Potential discrimination against Asian med applicants

[Green Eggs and Ham]

Edit: Feel free to delete this thread, I've changed my stance on this issue, cheers

 

[Mana]

While it's difficult to address the subject of individual bias by interviewers against people of a particular ethnicity, I will say that as an interviewer there is no instruction whatsoever from any university to select for people who are or are not a particular background, and nowhere is it in the interviewing criteria that a candidate's race should affect their overall score.

I think chinaski told me a while back that with the advent of the change from undergraduate medicine to postgraduate medicine at USyd there was a significant change in the ethnic background of the cohort which is consistent with what you said above - essentially that the last undergrad cohort had a much larger proportion of Asian students than the first graduate entry cohort.

I will say this though - the selection criteria as a whole seems to have slowly changed to select for the following:
1. intrinsic ability rather than hard work (as per the UMAT and GAMSAT)
2. communication ability and life experience rather than high ATAR marks (as per the interview and as per a lot of universities making ATAR a cutoff rather than included in the final ranking)

It's no secret that there is a very high proportion of students with top ATAR scores that happen to be of Asian (and by Asian I also include the Indian subcontinent here) ethnicity. It just so happens that the selection criteria have been changed above to select less for the ATAR and more for the other aforementioned things.

In other words - students are now selected more for being more well rounded candidates rather than being extremely high scoring in academia, because medicine as a whole is a profession that does actually require things like good communication and intrinsic intelligence.

I don't think there is any issue with fewer Asian students being selected for medicine at all, because the end-goal of selection for Australian medical school is to serve the requirements of the Australian population healthcare wise (and also especially noting that the proportion of Asian medical students is still much higher than the proportion of people with Asian ethnicity in the general population). This necessarily means that they are choosing for doctors with the aforementioned strengths, and it just means that the population of ethnicities which tend very much to focus on academic achievement are now going to have to shift their goalposts to being more well rounded to get into medical school.

You can take it to the press if you want, but good luck trying to convince people that this is an issue given that a) there are no selection criteria that mention ethnicity anywhere in Australia OTHER than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and b) the proportion of Asians in the medical cohort is still much higher than the general population.

 

[A1]

After the introduction of the revised selection process, the proportion of students from an NE or SE Asian country of origin fell equally dramatically to 15% in 1999 and to 9% by 2011"

I was briefly in a UNSW med cohort and am now in a UWA provisional cohort. I can say with certainty the proportions of Asian-background students are significantly higher than 15% let alone 9%.

So, given the introduction of the interview in 1999 ...

This implies pointing the finger at the interview process. I was going to mention but Mana already did above - not only the interview but there was also the introduction of UMAT and the shifting of half the intakes to grad entry, both of which impact on the advantage of a high ATAR.

 

[pi]

While it's difficult to address the subject of individual bias by interviewers against people of a particular ethnicity, I will say that as an interviewer there is no instruction whatsoever from any university to select for people who are or are not a particular background, and nowhere is it in the interviewing criteria that a candidate's race should affect their overall score.

As another interviewer for another uni, I agree with this 100%.

I'd estimate that in Monash, more than half of the metropolitan students are from Asian backgrounds, so I don't think I can really appreciate the bias given that this is significantly higher than the proportion of people that are Asian in society.

 

[Green Eggs and Ham]

You've all helped me change my mind on this issue. Please delete this thread as there's no need for it anymore, cheers

 

[pi]

We don't usually delete threads. I think this is an interesting discussion to be having and I'm glad we (briefly) had it, undoubtedly many others have formed the same hypothesis over the years. Keeping this thread alive will hopefully be able to answer their future questions

 

[Agetate]

This is maybe slightly sentimental and offtopic -- but I guess what this thread raises is that as a society, we still haven't embraced an all-encompassing melting pot "Australian" identity and there's still a tendency to segregate it ethnically.

I think it's easier to see when we compare the situation in Australia to that of America. America's a migrant country that has accepted it's a migrant country and formulated its identity around that fact. You can be American-chinese, black American, American-indian etc but foremost you are American. In Australia, it seems almost the opposite ergo you are all Australian but what matters is whether you're Australian-chinese/indian etc.

I think it's a shame that Australian medical hopefuls are still identified by their ethnic familial roots even though they're born and raised in Australia. The only place where ethnic identity should matter in practice is in treating new migrants/heavily isolated migrants (those that haven't yet experienced the 'melting pot' effect).

 

[hpfanfiction]

I agree with the comments above by pi and Mana

Spoiler

My cohort /I would've been part of the study population , and the paper was written by our Dean at the time (who has family members of Asian descent , but isn't of Asian himself)!!

It's interesting that the UMAT (especially)/interview didn't affect the socioeconomic composition of the cohorts
Broadway would've changed this though

 

[Mana]

For just half an hour, one or two interviewers just failed a school leaver for lack of experience. What a joke!!!!!

Just saying - but yes, interviewers "fail" school leavers (and by "fail" I mean they don't select them in the top 20% or so by necessity because the top 20% will score in the top 20% by definition) for lack of experience because there are other stronger candidates, school leaver or otherwise, who DO have better experience and by seeking it out clearly show that they are a better fit and more dedicated to the profession.

To call this a joke is highly offensive to all those who volunteer their time to interview people. onthesunway perhaps you should be reflecting on why you think that as someone who has never been an interviewer, or been on panels for selection for medical school, whether you are qualified to say this.

 

[rustyedges]

I think it's a shame that Australian medical hopefuls are still identified by their ethnic familial roots even though they're born and raised in Australia. The only place where ethnic identity should matter in practice is in treating new migrants/heavily isolated migrants (those that haven't yet experienced the 'melting pot' effect).

Unfortunately, you will find that ethnicity is a pretty big factor in health outcomes in Australia, so I don't think it can be entirely ignored in medical entrance selection.

 

[Agetate]

Unfortunately, you will find that ethnicity is a pretty big factor in health outcomes in Australia, so I don't think it can be entirely ignored in medical entrance selection.

Yes, I've heard about that-- but I wonder: why would ethnicity be such a strong factor?
(Also, do you have a link to the study?)

 

[Green Eggs and Ham]

Edit: Feel free to delete this thread.

 

[pi]

Why would Australian born Asians do poorly on the interview?

Hard to form theories on this without mass generalising, but undoubtedly there is a proportion of Australian born Asians who have the following:

• "tiger parents"
• do not attend many social gatherings with their peers (e.g parties, sleep-overs as a kid, maybe even school camps)
• spend most of their time out of school at home, doing homework, attending tutoring, or playing video games
• the only co-curricular activity is to play an instrument, which again, is done alone
• do the following "intensive" school subjects that don't have a large creative component to them: chem, physics, one or more maths, biology
• hardly ever talk to people from the opposite sex, and indeed may attend a single-sex school

The picture you paint (with a broad brush, mind you) is someone who does exceptionally well academically but might not have a high self-esteem and may be lacking social skills compared to their peers. Not hard to see why someone like this would do poorly in an interview, and I'd imagine there are more Asians who fit this list than non-Asians.

 

[Mana]

As an aside - this article also quotes some of the statistics from the confidential ACER report on the UMAT - which seems to suggest that the interview significantly brings back into proportion the gender imbalance in medicine respective to the proportion of applicants.
Essentially the findings were that males are positively selected for in academic performance and females are positively selected for in interview performance. Given that this brings the gender proportion back into line with the proportion within the applicant cohort, I see a very strong case never to remove the interview from the selection process.

Spoiler

Gender
The change in gender balance in the cohort, with an increase in the number of females both applying for and selected into the course, was evident immediately in the first year after the introduction of the revised selection processes and continued thereafter. An increasing number of female applicants to medical school reflects an international trend which has prompted several explanations including changing social norms, economic factors, changing family composition and equality legislation [8]. In the UK the proportion of female applicants has stabilised at 56% [8] which corresponds closely with the 56.7% of female applicants in WA since 1998. It also closely approximates the proportion of females who sat the UMAT in 2010 (56.7%, total N = 16,458) [1]. Are male applicants experiencing disadvantage under the new admissions process? On the contrary, our analytic models indicate that an influence of higher interview score in females most likely determined this striking gender shift and brought the proportion of successfully selected females more into line with an increasing number of female applicants. Although there were highly significant differences in performance in the individual components of UMAT by gender, these were in contrasting directions and therefore there was no overall association of gender with the total UMAT score. Females performed better in UMAT2-Understanding People, while males performed better in UMAT1-Logical reasoning and problem solving-and UMAT3-Non-verbal reasoning. This reflects exactly the performance by gender reported for all those who sat the UMAT in 2010 with the UMAT1 score lower by 3.2, UMAT2 score higher by 2.4 and UMAT3 score lower by 2.7 in females compared to males [1]. Males entered with significantly higher academic entry score both before and after the revised selection process. This meant that when entry was based on academic performance alone, males were preferentially selected out of proportion to their relative number of applications. After the revised selection process, because the 3 components for entry were weighted equally, it is suggested that the higher academic entry score seen for males was now counterbalanced by the higher interview score for females, resulting in a proportionate selection of males and females relative to their respective number of applications. Of interest, at the University of Queensland where the interview was removed from the selection process in 2008, the reverse of our observation has been seen with the male:female ratio shifting from being in favour of females to being in favour of males (David Wilkinson-personal communication).

 

[Mana]

ok, I just have a few lingering questions left. Why would Australian born Asians do poorly on the interview? And is it likely that the introduction of the interview was a response to the increase in Asian students? Does anyone have statistics/demographics of current medical schools?

In my personal experience, I don't think Australian born Asians do any worse in the interview than other candidates - at least at the graduate entry level which is my experience.

In the undergraduate interview selection, I think pi has pretty much hit it on the head here. People only have so much time and energy to devote to curricular and extracurricular activities and to perform at the very highest in one or more activities essentially means you often don't have time to invest into improving other areas of your life. If you are spending all your time studying and learning an instrument, where is the time for you to learn how to interact in a social situation?


Furthermore - just statistically - if you lower the ATAR threshold for an interview, you are likely to increase the proportion of non-Asian interviewees (because at the top ATARs there is a higher proportion of Asian students). This in itself I think would be enough to bring the proportion of Asian students down because they are being diluted out by other non-Asian candidates who would not have been eligible for entry without the interview.

 

[Agetate]

Hard to form theories on this without mass generalising, but undoubtedly there is a proportion of Australian born Asians who have the following:

• "tiger parents"
• do not attend many social gatherings with their peers (e.g parties, sleep-overs as a kid, maybe even school camps)
• spend most of their time out of school at home, doing homework, attending tutoring, or playing video games
• the only co-curricular activity is to play an instrument, which again, is done alone
• do the following "intensive" school subjects that don't have a large creative component to them: chem, physics, one or more maths, biology
• hardly ever talk to people from the opposite sex, and indeed may attend a single-sex school

The picture you paint (with a broad brush, mind you) is someone who does exceptionally well academically but might not have a high self-esteem and may be lacking social skills compared to their peers. Not hard to see why someone like this would do poorly in an interview, and I'd imagine there are more Asians who fit this list than non-Asians.

I respectfully disagree with you on most of these points (except for tiger parents and tutoring -- and even tutoring is hardly ever done alone but builds social skills/friendships outside of school) because they are easily very applicable to your average Caucasian school leaver. And frankly, in respect to many of my friends who do fit your mold-- they come out of school socially well adjusted and with as much self-esteem as can be expected from your average 18 year old.

I think we need to be very careful before throwing around stereotypes here.

 

[Mana]

I think pi was qualifying this by saying "it's a broad brush" - yes, this is definitely a stereotype. But it's also one with some statistical basis to it - there IS a higher proportion of Asian students out there who score in the top ATARs and there IS a higher proportion of "tiger parents" in this ethnic population.

I think largely by the time they make it to graduate entry, the students have become more independent (i.e. less dependent on the tiger parents) and have some life experience (which probably does account somewhat for my experiences interviewing graduate applicants).

Yes, this is a stereotype, and it's not fair to paint any particular individual person with this brush - however, we are talking on a population level here, with population level statistics, so I think it's reasonable to make at least some observations about the cohort as a whole.

 

[pi]

I think we need to be very careful before throwing around stereotypes here.

Which is literally why I said I was going to state a "mass generalisation" and that my comments "painted with a broad brush" but also that I was only referring to "a proportion" of the population. I was careful.

While many people will tick one or more of those points, there are probably a higher proportion of Asians who tick all of those points than non-Asians in Australia. This is based on my own observations after graduating from a select-entry school with a very high proportion of students from Asian backgrounds, where school was essentially the only form of socialising many students had (tutoring was often 1-on-1, which I don't consider very social).

While many some people come away with the sort of childhood I have described with "normal" social skills, many do not and struggle when it comes to interviews and university life.

 

[Agetate]

Thank you for your diplomacy Mana. I agree with your statistical argument earlier to account for the numbers (the proportion of high ATARs).

But to claim that (even on a population level) that Aus-asian school leavers are somehow less socially able than their Caucasian peers is a generalization that, to my knowledge, has no firm ground to stand on. There's definitely a lot of misunderstanding of the cause and effect relationship here ergo tutoring =/= solitary activity (here, our experiences differ again- the overwhelming majority I know go to tutoring colleges). Asian upbringing =/= doesn't talk to the opposite sex.

I believe the criteria pi lists applies to the small minority rather than something we can make population level generalizations with.

I'd also like to emphasize that many do not struggle when it comes to university life or normal social skills. You'd be very hard pressed to find any human being with lackluster social ability unless they've had an awesomely deprived childhood (the orphans in Rene Spitz's studies come to mind). It is in human nature to be socially effective. Of course, this is a skill that needs to be developed but I suggest a much bigger factor is personality-- take your average introvert and regardless of ethnicity they're going to prefer staying at home, solitary activities, not partying etc and they will actively seek these experiences. Take your average extrovert and observe the opposite.

Graduating from a highly competitive selective school with peers who religiously fill the asian stereotype, there is as much variety in personality/disposition/development as you would expect from a group of ~150 teenagers.

I have to apologise-- it's a touchy subject and I know many people do share your views pi. It is my sincerest wish that we can all see humans as humans with their own highly individual circumstances and just forget about any form of mass generalization altogether because they are hardly ever representative of reality especially when they're based off assumptions that have no proper evidence behind it (this topic is case in point). This has gotten terribly off-topic hasn't it...

 

[chinaski]

I think you're all also forgetting a great swathe of Asian students were knocked out of grad entry schools based on the fact that they WEREN'T Australian born, native English speakers. I don't have the stats, but I believe universities like Sydney went overnight from accepting a majority of international students from Asian countries, to accepting predominantly North American students. All largely attributed to GAMSAT, which obviously selects for people who have strong skills in English - if you get knocked out at that point, the interview issue is moot. Indeed, I recall someone trying to formally challenge GAMSAT's "racial profiling", arguing that it was unfair to NESB students. The counter-argument, that a strong proficiency in English is essential to medical practice in Australia, pretty much sunk that claim.