title: Diversity efforts, admissions, and national rankings: can we align priorities?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Increasing student body diversity is a priority for national health education and professional organizations and for many medical schools. However, national rankings of medical schools, such as those published by U.S. News & World Report, place a heavy emphasis on grade point average (GPA) and Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) scores, without considering student body diversity. These rankings affect organizational reputation and admissions outcomes, even though there is considerable controversy surrounding the predictive value of GPA and MCAT scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our aim in this article was to explore the relationship between standard admissions practices, which typically aim to attract students with the highest academic scores, and student body diversity. We examined how changes in GPA and MCAT scores over 5 years correlated with the percentage of enrolled students who are underrepresented in medicine. In a majority of medical schools in the United States from 2005 to 2009, average GPA and MCAT scores of applicants increased, whereas the percentage of enrolled students who are underrepresented in medicine decreased.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings suggest that efforts to increase the diversity of medical school student bodies may be complicated by a desire to maintain high average GPA and MCAT scores. We propose that U.S. News revise its ranking methodology by incorporating a new diversity score into its student selectivity score and by reducing the weight placed on GPA and MCAT scores.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Research and Sponsored Programs , Weill Cornell Medical College , New York , New York , USA.
authors.forename: Caren A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Heller
authors.forename: Sandra Hurtado
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Rúa
authors.forename: Madhu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mazumdar
authors.forename: Jennifer E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bardes
authors.forename: Antonio M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Gotto
mesh_terms: D003099:College Admission Test; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012570:School Admission Criteria; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D013337:Students, Medical; D014481:United States
keywords: diversity; medical school admissions; national rankings