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It is graphically illustrated in B. Waldman, Economic amd Racial Disadvantage as Reflected In Traditional Medical Schools, Association of American Medical Colleges, (1977), the gpa and (MCAT) (Medical College Admission Test) scores of racial/ethnic minorites as a class reflect a disadvantage which cannot be attribited to economic status. Lower income whites do not share this disadvantage as a class. Rather, this disadvantage results from generations of slavery, segregation, and purposeful discrimination, the effects of which permeate the environment in which minority students are raised. This educational disadvantage is attributable to the poorer quality of public schools where minority students have traditionally begun their education; to the shortage of professional role models with whom aspiring minority students can identify; to a home life in which parents who have been dnied opportunity12 for education and advancement feel the hopelessness of their situation and may fail to encourage their children to prepare for higher education; and to the general lack of expectation that the minority student will attain professional status. studies indicate that while traditioanl criteria (GPAs MCAT scores) have some predictive value for minority

The same study demonstrated that MCAT and GPA scores vary only slightly according to parental income, within the same racial/ethnic grouping. But they vary siginficatly according to race within the same income grouping, The study concludes that the variety of factors associated with race confers a far greater level of educational disadvantage than
doeslower economic status alone.*

Brief. The Association of American Medical Colleges, John Holt Meyers,
Counsel, Bryon and Adams Printing, Inc., Washington, D.C.