AAMC News of Increased Applications of Blacks and Hispanics for 2007 Good News?  Unfortunately Not
Recently the AAMC heralded the largest ever accepted class in 2007 (click here for full article ).  Coupled with that title was "More Blacks and Hispanic Males Apply"”. On the surface it appears that more under-represented minorities were actually enrolled in the “largest ever” entering class.  Women applicants were a significant 49% of the pool.

 

Group	2006 Applicants	2007 Applicants
Black/African-American	2,992	3,133
Hispanic or Latino	698	776
Native American/Alaskan	147	151
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander	113	110
Asian	7,546	8,390
White	22,690	24,136

On the surface this is certainly cause to celebrate.  It appears there is an opportunity for increased diversity in our medical schools.  However, when the data are compared to enrolled students, the promise was unrealized.  Even when the numbers of students enrolled are higher than the previous year, it is not to the degree that the applicant pool had increased.

Matriculants
Out of the 49% women applicants and the 51% men applicants, the final accepted pool was 48% women and 52% men.  For the URM as compared to whites for the matriculants, the data are as follows:

Group	2006 Matriculants	2007 Matriculants
Black/African-American	1,156	1,139
Hispanic or Latino	339	330
Native American/Alaskan	68	61
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander	34	28
Asian	3,245	3,535
White	10,551	10,632

Wouldn’t it be interesting if that 1% point had gone to the women and 50% of the entering class were females?  Virginia Valian, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Hunter College, NY,  pointed out in a conference that a small disadvantage, even as small as 1% point can make a large difference after 8 promotions from an entering class of 50/50 to 60/40.  Wouldn’t it have been interesting if the 5% difference in Black/African-American Applicants had translated into a 5% increase (i.e. 1214) in matriculants? And the same for the other URM.  Wouldn’t that have made for a more interesting class? And that would have certainly been something worth celebrating.

Alice J. Speer, M.D.
Associate Editor SELAM Newsletter
SELAM President, 2002-03