A potentially controversial topic

[Guest Yourstruly]

I hesitated to bring up this issue, and indeed, here on the eve of the May 31st weekend, the timing may be all wrong for this. Nevertheless, I am interested in hearing the opinions of some individuals who frequent this forum. And in some respects, it's best to get people's opinions on this <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> before<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> their feelings are possibly coloured by the results of their application.

 

To the best of my knowledge, every medical school here in Ontario makes a big point of stating that age/sex/race/religion etc. play no part in the admission process. Do you all believe this? Personally, since I have not seen evidence to the contrary, I have no reason to <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> not<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> believe this.

 

I have a question: what happens when a given medical school, upon tabulating the application scores from its 400 interviewees, finds that the top 150 (admittances) consists of say, a 65-35 male-female ratio, or a markedly lower percentage of visible minorities than the "expected pattern", or an overwhelming "dominance" of one ethnicity? Do we believe that admission committees would <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> always<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> leave such situations alone and not do any "adjusting"? And has such a skewed class profile ever arisen?

 

On a related topic, what do you guys think of affirmative action in academia (especially in the discipline most relevant to us, medicine) and in the workplace?

 

I myself am a visible minority, and I am <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> against<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> affirmative action. This stance may indeed be naive on my part, but I believe that while affirmative action may yield visible minorities short-term gains, it may also lead to larger setbacks in the long run -- since the implementation of affirmative action depends on discriminating between different ethnicities/genders/religions etc. But again -- I can see how such a view may be considered naive by many.

 

Thoughts on any or all of the above issues please.

[Guest governorgeneral]

to quote agnes macphail,

 

"I've never asked for anything on the ground that I was a woman. If I didn't deserve it on my own merit I didn't want it."

[Guest Beaver]

Hi

 

I have had several friends apply to UofT who were older ie 29-35 grad students and were accepted by several places but not by UofT. They had stellar grades(both UG and G),strong track of published research and obviously could perform in interviews as 3 of the 7 even gained acceptance as OOP students to Calgary, Saskatchewan.

 

 

Now this is very unofficial but from very reliable sources (ie faculty that I have instructed with). UofT has a strong emphasis and desire to turn out specialists. Now is someone who is 35 going to head for that 5 year double fellowship residency? Probably not, UofT knows this and that may influence their decision when selecting candidates. In this case age may play a factor indirectly as a result of UofT agenda to graduate prestigious specialists. Looking at the class profiles, there is some support to the theory as UofT has had a track record of admitting the lowest number of students 27 years+.

 

Well see what happens with me (28) , but this may have played a hand in stellar candidates like Kirsteen and others being turned away at the gates in the past........who knows......interesting though

[Guest utapp]

I don't think we need anymore reasons to start second guessing our applications. The decisions have already been made and its only a matter finding out on monday.

[Guest Liana]

The obliteration of the affirmative action movement in Ontario was the one good thing Mike Harris ever did for the province.

 

It's totally a ridiculous policy, since the governments that implement it are confusing race with economic background. In the diedown of the interest of the American people in what's happening in Afghanistan, I've noticed that CNN has been doing a lot of discussions on the accessibility of post-secondary education. One segment I caught was discussing the validity of the affirmative action policy by illustrating that many black people who didn't do well in high school, ending up performing very strongly in university. Hovering at the background of the discussion, however, was the insinuation that all of these people who may not have gotten into college without this policy, were from poor economic backgrounds, and grew up in violent areas where education was not emphasized. For every capable black person (or any other race, although the emphasis seems to be a politically correct attempt to help black and Hispanic people, who statistically tend to be poorer, by lumping together all non-white people) growing up in a crummy neighbourhood in Harlem or Detroit or wherever, there's another one growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, or in Cambridge, Massachussets. People of all races can be economically disadvantaged; by saying that only "visible minorities" encounter barriers to gaining a quality education, a government is just propagating those stereotypes, and encouraging groups like the KKK, who, in milder settings (eg, Waterloo) are striving to eliminate "white inequality".

 

As for medical school, I can't imagine an Ontario school would impose such a policy. Medical schools naturally tend to attract a more "ethnically diverse" population than the country or even undergraduate university in general. With the exception of having special requirements for Native applicants (which does make more sense than Affirmative action in general), I can't see medical schools adjusting their classes to boost the enrolment of statistically "underrepresented" racial groups (white and black people, basically, when compared to the composition of Canada as a whole).

 

On the other hand, ageism is something which I do imagine plays a role. It's becoming more and more taboo to select against someone for being too old (although I imagine the older one gets, the more they may need to justify their decision to the Ad comms - eg if a 50 or 60 year old wanted to apply); however, it's almost becoming en vogue to select against applicants for being too young, quoting lack of "life experience" as a PC reason. While I would agree a certain level of maturity is essential for medical school, this is not necessarily something that comes with age, or even the number and duration of activities on your resume.

[Guest Champ]

Perhaps affirmative action is not the best strategy, however maybe the pendulum has to be swung to the extremes in order for an eventual balance to me made. Affirmative action IS reverse discrimination, but 5 years of public policy cannot change 100 yrs of discrimination (race, sex, gender, religion).Historically discriminated people (as above) find it hard to rise above the glass ceiling into positions generally held by european whites. And while there may be coloured female CEO's, I can assure you that their journey to get their was MUCH harder than their contemporaries. So in this case, providing one is suitably qualified, affirmative action to break that glass ceiling is not such a bad thing.

 

Unfortunately, until people experience discrimation, they do not fully come to grips with all the issues. Affirmative action has alot of negative aspects, BUT providing 2 people are equally qualified for the same position, I don't see it as being a bad thing.

 

In terms of med admissions the whole process in itself is discriminatory. In actuality, the process is designed to discriminate between candidates who should be accepted , rejected and waitlisted on the basis of GPA, LOR, EC and autosketches. While these are the main issues for discrimination, other issues such as age, sex and race are also potential discriminators. But I sincerely hope not. Ageism is plausible, but unlikely. Sexism, possible, if two equally matched candidates are compared, they may take the one the equalise the M:F ratio.Racism....definitely not.

 

 

 

On a final note: I remember having an interesting conversation with a colleague who went to Eton (exclusive UK private school) and was now at Oxford doing a doctorate)..He tried to convince me that he had experienced as much discrimination and CLASSISM by other people who were not as privileged as many visible minorities. It was difficult for me to understand his parallels between himself and upper class white and me and middle class west indian...but it could be true!

 

champ

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Our class has 59 guys and 59 girls, of all sorts of races & faces. But they made a pretty big point to note that there is NO quotas used in the application process at UWO. In the past, I think we've had m/f ratios in the 60:40 range, and while our class is diverse, I don't think it is representative of the demographic breakdown of the Canadian population (and I mean absolutely nothing by that statement other than the breakdown isn't exactly the same for our class as the Canadian population, nothing more.) So don't worry about quotas.

[Guest me]

I don't think affirmative action is always a bad thing. Sometimes it's needed in order to break cycles of discrimination. For example, if there are no women profs in science, then female students get discouraged, don't pursue graduate work, and then don't become profs, completing the cycle. Sometimes a few well-placed affirmative action hires makes a big difference, given that the affirmative action hires have the same qualifications as those that they were hired instead of. I don't think there is ANYBODY who would EVER argue that somebody who was unqualified should be given a job just because of aa.

 

But since that's not the case in medicine, I really doubt that any such affirmative action exists...

[Guest Yourstruly]

Here's a hypothetical situation: what if a certain school, after compiling and ranking the applicants' scores (GPA+ECs+interview etc....), realizes that an unusually high proportion of those admission offers would go towards applicants from a certain school? For instance, maybe the undergrad life science programs (major feeder undergrad programs into meds) at that school had adopted a much more lenient marking scheme over the previous 2-3 years. Maybe a new Dean at the school decided that it wasn't that important to hold class averages to 60% or 70% or whatever.

 

Think about it. For example, UofT undergrad life science profs are notorious for choosing to -- or being mandated to -- keep course averages at or under a certain grade (e.g., 60%, 65% etc.). In fact, many profs make no secret about it. Well, what if a new A&S Dean comes in and the policy changes or becomes more lenient? An extra 5% or 10% boost in undergrad life science marks may not sound like much, but the difference may be much larger after the OMSAS conversions. Then consider the large number of premeds that come out of UofT undergrad, and one sees clearly that if a situation like this ever took place, the proportion of UofT undergrads accepted may change noticeably.

 

I'm just using UofT as a hypothetical example, and by no means am I accusing any school(s) of factoring in quotas. But think about it, and put yourself in the shoes of these admission committees. What would you do in such cases?

[Guest AniyaSG]

Just a thought... with so many people being offered spots at med schools, then turning them down and new letters being sent off... do you think it would be possible to maintain 'quotas' while still going down the waiting list? IMO it would be difficult to consciously impose quotas on the large number of applicants to most med school classes. I can certainly see discrimination occurring by interviewers which may slant a class one way or the other, but a concerted effort to skew the numbers at the final selection would be difficult to achieve.