Removing the MCAT Could Improve Diversity in Medicine

Removing the MCAT Could Improve Diversity in Medicine


Apanel representing the American Bar Association (ABA) recently voted to eliminate the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) as an admissions requirement for law schools. The main reason for doing this: to increase diversity in law schools.


The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) should follow the lead of the ABA for medical school admissions by removing the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) as a requirement.


For the past 10 months, I've been in the process of applying to medical schools. If taking into consideration preparing for and taking the MCAT, this process dates to 2020. No one in my family has entered medical school—or graduated from college—and I know from the beginning of this journey that people from the poor rural South, like myself, rarely make it this far. Every step of the admissions process has been designed to keep me and other individuals underrepresented in medicine, including Black and Latinx applicants, out of medical school.

Medical schools have historically been dominated by white men from privileged backgrounds, making no room for racial minorities, poor individuals, and those with other minority statuses (LGBTQ, rural, first-generation). Today, nearly one in four medical students reported coming from a home in the top 5 percent of all households with an income. Only 12 percent of medical students are the first in their families to graduate college. And from 2021 to 2022, the percentage of Black matriculants into medical schools decreased 9.9 percent.

LINK