A new analysis of admissions data at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine reveals that black and Hispanic applicants were admitted with significantly lower academic qualifications than white and Asian applicants from 2019 through 2024. This trend continued even after the US Supreme Court’s 2023 decision limiting race-based college admissions.
The findings, published by the watchdog group Do No Harm, show a consistent trend over five years in which minority applicants were accepted despite lower GPAs and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores. The data also indicate that more academically qualified white and Asian applicants were frequently rejected.
“In 2024, the average MCAT score of accepted Asians and whites (combined) was more than 4 points higher than that of accepted blacks and Hispanics (combined) — equivalent to a gap of about 14 percentile point,” Do No Harm reported. “On GPA, accepted Asians and whites on average had 0.36 higher scores than accepted Blacks and Hispanics.”
Data from 2024 showed that the average GPA by race among accepted students was: Asian (3.89), white (3.85), black (3.50), and Hispanic (3.45). For MCAT scores, the averages were: Asian (512.8), white (509), black (505.7), and Hispanic (503.5). The highest possible MCAT score is 528.
“When comparing to the average scores of all accepted applicants, whites/Asians scored slightly above average while blacks/Hispanics scored significantly below average,” Do No Harm highlighted.
Do No Harm also found that in 2024, many rejected white and Asian applicants had better academic records than their black and Hispanic counterparts who were admitted. Notably, 21 Asian applicants with perfect GPAs were turned away.
The group noted this pattern was consistent in each year from 2020 to 2024.
Ian Kingsbury, director of research for Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire that the university’s admissions data raises serious doubts about whether it is in compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down the use of race as a factor in college admissions.
“I understand that academic qualifications alone aren’t the only thing that should determine your admission to medical school. But in any sane and reasonable world, they should be extremely important,” Kingsbury said. “Essentially, they would have to establish that the non-academic criteria that they are using, that it just so happens that their black and Hispanic applicants are that much better than their white and Asian applicants along those criteria.”
