Commentary
It’s no secret that high school graduation means far less than it used to. “Individualized progress plans” for those who can’t meet the universal standard, social promotion, and increasing accommodation for mental health concerns like anxiety mean that having a high school degree is now no guarantee of literacy or numeracy.
The collapse of high school graduation standards means that many employers now demand a university or college degree. Universities responded to the increased demand for their stamp of approval by creating more and more capacity, and students responded to this burst of
credentialism by heading off to uni in droves. The increasing failure of increasingly expensive high schools meant that increasingly expensive universities had to expand massively. A win for bureaucrats and a loss for taxpayers.
But a predictable thing happened. As universities became less selective, the average quality of university entrants declined.
One can quibble with exact numbers, but the average IQ of a university student has clearly fallen. Back in the ’50s the average was around 120—an IQ that puts a person in the top 10 percent of the population. Nowadays that number has fallen to 102, which makes you pretty much average (average being 100). And keep in mind there are many brilliant people who go to university. So statistically, many university students must be of below average intelligence in 2024 to balance out the geniuses and bring the average down to… average.
Add to this the issue of university grade inflation. As average student IQ dropped, a higher percentage of students were awarded A grades.
The unreliability of high school—and now university—graduation as a predictor of intelligence means that it behooves medical schools to be VERY selective in their admissions processes. Just because a student has decent university grades does NOT mean that student is smart enough to be a competent physician.
Zigging When We Should Be Zagging
And yet, rather than tighten requirements and rely more and more on objective measures like the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), medical schools are heading in the opposite direction.The MCAT is a challenging, standardized test which is completely agnostic to your race or gender. It was a good way to separate wheat from chaff, necessary since someone with a 99 average in their Modern Indigenous Dance undergrad may actually not be nearly as smart as someone with an 85 average from MIT physics. The MCAT helps fairly and objectively cull applications. Even though med schools were already being very “flexible” with certain applicants in terms of admitting those with lower scores if from a
preferred group, the MCAT was still “discriminating” against the wrong people. So it has been dropped as a requirement by more and more med schools.
Despite the concerns of many, in the name of promoting “equity,” many medical schools have lowered standards for minorities in other ways as well.
Toronto Metropolitan University or TMU (formerly known as Ryerson University) recently made news when its newly approved med school decided to institute racial quotas, with 25 spots for blacks, 25 for indigenous, and 25 for “equity-deserving groups.” Anyone without victim status can fight for the 25 that are left. Furthermore, TMU set their GPA minimum, or “floor” to 3.3. Compare this to the
3.95 average GPA of a successful University of Toronto med school applicant, which means they in the top 5 percent of their cohort. How elite is a 3.3? Depending on the course and the university, somewhere from 20-40 percent of students are awarded a 3.3 or higher GPA. Recall from above that the average undergrad is now of average intelligence. And now med school will take many average-ish undergrads.
The intent of this lowering of standards is clear. TMU’s website states: “this inclusive floor of 3.3 seeks to minimize barriers to entry.” They go on to state that even that floor can be flexible for the right kind of applicant.
On top of all of this, more and more med schools are factoring in an “adversity score” that will increase the chances of admission for students who claim that they had it tough growing up.
So much for med students being the best and the brightest.
Faith in doctors and hospitals
fell from about 70 percent in early 2020 to 40 percent in 2024. The ongoing lowering of standards and introduction of overt racial quotas for med school admissions will further erode trust in doctors. And it should. In coming years, more patients will understandably question the competency of their doctors, and more so if that doctor is from an “equity-deserving” identity group.
Even if one believes in “equity” as a goal, med school admission is not the place to promote it. Med school admission criteria must be about excellence, not equity. No patient has ever said, “I sure hope my neurosurgeon had a lot of childhood adversity and didn’t attend a med school with stringent selection criteria.”
In placing equity above excellence, med schools are in a race to the bottom. Med schools should not discriminate based on race, but if they do not discriminate based on ability, IQ, and academic performance, they risk patients’ lives.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
