Downplaying Academic Excellence in Med School
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The harsh reality is medical schools are downplaying academic achievement and MCAT scores, which give the best evidence of how well students are prepared for medical school. The MCAT is specifically tailored for that purpose. In addition to a section on critical reasoning (similar to the SATs), it examines students on biology and biochemistry, organic chemistry, the physics of living systems, and the biological and psychological foundations of behavior. It’s easy to see how those relate directly to higher education in medical science. Yet med schools want to downplay them and add inherently subjective criteria like “lived experience.”
Med schools are especially eager to get rid of the MCATs. After years of evaluating admissions folders, they know they cannot meet their goals for minority enrollment if they retain their near-total emphasis on academic qualifications. They know, too, that standardized tests and grades leave a statistical trail. They want to kick dust over that trail before the Supreme Court’s expected ruling against affirmative action. They fear the statistics will show marked differences in admission rates for individuals from different groups who have similar scores and GPAs. That’s not a wild guess. Admission teams know the evidence from years of experience.
But dropping the tests, or making them optional, presents a thorny PR problem. Schools fear they would sink below competitors in national rankings, which include MCAT scores. So, they are doing what undergraduate colleges have already done. They are colluding. By withdrawing jointly from US News and World Report rankings, they hope to soften the blow to each one’s prestige. (It’s an interesting question whether this collusion violates anti-trust laws, as their collusion about scholarship awards did.)
What medical schools call “equity” and “lived experience” are code words for discrimination by racial category. They are using this word fog to cloud over four crucial but uncomfortable facts. First, today’s standardized tests are actually fair and unbiased. Medical schools don’t deny that. They know test makers have spent fortunes over the past half century to scrub their tests of any racial, cultural, or ethnic bias. Second, medical schools aren’t claiming the tests are poor predictors of performance. They can’t.
When I went to school, the dean (who was a gas-passer, by the way) told us, on day one, "You're here because you're good, and you're smart. Our goal is to get you through the next four years and make you excellent doctors. Our goal is NOT to winnow out the stupid and incompetent."
Our school had a pass/fail system. If you passed, you were good enough. If you failed the course, you took it again, until you passed (though I know of no one who failed).
Maybe it's time to bring back grades.
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@Horace said in Downplaying Academic Excellence in Med School:
People are afraid of AIs doing some doctoring, but maybe they are a lesser evil.
Academic Incompetents?
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@Horace said in Downplaying Academic Excellence in Med School:
People are afraid of AIs doing some doctoring, but maybe they are a lesser evil.
Academic Incompetents?
@jon-nyc said in Downplaying Academic Excellence in Med School:
@Horace said in Downplaying Academic Excellence in Med School:
People are afraid of AIs doing some doctoring, but maybe they are a lesser evil.
Academic Incompetents?
Those are AHes.
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@George-K said in Downplaying Academic Excellence in Med School:
Our goal is NOT to winnow out the stupid and incompetent."
When he said that, did you avoid eye contact?
Did you raise your hand and ask what "winnow" means?
Or, maybe you jumped up and down, spinning around, laughing hysterically?
Wait. I was thinking of Phibes. . .
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Time to get Lucas a 22 & You kit. Karla has high cheekbones…
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Time to get Lucas a 22 & You kit. Karla has high cheekbones…
@LuFins-Dad said in Downplaying Academic Excellence in Med School:
Time to get Lucas a 22 & You kit. Karla has high cheekbones…
Had a friend who got his son into an IBEW apprentice program by claiming his son was part Native American. Now, there is some Indian blood in the family...the lad had high cheekbones and a tad darker complexion (being out in the sun will do that to you
).But...The only time you really have to back that claim up, is if you are dealing in Federal dollars and they want proof. In that case, you have to have an ancestor on the tribal roles and you have to be at least 1/16.
Med school? I think you can make that one fly. If you get caught, pull a Warren and blame it on family lore.
