The possible return by 1965 of tightly restricted admission policies for medical schools in the United States, based on religious and racial quotas, is foreseen in a study made public here today by the American Jewish Committee.
At the present time, although the “quota” system has been virtually abandoned in medical schools, discriminatory admission policies still exist particularly against Jewish students and Catholics of Italian descent. The “quota” system, devised more than 30 years ago when applications to medical schools increased sharply, allotted a quota of admissions to religious and ethnic groups in the U.S. based on each group’s proportionate number to the total population.
The AJC study warned that “a likely result of the increased competition for medical school place” will be “the tightening up again of restrictive admission policies both through residential limitations and through ethnic and religious quotas.” The present ratio of two applicants for each medical school opening is expected to rise to four each by 1965, from a total of 15,000 for 7,800 places to 36,000 for 8,650 openings.
The study disclosed that instead of arithmetical quotas, “personality” has become the device medical schools now resorted to in order to continue their discriminatory admission practices. Citing New York Board of Regents data, the study showed that among applicants with average grades, the ratio of rejection of Jewish students and Catholics of Italian descent was more than twice that of others.
Top scholarship students are seldom rejected by medical schools that stress grades. The “personality” factor, however, is operative for applicants somewhat below the top level who have “good grades:” 64 percent of Jewish applicants with good grades gained admission as contrasted with 84 percent of other applicants with similar grades.
In the “average” and the “below average” groups, discriminatory practices become even more marked: 29 percent of Jewish applicants with average grades were admitted compared to 46 percent of other applicants in the same grade group. In the “below average” group, seven percent of the Jewish applicants and 20 percent of all others gained admission.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
