By: Cynthia Wang

Following the recent end of affirmative action, a policy that encouraged the preference of racial minority groups in school admissions, a new approach to “admissions equality” has been introduced: the socioeconomic disadvantage scale (SED).

“Mostly rich kids get to go to medical school,” explains UC Davis’s professor Mark Henderson, the developer of SED. In fact, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, more than half of medical students come from families in the top 20 percent of income, while only 4 percent come from those in the bottom 20 percent. Furthermore, the American Medical Association finds that children of doctors are 24 times more likely to become doctors than their peers. “That’s a staggering economic gap between medical students and the general public,” says Dr. Henderson.

SED aims to provide more opportunities to students coming from underprivileged families. It rates all applicants from 0 to 99 based on factors such as financial situation and parental education. Admission officers take this score into account when considering applications. With the help of this new scale, UC Davis has become one of the most diverse medical schools in America.

A simulation using SED saw students from underrepresented groups increase from 10.7 percent to 15.3 percent, and the share of low-income students triple from 4.6 percent to 14.5 percent. Meanwhile, scores on the MCAT, the standardized test for medical school applications, dropped marginally.

On June 28, President Biden promised to develop a “new standard for colleges taking into account the adversity a student has overcome.”

“The kid who faced tougher challenges has demonstrated more grit, more determination,” Biden said, “and that should be a factor that colleges should take into account in admissions.”

Several schools have already come under fire from conservative groups for implementing programs extremely similar to affirmative action. On the other hand, some question SED’s effectiveness at helping minority groups, especially in comparison to affirmative action.