Acceptance Rates at US Medical Schools in 2014 Reveal Ongoing Discrimination

The table above (click to enlarge) of US medical school acceptance rates is a revised and updated version of one I’ve posted several times before, here’s a link to the most recent CD post on this topic from July 2014. The series of posts on medical school acceptance rates by race/ethnic groups for various MCAT scores and GPAs has generated a lot of interest and comments in the past, so I’m posting on the topic again with new data for the 2014-2015 academic year that just recently became available from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). {snip}

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Here are some observations based on the new AAMC data:

1. For those applicants to US medical schools last year with average GPAs (3.40 to 3.59) and average MCAT scores (27 to 29), black applicants were 4 times more likely to be admitted to medical school than Asians in that applicant pool (81.0% vs. 20.4%), and 2.7 times more likely than white applicants (81.1% vs. 30.6%). Likewise, Hispanic applicants to medical school with average GPAs and MCAT scores were twice as likely as whites in that applicant pool to be admitted to medical school (61.7% vs. 30.6%), and three times more likely than Asians (61.7% vs. 20.4%). Overall, black (81%) and Hispanic (64.1%) applicants with average GPAs and average MCAT scores were accepted to US medical schools in 2014 at rates (81.1% and 64.1% respectively) much higher than the 32.3% average acceptance rate for all students in that applicant pool.
2. For students applying to medical school with slightly below average GPAs of 3.20 to 3.39 and slightly below average MCAT scores of 24 to 26 (first data column in the table, shaded light blue), black applicants were 9 times more likely to be admitted to medical school than Asians (58.7% vs. 6.5%), and 7.2 times more likely than whites (58.7% vs. 8.2%). Compared to the average acceptance rate of 18.1% for all applicants with that combination of GPA and MCAT score, black and Hispanic applicants were much more likely to be accepted at rates of 58.7% and 30.9%, and white and Asian applicants were much less likely to be accepted to US medical schools at rates of only 8.2% and 6.5%

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