Running racism in America thread

1) What were the dropout rates compared to the past? Without knowing that, you haven't "conclusively" demonstrated anything. It probably doesn't account for THAT difference (but do you know that?), but you need to consider anything that might have gotten rid of subpar students. I'm sure there are other POSSIBLE explanations.
2) The real reason that is a bit of subterfuge, though. ... Is that the step 1 boards and step 2 boards test different things. Students really sweat the step 1 boards and study their asses off for it. I just had this conversation a few weeks ago with a recent med school grad.... the failure rate on the step 1 test is much higher nationally. Almost nobody fails the step 2 exam. By step 3, people barely study for them. Step 1 tests what you learned in the classroom in the two years. There is a failure rate on it (unlike step 2, which something like 99 percent of students nationally pass -- top medical schools and bottom ones combined). It's not insigificant (whatever the reason) if UCLA saw more students failing the step 1 exam in one particular year. The step 2 exam the next year (which is clinical-based) which 99 percent of people nationally pass has nothing to do with it. They are testing different things.

 

You aren't following or having the same conversation.

I was talking about students at UCLA (if they exist) who failed their Step 1 boards (what the article was pointing to) and then dropped out of medical school (if there was a significant number). If there were students who failed the Step 1 exam, and then left school (because they were subpar). ... it would be meaningless to try to point to third year performance in the aggregate having been better (and again, even that claim was dubious, because virtually nobody nationally fails the step 2 boards). ... you got rid of your subpar students.

I wasn't saying any of that happened. But I was trying to show that the "conclusively" talk was nonsense. ... Off the top of my head I can easily come up with OTHER explanations.

As an aside. ... To do the same kind of criticism on that Free Beacon article. ... it pointed to the increase in the number of students who failed the step 1 boards at UCLA. ... and did it in a vaccuum. What if nationally (all med schools), the failure rate was up that year? Again, I don't know if that is true, but it VERY WELL might have been.

This is the curse of people who want to believe something and will cherry pick whatever they can find to try to support it.

 

Two other things to consider. ... If you fail your step 1 boards, even if you don't drop out of medical school, you are set back. You might be repeating classes and it may delay when you take your next set of boards. So the whole UCLA rebuttal thing that was supposedly conculsive, may not have even been comparing the same exact set of students.

On top of that, just from a reputational standpoint, when you go to match for your residency, those test scores do matter. Quite a bit. There is no way that the administration wasn't shitting a pickle if the step 1 failure rate was up, because it means fewer of their students will probably be matching with top residency programs, which does even more careerwise for a doctor than the medical school they went to. That has a spillover effect that UCLA's reputation benefits from.

 

So I'll restate what I said. You are correct, qualified can mean anything you want it to mean. For example, if you want to make a person's race into a qualification for something, or if you are a med school that makes some of its admissions decisions based on the race of its applicants, sure, you might feel that you are picking the most "qualified" applicants.

I'd personally define "qualified" in an academic pursuit along the lines of academic achievement and classroom and test performance. I'd define admissions that make any level of decision based on race as selective racial discrimination. I wouldn't judge the best baseball player based on the color of his skin, either. I'd evaluate that based on how they perform on a baseball field.

In terms of qualifications, medical schools have typically looked at undergraduate grades, the rigor of the undergraduate institution those grades were acheived at, grades in particular in certain prerequisite courses, and MCAT scores. They've used an interview process to make decisions between similarly qualified candidates.

None of this is a discussion about "accurately quantifying" whether candidate A with comparable grades and MCAT scores should get a spot versus candidate B. So I'm not going to play pretend about what it really is about. It started with an article trying to say that UCLA medical school has slipped in quality because of race-based admissions. And while that article tried to turn anecdotes into something comprehensive, it still feeds into a bigger discussion about admissions offices (not just UCLA Med School) that have made race (and may still be even if it's supposedly no longer allowed) into a "qualification" that potentially trumps academic achievment in their decisions.