A special service that has been initiated to
assist such students is the Medical
Minority Applicant Registry (Med-MAR). This
service enables any minority student
applying to medical school to have his or her
basic biography (except GPA and MCAT
scores) circulated to all U.S. medical schools
without charge. A list of such students is
published two times a year. To be put on this
list, you should identify yourself on the
questionnaire as a member of a minority group at
the time you take the MCAT, or con-
tact the Minority Student Information Clearing
House, Association of American
Medical Colleges, One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite
200, Washington, DC 20036.
You should also consider that some medical
schools may waive their application fee
for minority group students with economic need.
The AMCAS fee can also be waived
because of financial need, but the MCAT fee is
never waived.
The increase in the number of African-Americans
being admitted to medical
school has had an impact on their total
enrollment and on the number of African-
Americans graduating. As expected, the number
of African-Americans undertaking
graduate education, that is, securing special
training by means of residencies, has
increased significantly over the past decade.
The majority of African-Americans initi-
ating residency training do so at hospitals
located in California, Maryland, New
Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The
majority of African-Americans in residency
programs are being trained in five specialties:
family practice, internal medicine,
obstetrics-gynecology, pediatrics, and
surgery.
To help disadvantaged or minority group
students, some schools arrange special
summer programs prior to the formal beginning
of medical school for candidates already
admitted. In addition, a variety of flexible
curricular alternatives are available in some
schools for such students as they progress
through medical school. For specific information
on these programs, contact the Office of
Minority Students Affairs at the individual schools.
Summaries of special minority admissions
programs are outlined for individual
schools in the special features section of the
medical school profiles, which are found in
Chapter 7.
ADMISSION OF MINORITIES: A STATUS
REPORT
The number of applicants from underrepresented
minorities has decreased since 1996.
Between 1992 and 1998 minority applicants had a
statistically better chance of being
accepted to medical school than others. Since
then, however, the trend has been reversed
for black applicants (but not for other
minority group members). In recent years, minor-
ity students have made up less than 11% of
first-year classes.
The reason for the decline in minority
enrollment may be due to the elimination or
modification of affirmative action policies.
The conflict over medical school admissions
policies and minority representation stems from
a 1978 case of a student, Alan Bakke,
who sued a medical school because he was
rejected when his credentials were superior
to those of several African-American students
who were accepted. He argued that the
medical school turned him down on the basis of
race in order to achieve a minimum
racial quota of minority students. The Supreme
Court supported Mr. Bakke's contention
and disallowed reverse discrimination but
permitted race to be considered one of the
factors in the admissions decision. The second
part of this decision was reversed in 1996
and in subsequent rulings by the Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Civil rights
groups are seeking to overturn the appeal
court's action.
Attempts to overturn affirmative action at the
ballot box are also being opposed by a
variety of professional health care
organizations. The educational and legal systems
have yet to find a balanced formula that takes
into account the needs of white students
with good grades and high MCAT scores who may
not be admitted to medical school in
favor of minority students who are competing to
fill the same openings.
On the positive side, the minority applicant
pool has remained significant, and
the chances of admission are 50%, as compared
with 40% a decade ago. The mean
MCAT scores for minority applicants have also
improved. There remains, though, a
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