically correct racist admissions committees in their discrimination against Asian American applicants. The facts are clear and convincing and the evidence is compelling in support of this.
An example of the bar being set higher for Asian Americans in admissions to American medical schools is given below with the FACTS.
Data from the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) for U.S. Medical School Applicants 2005-2007 (3 years).
1. An Asian American with a GPA of 2.8 to 2.99 and a MCAT score of 36 to 38 has a 36.8% chance of being admitted to a U.S. medical school.
2. A White with a GPA of 2.8 to 2.99 and a MCAT score of 36 to 38 has a 40.7% chance of being admitted to a U.S. medical school.
3. An African American with a GPA of 2.8 to 2.99 and a MCAT score of 36 to 38 has a 100% chance of being admitted to a U.S. medical school.
The stat geek in me: what were the sample sizes and did they adjust their results to give a representative cross-section. That 100% figure seems too high even for a cynic like me.
The socio geek in me: figures… Note to self to check ethnicity of my doctor and steer clear of African American doctors until I have details on their professional history because their school credentials are probably useless. Unfortunate as this means more work for me.
To newt0311
In answer to your question, [The stat geek in me: what were the sample sizes and did they adjust their results to give a representative cross-section. That 100% figure seems too high even for a cynic like me.]
Here is the data disaggregated by race. John Rosenberg had mistakenly left out these most important links to the pertinent data sets for each race.
[E is right. I glanced at the URLs and thought they were all the same. They’re not. My bad -jsr]
Data from the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) for U.S. Medical School Applicants 2005-2007 (3 years).
1. An Asian American with a GPA of 2.8 to 2.99 and a MCAT score of 36 to 38 has a 36.8% chance of being admitted to a U.S. medical school.
http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/MCATGPAgridAsian.pdf
MCAT and GPA Grid for Applicants and Acceptees to U.S. Medical Schools who self-identified* as Asian, 2005 to 2007 (aggregated)
2. A White with a GPA of 2.8 to 2.99 and a MCAT score of 36 to 38 has a 40.7% chance of being admitted to aU.S. medical school.
http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/MCATGPAgridWHITE.pdf
MCAT and GPA Grid for Applicants and Acceptees to U.S. Medical Schools who self-identified* as White, 2005 to 2007 (aggregated)
3. An African American with a GPA of 2.8 to 2.99 and a MCAT score of 36 to 38 has a 100% chance of being admitted to a U.S. medical school.
http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/MCATGPAgridBlack.pdf
MCAT and GPA Grid for Applicants and Acceptees to U.S. Medical Schools who self-identified* as Black, 2005 to 2007 (aggregated)
Hmmm… The discrepancy is certainly there but that 100% figure is spurious as the sample size there is 1 (for blacks). A more advanced statistical analysis (perhaps using a student-t and testing the hypothesis that blacks have higher expected pass rates given the same credentials) would do much better.
@E: Thanks for giving me that data.
NEWT0311’s last paragraph should become required reading for all blacks. The way we approach affirmative action in this country feeds the perception that blacks do not or cannot earn their own way. This undermines the black community in many ways, to many to post here.
Less than 50% of the blacks pass the Part I of the USMLE (U.S. Medical Licensing Exam) on the first try nationwide on the average. Some blacks never pass and cannot become practicing MDs, even if they had graduated from Harvard, and the other blacks who pass score below Asians/whites by over one standard deviation below the mean scores of Whites/Asians. Today, about 95% of Whites/Asians do pass on the first try and I don’t have the current exact figures, but JAMA (Journal of the AMA) did a study of this over 15 years ago. The actual numbers of the total failures were not given by race/ethnicity, but it is not rocket science to say that if 10% of the test takers were black, and only 50% passed, then the blacks are 25% of the all the failures, if only 5% of all test takers failed. The USMLE results are the direct result of race preferences in admissions with the lowering of standards (GPA and MCAT score) for blacks. Medical students admitted with lower academic markers have lower pass rates on the USMLE.
The passing of the USMLE means that one is qualified, but being qualified does not mean being the most qualified, when one passes with the highest score. There is also a direct straight line correlation between one’s MCAT scores used for admissions to med school versus one’s USMLE scores. Blacks test over one standard deviation below the mean of most standardized testing, including the USMLE, SAT I, MCAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT. Blacks *DO NOT TEST WELL* compared to Whites/Asians. Blacks are admitted to medical schools with this Black-White Test Score Gap for many decades, including the ones graduating from the Ivies. Nothing has changed with race based AA for decades
Below are links to the study for a better description of the racial pass rates on the NBME (USMLE) for the years ‘86, ‘87. and ’88 published by JAMA in 1994.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm
Need a Doctor?
Medical school admission is uncommonly competitive, there being many more applicants than slots. The competition is so intense that if black applicants were held to the same admission standards as whites and Asians, we would turn out almost no black physicians.
We now have a double standard for admission to medical school brought about by affirmative action. As a result, two tiers of American physicians have emerged separated by race and ability.
We have seen that law students admitted under affirmative action do not measure up to their white and Asian peers as law-school graduates. Can we say the same for doctors? We will quantify the performance gap for physicians.
A benchmark for medical competence is the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Exam Part I. Every medical student in the US must pass it to become a physician. Students take the exam two years before graduation. It is one of several ways the profession keeps itself honest. The most comprehensive study of NBME pass rates was published in 1994 by Beth Dawson et al (JAMA 1994 272:9 674-9). The authors examined the performance of every medical student in the US taking the June exam for the first time over the years 1986, 1987 and 1988. Dawson and her colleagues found that white medical students passed the NBME test at a rate of 87.7 percent and blacks at 48.9 percent. Again, using methods described in Appendix A, we found these pass rates equivalent to a black-white mean difference of 1.19 SD. Mean differences for the bar and NBME exams are conspicuously similar. The one-plus SD gap does not yield easily.
Notably, when Dawson’s study looked at entering students with similar academic credentials, the pass rates on the NBME exam were independent of race, pointing an accusing finger directly at affirmative action. For all its good intentions, affirmative action has created two levels of competence in American medicine, separated by a bit more than one standard deviation. When you are wheeled into the ER at 2:00 a.m., if you pray, pray that the black doctor who greets you entered medical school through the front door.
——————————————————————————–
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/15487672_Performance_on_the_National_Board_of_Medical_Examiners._Part_I_Examination_by_men_and_women_of_different_race_and_ethnicity
Publication details
Performance on the National Board of Medical Examiners. Part I Examination by men and women of different race and ethnicity
Authors: B Dawson, C K Iwamoto, L P Ross, R J Nungester, D B Swanson, R L Volle
Impact factor: 25.55, Cited half life: 6.8, Immediacy index: 7.97
Journal: JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association
OBJECTIVE–To investigate the performance of men and women from various racial and ethnic backgrounds on the National Board of Medical Examiners Part I examination, controlling for any differences in measures of educational background and academic performance before entering medical school. DESIGN–A retrospective analysis of existing records from the National Board of Medical Examiners and the Association of American Medical Colleges. SETTING–National Board of Medical Examiners. PARTICIPANTS–All students taking the June administration of Part I for the first time in 1986, 1987, or 1988 and who were 2 years from graduation from an accredited medical school. METHODS–Multiple regression methods were used to estimate Part I examination group differences in performance that would be expected if all students entered medical school with similar Medical College Admission Test scores, undergraduate grade point averages, and other prematriculation measures. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE–Performance on the Part I examination. RESULTS–There were substantial differences in performance, with white students scoring highest, followed by Asian/Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, and blacks; within all racial and ethnic categories, women scored lower than men. Controlling for dissimilarities in academic background greatly reduced Part I differences among most racial and ethnic groups, except Asian/Pacific Islander men; unexplained differences remained between men and women. Results were consistent for the 3 years examined. CONCLUSIONS–The results of this study do not imply that physician performance varies among racial and ethnic groups or between men and women; no written examination can measure all the abilities that may be desirable to assess. Validity research investigating reasons for the reported gender and racial and ethnic differences in performance on the National Board examinations should be continued.
JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association. 01/10/1994; 272(9):674-9.
ISSN: 0098-7484
Almost all (92%) accepted Asians scored 27+ on the MCATs, while a substantial majority (62%) of blacks scored less than 27. I hate to say it, but newt0311’s skepticism about trusting a black doctor may be well-founded — not because of the doctor’s skin color per se, but by a sick culture that sets lower standards for people by virtue of irrelevant group characteristics. If MCAT has any meaning, the average Asian medical students are stronger than 90% of black medical students. If you knew nothing about Dr. Sung Chu and Dr. Tyrone Jackson except their ethnicity (Chinese-American and African-American, resp.), you’d be a fool to choose the latter for a visit. Affirmative action engenders prejudice.
I agree that looking at the samples of 1 are spurious. What this table really needs is to be converted into a line graph where one can plot the different races together. But to pick what I would consider a “mediocre applicant” example shows the discrimination at work: for an MCAT score of 27-29 and GPA of 2.80-2.99, the Asian acceptance rate is 10.7%, white is 16.3%, & black is 67.9%. No amount of spin can get around that whopping difference…
What is characterized as “prejudice” or “racism” is merely extremely valid inductive reasoning. If blacks commit eight times more crime per capita than whites, it stands to reason they will be treated differently. If a black doctor on the average scores less on standardized tests than white doctors and are admitted to medical school merely on the basis of race, it stands to reason they’ll be looked at by patients with a certain degree of suspicion. I will not be made to feel guilty for self-preservation. Nor will I subject my family to danger on the streets or inferior medical care just pat myself on the back and say “what a good boy am I!”
Clinton Smith said,
[But to pick what I would consider a “mediocre applicant” example shows the discrimination at work: for an MCAT score of 27-29 and GPA of 2.80-2.99, the Asian acceptance rate is 10.7%, white is 16.3%, & black is 67.9%. No amount of spin can get around that whopping difference…]
============================
Data on Hispanics and US Medical Admissions Rates from the AAMC
For an MCAT score of 27-29 and GPA of 2.80-2.99, the Hispanic acceptance rate is 26.1%
http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/MCATGPAgridHispnic.pdf
MCAT and GPA Grid for Applicants and Acceptees to U.S. Medical Schools who self-identified* as Hispanic, 2005 to 2007 (aggregated)
http://www.ceousa.org/content/view/706/119/
Quote:
[But this whole way of looking at the world is deeply troubling. If some groups are “underrepresented” in certain fields, then logically, others are “overrepresented.” But who decides how many is too many? According to a study by the National Science Foundation, Asian Americans earn almost 7 percent of advanced degrees in science and engineering and more than 8 percent of the undergraduate degrees in those areas, despite being only about 4 percent of the population. Should we limit the number of Asian Americans who may go into these fields in order to ensure that more Latinos and blacks be represented? And if we adopt proportional representation as our goal, how do we achieve it short of setting racial, ethnicity, and gender quotas? And in this era when increasing numbers of Americans are multi-racial, who determines when a person “counts” as black or Latino or Asian or white?]
TESTIMONY OF LINDA CHAVEZ CHAIRMAN, CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY BEFORE THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE REGARDING THE NOMINATION OF JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR TO THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
July 16, 2009
There is a major problem with the initial example. An applicant with a 2.8-2.99 GPA and a 36-38 MCAT is very rare, because that’s left side of the GPA curve and right side of the MCAT curve (theoretical max MCAT is 45, but 43 is the highest I’ve ever heard of and a 36 made me a rock star in applications).
Uff Da’s comment above picks a much more representative “mediocre” applicant and the numbers still make the point.
Comparison of two MD applicants to American medical schools in 2009 competing for the same spaces at the same medical schools – One applicant is an unspecified URM female and the other is an East Asian American female. Both of them applied during this current year competing for some of the same spaces at each medical school that both had applied to at exactly the same time.
1. URM female with MCAT total score of 34 and GPA 3.42
2. East Asian American female with MCAT total score of 39 and GPA 4.00 at Brown U. (These are absolutely STELLAR STATS! Very few applicants achieved a MCAT score of 39 and a GPA of 4.0 together.)
THIS DATA REPRESENTS CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE BETWEEN TWO MEDICAL SCHOOL APPLICANTS, ONE AN URM AND THE OTHER AN ASIAN AMERICAN, THAT RACE PREFERENCES WERE USED IN FAVOR OF THE URM OVER THE STELLAR EAST ASIAN AMERICAN APPLICANT WHO WAS DENIED ADMISSIONS TO EVERY SCHOOL THE URM WAS ADMITTED TO, WHEN BOTH APPLIED TO THE SAME MEDICAL SCHOOL, WITH A PROFILE THAT WAS LESS THAN STELLAR AND BELOW AVERAGE FOR THE SCHOOLS THAT THE URM WAS ADMITTED TO, ESPECIALLY TO THE IVY LEAGUE MEDICAL SCHOOLS AND THE TOP TIER MED SCHOOLS SUCH AS UCSF, AND STANFORD. THE ASIAN WAS REJECTED AT STANFORD, AND UCSF. THE ASIAN AMERICAN WAS ALSO REJECTED AT EVERY IVY LEAGUE MEDICAL SCHOOL WHICH SHE HAD APPLIED TO, WHEREAS THE URM WAS ADMITTED TO EVERY IVY LEAGUE MEDICAL SCHOOL WHICH SHE HAD APPLIED TO.
THE URM WAS ADMITTED TO FOURTEEN MEDICAL SCHOOLS WITH NO REJECTIONS FROM EVERY SCHOOL WHICH SHE HAD APPLIED TO. SHE MOST LIKELY WOULD HAVE BEEN ADMITTED TO THE OTHER FIVE MEDICAL SCHOOLS, HAD SHE NOT WITHDRAWN HER APPLICATIONS FROM THEM*
Here are the links to the two applicants’ profiles, including their MCAT Scores, GPAs, and ECs with RACE AND ETHNICITY (URM) STATUS trumpimg all factors used in admissions:
1. URM’S MEDICAL SCHOOL APPLICANT PROFILE
http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=10190
2. EAST ASIAN AMERICAN’S MEDICAL SCHOOL APPLICANT PROFILE
http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?myid=8772
http://www.nas.org/documents/Taming_the_River_2.pdf
Selling Merit Down the River
July 06, 2009 By Russell K. Nieli
Excerpted from pages 21 and 22
The River Pilots’ concern here may be misplaced, however, for even if black and
Latino students do earn substantially lower grades than whites and Asians, they may have
just as good a chance as the members of those higher-performing groups of gaining
entrance to competitive graduate and professional schools. The admissions boost for
being black at many of the most competitive law schools, medical schools, business
schools, and graduate programs is often huge — larger even in standard deviation terms
than the undergraduate college boost — and black undergraduates all know this. The
post-graduate boost for being Latino is less but still substantial. Mediocre grades for a
black or Latino student is not the same impediment to getting into a good graduate or
professional school as it is for a white or Asian.
Consider, for example, medical schools. According to the American Association
of Medical Colleges, the average college GPA in the pre-med college science courses for
all whites who entered an American medical school in 2007 was 3.63, and for Asians a
near-identical 3.62. For blacks, however, it was only 3.29. This is by itself a very
significant difference but the spread of the black scores was much wider than that of
either the whites or Asians (black SD .43, white and Asian SD each .29), indicating that
significant numbers of blacks with science GPAs as low as 2.9 or 3.0 were accepted into
medical schools, scores that would virtually preclude whites or Asians. Latino science
GPAs were roughly halfway between those of the blacks and the higher-scoring whites
and Asians (3.45 mean).
Scores on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) tell a similar story. The
median score on the basic science part of the MCAT for a black admitted to medical
school in 2007 was equal to that of a white at only the 14th percentile of white admits, and
of an Asian at only the 10th percentile of Asian admits. In other words, 86% of whites
and 90% of Asians entering medical schools did better on the MCAT basic science
section than the median black. Once again, Latino scores were roughly halfway between
the blacks and the higher-scoring Asians and whites.20 This same pattern was shown in
earlier studies of MCAT scores. For instance, a Rand Corporation study of admissions
policies at ten medical schools in the late 1970s found a black/white gap in MCAT scores
well over a standard deviation, a Chicano/white gap slightly less than one SD. The Rand
study calculated that a black or Chicano applicant with a better then 50% chance of
admission to these ten medical schools, had that applicant been held to the same entrance
standards as whites, would have reduced his admissions chances to only about one-intwenty,
or 5%.21 From a 5% admissions chance up to a 50% or better chance as the bonus
for being black or Chicano — can anyone imagine that this will have no effect on many
of those seeking to gain entry into the medical profession?
The law school story is similar. Consider for instance the University of Michigan
Law School, one of the ten most prestigious in the nation. Like virtually all competitive
law schools, Michigan places a great emphasis on the LSAT, a test of several kinds of
aptitudes needed for the successful completion of a rigorous law school curriculum.
Scores on the LSAT range from 120 to 180 (much like the 200 to 800 scoring system on
the SAT) with the average score of those admitted to the highest ranking schools being
around 170 (at the lowest ranked schools admits average around 150). In 2004, a year
after the Supreme Court’s Grutter decision approving Michigan Law’s racial preference
program, the median LSAT score for both white and Asian admits was 169, just under
the typical score earned by whites at top-rated Harvard and Yale. For black admits,
however, the average score was only 160. Now a 160 is certainly a respectable LSAT
score, but for a white or Asian such a score might gain an entry ticket to a middle-range
law school like Boston University, the University of Washington, or Rutgers, but never to
a top-ten school like Michigan. Blacks essentially compete only with one another for
entry to the nations’ top law schools, all of which practice a system of de facto race
norming and (slightly flexible) quota admissions (though none of them will admit this
publically). Black LSAT scores need not be, and usually are not, competitive with those
of whites and Asians. Indeed, at Michigan in 2004, a 75th percentile black admit had an
LSAT score (164) significantly lower than that of a 25th percentile white (167) or Asian
(167) admit. Latino LSAT scores were much better than those of the blacks (mean 166)
but still significantly behind the whites and Asians.
The lowering of the bar for underrepresented minorities extends to the college
GPA as well. A study of Michigan Law School applicants submitted during the litigation
over the Grutter case indicated that in 1995 the average GPA for white admits was 3.68,
that of blacks only 3.33. Of students with college GPAs in the 3.25 to 3.45 range and
LSAT scores near the 75th percentile of the national distribution, 51 whites applied to
Michigan in 1995, 14 Asians, and 10 blacks. But only one of the whites in this credential
range was admitted to Michigan’s elite law school that year, while none of the Asians
were. Blacks had a much easier time of it: all of the blacks in this credential range were
accepted though their grades and test scores would have virtually precluded them from
admission were they white or Asian.23 How reasonable is it to think that knowledge of
such lowered standards will not filter down to the black sophomores and juniors at
various Michigan colleges who plan on attending Michigan or some other elite law
school? And given the knowledge of such lowered standards, how reasonable is it to
think that this will not negatively affect the behavior of many of those who know they
can get into great law schools like Michigan’s without having to match the performance
of their white and Asian classmates?
Asians definitely face an additional burden in gaining admission to med school by having to meet a higher bar the ones for blacks and whites.
http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjE5ZmU4ZjY5OTc0NDYwY2E4NmI3NWJmMzdiMzFiNGU=
Quote:
*Asians definitely face an additional burden (most of their numbers are negative), but relative to whites, there’s rarely more than a 10 percentage-point difference. Black admissions are a different story. For “borderline” students — those with MCAT scores between 21 and 32 and GPAs between 2.8 and 3.79, particularly when both scores are in the middles of those ranges, or when one is high and the other low — the black advantage often exceeds 50.*
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Re: Affirmative-Action Doctors [Robert VerBruggen]
This is a fairly wonky post, so be warned.
Some readers have objected (quite reasonably) to the Discriminations post I linked to yesterday — there was a statistic with a very low sample size. To correct for this error, I put together a spreadsheet combining the three datasets referenced in the post. I’ve removed the MCAT/GPA combinations for which no one of any race was admitted, and those for which there weren’t at least 20 applicants of each race.
On the left, I have the raw data: the admissions rates for Asians, whites, and blacks to U.S. medical schools, arranged by their MCATs and GPAs. Just looking at the numbers, it’s clear that preferences can have a big effect.
On the right, I’ve calculated the Asian and black advantages, relative to whites, in the form of the percentage-point differences in the rates. If a score in this category is 10, it means that 10 applicants out of every 100 will get in who wouldn’t have had they been white. Obviously, these numbers are lowest around the edges (if virtually no one of any race, or almost everyone of every race, is admitted, the difference is small).
Asians definitely face an additional burden (most of their numbers are negative), but relative to whites, there’s rarely more than a 10 percentage-point difference. Black admissions are a different story. For “borderline” students — those with MCAT scores between 21 and 32 and GPAs between 2.8 and 3.79, particularly when both scores are in the middles of those ranges, or when one is high and the other low — the black advantage often exceeds 50.
The biggest preferences go to black applicants with MCATs between 24 and 26 and GPAs between 3.2 and 3.39; of every 100, almost 62 get in who wouldn’t have had they been white. By filling in the “black” box instead of the “white” one, an applicant in this category boosts his chances from 15.3 percent to 77.2 percent.
Of course, I haven’t done anything here that the Center for Equal Opportunity hasn’t done better about a bazillion times. But it’s worth remembering these numbers when people say affirmative-action is just a tiebreaker.
08/11 11:36 AMShare
FROM THE CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY:
http://www.ceousa.org/content/blogcategory/78/100/26/0/
Home Our Focus Areas Affirmative Action Education Preferences in College Admission
Preferences in College Admission
I don’t think Caucasians are preferred vs Asians, per se. The data indicate Caucasians get in with *slightly* lower median scores, but this is likely due to the interview. I think perhaps, on average, the white kid will score a bit better in an interview due to the fact that the Asian applicant is more *likely* to have spent more of his or her life studying indoors whereas the white applicant is more *likely* to have been outside socializing in his or her formative years and thus will appear more intriguing and engaging during an interview. That’s my theory for the slightly higher median scores for Asians because the fact is NEITHER whites NOR Asians get any affirmative action thrown their way. Even if whites were way under-represented I don’t think anyone would ever give us hand-outs. Could you imagine the outcry? You can never ever have official policy aimed at helping white people–that’s like rule #1 of political correctness.
This discrimination is because “as per med school admissions offices” a patient of a particular race is comfortable with a doctor of his/her own race. So, ideally, I would suggest that a patient should only be seen by a doctor of his/her race. This will be a win-win situation. This way, nobody will complain about race.