Any truth to the rumour that Queen's Med prefers "white" people?

[tyro]

How diverse is the Queen's Medicine class in terms of race/culture?

 

A friend of a friend said that there is no real point applying there because apparently they're 'racist in selecting applicants after the interviews'. That statement made me feel really bad because I'm not white, and was hopefully thinking I had a fair chance as long as I made the cut-offs. Can anyone comment on this?

[jaegwon]

I'm not sure why I'm taking the time to debunk something 'a friend of a friend' said, but....

 

The short answer is...no, that's ridiculous.

 

First of all...where that person got their information? Why would you believe it enough for it to make you feel bad?

 

Second, do you really think a modern university could actually have an racist admissions policy and get away with it?

 

Third, if you want some anecdotal evidence, our class (meds10) has plenty of ethnic diversity (I'd guess about 1/4 - 1/3 of the class is non-white).

 

So apply to Queen's and don't worry about it. You'll be judged fairly.

[The_B]

God I hope thats not true...

I'd hate to pull a Jackson and start changing/losing color.

 

Haha, yeah, that's a weird rumor. My guess is that it started because of Kingston itself. It's not as diverse of a community as some of the larger centers where there are medical schools, such as London or Toronto, but it is by no means true of admissions.

[tarzi]

If there's one rumor of racism, it's not at Queens but at Western. An old white friend of mine commented that London scared her b/c it was lacking in diversity - that's fine tho, not all parts of canada are diverse like the larger cities.

 

Anyway, yea, apparently, there is this prof at Western who's published some really controversial stuff making claims about sexual capacity and IQ's etc - he compared blacks, whites, and asians and concluded that whites were intermediate b/w blacks and asians and is a superior intermediate of sexuality and IQ - look this up. Also, many of the conservative right-wing minded professors teach at Western, since most universities are "over-run" by left wing liberal post-modern deconstructionists...lol.

 

At any rate, I had a buddy from Western (colored dude) who said that he felt that - while the students themselves were not racist - he felt that the politics and bureacracy at Western was racist....his opinion.

 

Anyway, we don't live in a perfect society and no one can convince me that people - no matter how educated or high up they go - are 100% unbiased, even if subconciously. One really has to wonder - does race ever become a factor??? We'll never know.

[tarzi]

I'm not sure why I'm taking the time to debunk something 'a friend of a friend' said, but....

 

The short answer is...no, that's ridiculous.

 

First of all...where that person got their information? Why would you believe it enough for it to make you feel bad?

 

Second, do you really think a modern university could actually have an racist admissions policy and get away with it?

 

Third, if you want some anecdotal evidence, our class (meds10) has plenty of ethnic diversity (I'd guess about 1/4 - 1/3 of the class is non-white).

 

So apply to Queen's and don't worry about it. You'll be judged fairly.

 

It's quite simple to get away with racism. If admissions have a quota, this will never be revealed. Say, in order to satisfy a diverse class - they need 1/4 non-whites - they'll have to conciously make sure they choose ppl based on gender and race b/c let's face - i'm sure that all 800 ppl who get interviews are more than qualified for med admissions but only 120 seats are available - so how do you differentiate between them all? Certainly many of those who get rejected with have done well on interviews as well. Can an admissions commitee actually admit students without taking note of gender and race? NO - b/c if they did it blindly, it could happen by chance that they will end up with a class that is not diverse (gender and/or race) and then they will be called racist/prejudiced (when in fact they were not).

 

At the same time, once they meet the 1/4 colored quota, they can admit the rest of the seats to whites - and no one will ever know b/c admissions is not based on hard stats but subjective assessments - and as long as 1/4 of the class is colored, there's no proof of racism. Believe it or not, the implentation of subjective assessments using extracurriculars etc was originally meant to limit jewish students (in america).

 

Basically, you can't conclude racism/sexism occurs and you can't conclude it does not occur. Based on anectodal evidence - i.e. speaking with some of my professors (who are white), it's difficult to deny the existance of prejudice against women and non-whites as you go higher and higher up the status/power ladder - this exists in academia, this question will arise once again when we (god let me get in ) apply for residency/specialities, etc. for the rest of our careers.

[tyro]

Exactly. Thank you, tarzi!

 

Also, as a side note, 1/4-1/3 is not really a large proportion of the class. In general, it seems that white people are the minority in undergrad science majors (at least at UofT, Mac, Waterloo, etc), and the majority of med appicants are in science majors, so having non-whites represent only 25-30% seems a little low, doesn't it?

 

Anyway, I agree with you guys that we'll never really know for sure whether there is any truth to it or not. But I think we should be careful in not just automatically dismissing it as absolutely impossible in this day and age. Even though we live in an extremely tolerant society, it's still a definate possibility to some degree.

 

 

It's quite simple to get away with racism. If admissions have a quota, this will never be revealed. Say, in order to satisfy a diverse class - they need 1/4 non-whites - they'll have to conciously make sure they choose ppl based on gender and race b/c let's face - i'm sure that all 800 ppl who get interviews are more than qualified for med admissions but only 120 seats are available - so how do you differentiate between them all? Certainly many of those who get rejected with have done well on interviews as well. Can an admissions commitee actually admit students without taking note of gender and race? NO - b/c if they did it blindly, it could happen by chance that they will end up with a class that is not diverse (gender and/or race) and then they will be called racist/prejudiced (when in fact they were not).

 

At the same time, once they meet the 1/4 colored quota, they can admit the rest of the seats to whites - and no one will ever know b/c admissions is not based on hard stats but subjective assessments - and as long as 1/4 of the class is colored, there's no proof of racism. Believe it or not, the implentation of subjective assessments using extracurriculars etc was originally meant to limit jewish students (in america).

 

Basically, you can't conclude racism/sexism occurs and you can't conclude it does not occur. Based on anectodal evidence - i.e. speaking with some of my professors (who are white), it's difficult to deny the existance of prejudice against women and non-whites as you go higher and higher up the status/power ladder - this exists in academia, this question will arise once again when we (god let me get in ) apply for residency/specialities, etc. for the rest of our careers.

[jaegwon]

Guys....there is a big difference between...

a) a formal systematic 'racist' admissions policy

inequities in admissions demographics based subtle biases in individuals

 

The OP implied that the former was the case at Queen's. I would argue that it would be nearly impossible for a medical program to have such a policy. There are a lot of people, including medical students, people from the community, etc., who are involved in the process of student selection. People would find out if a university was trying to take 'more white people' (plus what rational reason would a group of academics, clinicians, and community members have for setting such a policy?)

 

The latter option occurs all the time to varying extents. Its been well established that people are more comfortable with other people that are similar to themselves. This can take the form of biases toward certain groups or traits, such as ethic/racial, gender, beauty, socioeconic, etc. They are often (usually) unconscious. I wouldn't argue that some of the people involved in the Queen's admissions process suffer from predjudices...whether more or less than at other universities, I wouldn't be able to guess.

 

Two more points....

1) You're correct that its important to be vigilent about discriminatory policies. However, it should be be asumed that an organization has 'racist' policies until proven otherwise...especially on what "a friend of a friend" said. The burden of proof is on the person making an accusation.

 

2) My anecdotal evidence about my class composition was not intended to be a formal argument. The number of white/non-white people in any one class (n=1) wouldn't provide any real information about the fairness vs. inequity of the admission policy. However, I would argue that the demographics of our class are not dissimilar to the applicatn pool, and do not provide any evidence of a problem.

[peachy]

I totally agree with jaegwon - I think that's a good way of putting it.

 

One other aspect, though, that may not apply to Queen's is that several medical schools have stated policies that they provide some advantage in the admissions process to Canadians who grew up in rural communities. I would suspect that such communities would have far fewer minorities than the big cities.

[Smurfette]

Here are a few things I have to add.

 

(1) It's important to realize that while the university chooses the students, the students choose the university as well. Many minority students prefer to live in large cities (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal).

 

(2) I happen to be both female and non-white. As liberal and tolerant as we like to think we are, both racism and sexism exist. Unfortunately, the can even exist among those people whom we would expect to be educated and professional enough to overcome such intolerance. However, it is counterproductive and unfair to assume that people (especially such a large group of people as an entire university) are racist/sexist! I wouldn't be surprised that at some point in the admissions process, racism/sexism occurs. For example, it is quite likely that among the many interviewers, there is at least one who is racist (maybe just subconsciously so). However, that's something that could occur at any university.

 

(3) It annoys the heck out of me when people use the excuse of racism/sexism to dismiss their own failings. I'm not saying that this is the case here. It's just one of my random rants on this topic. I knew a few minority students (same race as me) who would complain that they did poorly in English because the English teachers were racist. They didn't stop to think that maybe they really weren't such great English students. Those same teachers were perfectly nice to me and were some of my greatest mentors. It might have been more useful for those students if they had studied harder rather than complaining and accusing.

 

Moral: Yes, life is unfair sometimes. Yes, some people are intolerant. Yes, racism/sexism can play a role in all aspects of life including med school. But there's no sense in dwelling on what you can't change. If you encounter overt racism/sexism, then try to counteract it. Otherwise, don't worry too much about it and just try to be the best applicant you can be.

[bioboy2007]

Here are a few things I have to add.

 

(3) It annoys the heck out of me when people use the excuse of racism/sexism to dismiss their own failings. I'm not saying that this is the case here. It's just one of my random rants on this topic. I knew a few minority students (same race as me) who would complain that they did poorly in English because the English teachers were racist. They didn't stop to think that maybe they really weren't such great English students. Those same teachers were perfectly nice to me and were some of my greatest mentors. It might have been more useful for those students if they had studied harder rather than complaining and accusing.

 

Agreed!!!

 

I know this is not always the case, but I can't stand it when people try and bring race into the picture especially to get away from their own individual responsibility.

[tarzi]

There is a definite difference between individuals and group trends.

 

While I would never attribute my own failings to nab that radiology or orthopedic surgery residency to racism (unless it was overt), I would definitely think that as a visible minority male, I have a bit more obstacles to overcome - due to previously mentioned unconcious biases. jaegwon mentioned people prefer to be around 'themselves' - so it should not be a suprise when you walk into hospitals and universities - almost all the portraits are of the same person (if u know what i mean).

 

Of course, we have to remember that even as a white male, you can still face obstacles or "counterprejudice". However, using "group" statistics and "trends" - visible minorities and women in general have more obstacles to overcome in all facets of society. But that is the reality of it, and there is nothing that can be done right now - we can only make the most out of what we can do, which is quite a lot as it is. However, perhaps through several generations, the power structure will change.

[tarzi]

Guys....there is a big difference between...

a) a formal systematic 'racist' admissions policy

inequities in admissions demographics based subtle biases in individuals

 

The OP implied that the former was the case at Queen's. I would argue that it would be nearly impossible for a medical program to have such a policy. There are a lot of people, including medical students, people from the community, etc., who are involved in the process of student selection. People would find out if a university was trying to take 'more white people' (plus what rational reason would a group of academics, clinicians, and community members have for setting such a policy?)

 

The latter option occurs all the time to varying extents. Its been well established that people are more comfortable with other people that are similar to themselves. This can take the form of biases toward certain groups or traits, such as ethic/racial, gender, beauty, socioeconic, etc. They are often (usually) unconscious. I wouldn't argue that some of the people involved in the Queen's admissions process suffer from predjudices...whether more or less than at other universities, I wouldn't be able to guess.

 

Two more points....

1) You're correct that its important to be vigilent about discriminatory policies. However, it should be be asumed that an organization has 'racist' policies until proven otherwise...especially on what "a friend of a friend" said. The burden of proof is on the person making an accusation.

 

2) My anecdotal evidence about my class composition was not intended to be a formal argument. The number of white/non-white people in any one class (n=1) wouldn't provide any real information about the fairness vs. inequity of the admission policy. However, I would argue that the demographics of our class are not dissimilar to the applicatn pool, and do not provide any evidence of a problem.

 

It is undisputed fact that - admissions policies are not systematic to begin with. Many applicants with great gpa's, mcat, ec's, and great personalities will get rejected b/c there are too few seats. The best example is that of the applicant who gets accepted at one school but rejected at another. Or someone who get's an interview + acceptance at a tier 1 school but not even an interview at a tier 2 school. My point is, when a class of 120 is chosen from a pool of 600 interviewees, they are not the "best" 120 or anything like that. Many rejected applicants are equal in everyway to the ones who get accepted...that's why I'm personally going for the shotgun approach in applying!

 

So my question is - do the admissions people actually make their decisions without taking into consideration the sex and race of the applicant? Or do they have to somehow take these factors into consideration because they have to create a diverse class?

[amethyst]

what an interesting discussion. i'm not sure i believe the rumour that queen's prefers white ppl but i'll share some of the reasoning i've heard behind the rumour. generally in the past few years queens have cut off mcats at VR9, PS10, BS10. last year, i'm not sure why the cutoff was raised for VR to 10 and lowered for both sciences to 9 (perhaps someone can provide insight for the rational behind this). anyway, seeing as many minorities do not have same level of experience with english (don't speak it as a first language or don't speak it at home, etc), verbal tends to be quite a struggle. increasing verbal cutoffs bars out a considerable number of minority applicants with otherwise stellar credentials. ppl say a higher ratio of minority applicants are cut off by increases in VR vs. white applicants - don't know if there is solid evidence for this or even possible to find out. of course, this also gets into how good of an indicator the MCAT is and that is another discussion on its own. communication skills are obviously key in medicine but anything i learned from deciphering verbal passages on picasso art appreciation, macroeconomic theory, or foucault's discipline and punish have not come up yet in med school. and seeing as medicine is a science, wouldn't a good grasp of (or high aptitude in) the fundamental sciences (BS/PS) be more valuable to the practising physician? that being said, why queen's increased verbal standards and DECREASED science standards is sketchy. added to the fact that many minority students are already pretty frustrated by verbal, it seems to make a nice argument for subtle discrimination. in addition, since everyone is treated equally at interview stage, there is lots of room for interpretation of interview results. as was mentioned earlier, sure, there could be conscious or subconscious discrimination from interviewers. so no, the interview process is not necessarily fair. unfortunately sometimes its hit or miss. however, if you are truly a good candidate, apply a few times if necessary. i don't think you can hit the same bad apple each time. good luck to those applying!

[tarzi]

what an interesting discussion. i'm not sure i believe the rumour that queen's prefers white ppl but i'll share some of the reasoning i've heard behind the rumour. generally in the past few years queens have cut off mcats at VR9, PS10, BS10. last year, i'm not sure why the cutoff was raised for VR to 10 and lowered for both sciences to 9 (perhaps someone can provide insight for the rational behind this). anyway, seeing as many minorities do not have same level of experience with english (don't speak it as a first language or don't speak it at home, etc), verbal tends to be quite a struggle. increasing verbal cutoffs bars out a considerable number of minority applicants with otherwise stellar credentials. ppl say a higher ratio of minority applicants are cut off by increases in VR vs. white applicants - don't know if there is solid evidence for this or even possible to find out. of course, this also gets into how good of an indicator the MCAT is and that is another discussion on its own. communication skills are obviously key in medicine but anything i learned from deciphering verbal passages on picasso art appreciation, macroeconomic theory, or foucault's discipline and punish have not come up yet in med school. and seeing as medicine is a science, wouldn't a good grasp of (or high aptitude in) the fundamental sciences (BS/PS) be more valuable to the practising physician? that being said, why queen's increased verbal standards and DECREASED science standards is sketchy. added to the fact that many minority students are already pretty frustrated by verbal, it seems to make a nice argument for subtle discrimination. in addition, since everyone is treated equally at interview stage, there is lots of room for interpretation of interview results. as was mentioned earlier, sure, there could be conscious or subconscious discrimination from interviewers. so no, the interview process is not necessarily fair. unfortunately sometimes its hit or miss. however, if you are truly a good candidate, apply a few times if necessary. i don't think you can hit the same bad apple each time. good luck to those applying!

 

good god, the picasso passage was mental!

 

anyway, to answer some of your points: I think cutoffs are based on the applicant pool. If Queen's only offers 800 interviews, then out of 3000 apps, the top 800 gpa's and MCAT's are ranked - it happened that last year, the cutoff for ended up as: vr 10, sciences went down, and ws was o - that's what I think, but I might be wrong.

 

I do think that many might construe raising VR as being discriminating against minorities BUT I don't think that is the case. If you take a look at the stats on the AAMC site - the average matriculant has a score of 9-10 for VR (looking only at whites and asians, u can't consider the other racial categories b/c the AA variable messes up the comparison) (http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2005/mcatgparaceeth.htm) so it's not generally common for someone to score 7 or 8 and get accepted - pt is, there's plenty of minority students who do well on VR.

 

Also, VR, so says the aamc, correlates with clinical performace (interpretive manual - http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/start.htm)

[Smurfette]

I heard/read that of all the sections on the MCAT, VR is the best predictor of future success as a medical student. Therefore, there is a reasonable rational for using a higher VR cutoff. Having said that, it is probably quite true that the higher VR cutoff is more likely to cut minority students than non-minority students. Of course, not all minority students do poorly on VR - but statistically, they probably (I don't have actual statistics) do worse than Caucasian students.

[tarzi]

I heard/read that of all the sections on the MCAT, VR is the best predictor of future success as a medical student. Therefore, there is a reasonable rational for using a higher VR cutoff. Having said that, it is probably quite true that the higher VR cutoff is more likely to cut minority students than non-minority students. Of course, not all minority students do poorly on VR - but statistically, they probably (I don't have actual statistics) do worse than Caucasian students.

 

I don't know if the stats on this exist - but I would assume that any difference wouldn't be significant. There are a lot of white students who do poorly on VR as well - there's a lot of non-white students who do well on VR.

 

I think what makes the difference is A) whether english is your second language or not (a lot of colored students are born in NA) how much you read C) how much you care about things other than science (such as taking political science, history, sociology, antrhopology courses, finding them interesting, and reading about this stuff on your spare time).

 

Generally, the ESL individual who only cares about their science grades and who don't read often, will have problems with VR.

 

But I can see how people would think that raising VR disadvantages colored students - even though it doesn't. It just disadvantages those who are one-sided in their intellectual curiosities. (and ESL students)

 

out of all the sections - VR involves the most "thinking" and "reasoning" - one-sided individuals will have problems with this. I don't think raising or lowering any section biases against any "races", just certain types of people.

[Sabz]

Well said Tarzi

[Smurfette]

I don't know if the stats on this exist - but I would assume that any difference wouldn't be significant. There are a lot of white students who do poorly on VR as well - there's a lot of non-white students who do well on VR.

 

I think what makes the difference is A) whether english is your second language or not (a lot of colored students are born in NA) how much you read C) how much you care about things other than science (such as taking political science, history, sociology, antrhopology courses, finding them interesting, and reading about this stuff on your spare time).

 

Generally, the ESL individual who only cares about their science grades and who don't read often, will have problems with VR.

 

But I can see how people would think that raising VR disadvantages colored students - even though it doesn't. It just disadvantages those who are one-sided in their intellectual curiosities. (and ESL students)

 

out of all the sections - VR involves the most "thinking" and "reasoning" - one-sided individuals will have problems with this. I don't think raising or lowering any section biases against any "races", just certain types of people.

 

I certainly agree that there are many minority students that do well on the VR and many Caucasian students that don't. And I agree that people who do well in the VR are probably more "well-rounded" in their "intellectual curiosities" than people who do not.

 

But I would still guess that statistically, minority students do worse on the VR and that difference isn't simply because of ESL difficulties. The VR of the MCAT has inherent cultural as well as language biases - it's true that there is a large range of topics from art to politics to literature. However, you're much more likely to get a passage on Claude Monet and impressionalism, the American Civil War, and James Joyce, which argubly all have Western cultural biases. These are topics that would be more tangible to people from Western backgrounds than, for example, someone from the Middle East, Africa, or Southeast Asia. The VR of the MCAT is really not all that different from a verbal IQ test. It is well studied that minority groups do poorly on IQ tests compared to the majority groups and that cultural biases play an important role (although certainly not the only one) in this discrepancy. In fact, the stats on your link seems to support this - it shows a higher average VR score for White applicants (9.4) than any other race (next highest is Asians at 8.8).

 

Despite that, I don't necessarily believe that the VR isn't useful in med admissions policies. Being well versed in English and having a solid grasp Western culture/values IS important in being a good doctor in Canada. My argument isn't that the VR shouldn't be used, but that it is probably naive to assume that there is no cultural bias.

 

Disclaimer: I am not bitter about my VR score. I belong to a minority group, but I still did quite well on the VR of the MCAT.

[amethyst]

i've heard quite a few times that VR scores are a good indicator of clinical performance (some say it is the best indicator). just wondering if anyone has the original source for this. is this a study that was conducted? i would curious to look at the actual results.

[The Law]

At any rate, I had a buddy from Western (colored dude) who said that he felt that - while the students themselves were not racist - he felt that the politics and bureacracy at Western was racist....his opinion.

 

That is such a lie. I am a student at Western, and the the school is not racist at all. I know people who are in medicine who are from different backgrounds. Our teachers themselves come from many different countries. Yes, there are a lot of white people at our school, but there are people from many, many different cultures as well! It's not as diverse as the GTA (where I grew up), but there still is a fair amount of diversity! I really don't see any racism happening, and I do see equal opportunities for everybody, including myself (Iraqi background).

[shadowguitar]

How diverse is the Queen's Medicine class in terms of race/culture?

 

A friend of a friend said that there is no real point applying there because apparently they're 'racist in selecting applicants after the interviews'. That statement made me feel really bad because I'm not white, and was hopefully thinking I had a fair chance as long as I made the cut-offs. Can anyone comment on this?

 

That is a complete and total load of crapola!!!!!!

[sensfan]

so i was bored and decided to actually do a count of the queens 1st year class demographics using our picture-directory. here's what i came up with:

 

white – 57

asian – 28

brown/ middle eastern – 13

black – 1

non-white (mixed race) - 2

 

the fact that there's only one black person in our class is a bit weird, but other than that, it's only just over 50% white, just like all med school classes these days are just over 50% girls, and no one's saying they're discriminating based on sex. and also keep in mind that in the "white" category, you've got everything from eastern europeans to italians, people from all over the country, bc to new brunswick! so overall, i think our class is actually really diverse. and not just based on race and home town - we have great diversity when it comes to people's life experiences too. i think the idea that there's some one mould of this ideal med student that queens is looking for is total crap, because i can see that in my class as being totally wrong.

[The Law]

^

Not to mention some middle eastern people may appear to be "white"

[Kuantum]

so i was bored and decided to actually do a count of the queens 1st year class demographics using our picture-directory. here's what i came up with:

 

white – 57

asian – 28

brown/ middle eastern – 13

black – 1

non-white (mixed race) - 2

 

the fact that there's only one black person in our class is a bit weird, but other than that, it's only just over 50% white, just like all med school classes these days are just over 50% girls, and no one's saying they're discriminating based on sex. and also keep in mind that in the "white" category, you've got everything from eastern europeans to italians, people from all over the country, bc to new brunswick! so overall, i think our class is actually really diverse. and not just based on race and home town - we have great diversity when it comes to people's life experiences too. i think the idea that there's some one mould of this ideal med student that queens is looking for is total crap, because i can see that in my class as being totally wrong.

 

Pretty unfortunate that there's only 1 Black person. I think this is relatively common across Canada too. Also, are there no Aboriginals?

[sensfan]

yeah, unfortunately, the trend i've seen (at least in ontario) is definitely of few black med students. i think it would be interesting to see the demographics of applicants vs aceptees. i have a feeling it's pretty consistent... and no, i don't believe that anyone in my class is aboriginal.