Indian student faked being black to get into medical school

[Morphine Prince 109,645]

(CNN) -

Actress Mindy Kaling's brother says that he posed as a black man years ago to get into medical school and that the experience opened his eyes to what he calls the hypocrisy of affirmative action.

The revelation comes as Vijay Chokal-Ingam, who is of Indian descent, is pitching a book about his experiences as a "hard-partying college frat boy who discovered the seriousness and complexity of America's racial problems while posing as a black man."

On his website, AlmostBlack.com, Chokal-Ingam says he hatched the plan in 1998 after realizing in college that his grades weren't going to be good enough to get into med school as an Indian-American.

"So, I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied to medical school as a black man," he wrote on the website. "My change in appearance was so startling that my own fraternity brothers didn't recognize me at first."

He says he joined an organization for black students and applied to schools using his middle name, JoJo.

The plan had some drawbacks, said Chokal-Ingam, who describes himself now as a "professional resume writer, interview coach, and graduate school application consultant."

"Cops harassed me. Store clerks accused me of shoplifting. Women were either scared of me or couldn't keep their hands off me," he wrote. "What started as a devious ploy to gain admission to medical school turned into a twisted social experiment."

But, he says, it worked. Despite a relatively mediocre 3.1 college grade-point average and a score of 31 on the Medical College Admission Test, he says, he was wooed by a number of top medical schools.

He eventually attended Saint Louis University Medical School, dropping out after two years.

Affirmative action has been in the news a lot the past few years, with a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that tightened how affirmative action admissions programs have to be structured and a2014 ruling that upheld the University of Michigan's ban on the use of race in admissions.

Chokal-Ingam says his story shows how affirmative action "destroys the dreams of millions of Indian-American, Asian American, and white applicants for employment and higher education."

"It also creates negative stereotypes about the academic abilities and professional skills of African-American and Hispanic professionals, who don't need special assistance in order to compete with other minority groups," he wrote.

But a Saint Louis University spokeswoman disputed the account, telling the Huffington Post that race never played a role in Chokal-Ingam's admission.

"His MCAT scores and science grade point average met SLU's criteria for admission at that time, and his race or ethnicity did not factor into his acceptance into the University," the website quoted SLU spokeswoman Nancy Solomon as saying.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/living/feat-mindy-kaling-brother-affirmative-action/index.html?sr=fb040815mindykalingbrother9aStoryLink

[Didymus 34,380]

Yasss expose that underrated, relatively unknown Indian hatred

"Women were either scared of me or couldn't keep their hands off me" tho

[darkchylde 14,857]

America never ceases to surprise me.

 

Do eyelashes grow back?

[Morphine Prince 109,645]

Yasss expose that underrated, relatively unknown Indian hatred

"Women were either scared of me or couldn't keep their hands off me" tho

​It's not Indian hatred. It's just that medical schools apply the affirmative action policy that's supposed to open up opportunities to minorities but many Asians are sometimes rejected although they are qualified. It's a complicated issue because some argue it should all be on merit even if there isn't much diversity and others preach there should be diversity by any means. 

[Jesse Pinkman 4,660]

Lol mess. You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.  

[Didymus 34,380]

​It's not Indian hatred. It's just that medical schools apply the affirmative action policy that's supposed to open up opportunities to minorities but many Asians are sometimes rejected although they are qualified. It's a complicated issue because some argue it should all be on merit even if there isn't much diversity and others preach there should be diversity by any means. 

I see. That's very interesting.

[1986 629]

Mindy Kaligns brother 

 

[Cocaine Heart 4,768]

Got to do what you got to do

Not just America though, this happens where I'm from as well.

[Haroon 49,685]

I understand wanting diversity to make the institution look better, but disregarding people with higher qualifications in the quest to do so is definitely not okay in my opinion  

[LoveandMagic 1,731]

Interesting read.

[Nick1495 991]

This happened to me when I was applying to university after high school. It wasn't race based but I think it has the same idea. So I applied to the University of Miami. I had a GPA of 3.7 and SAT score of 1790, but I got waitlisted because my SAT scores were just below requirement.  I later ended up getting rejected. To my surprise, one of the football players I studied with, with a GPA of 2.75 and an SAT score of 1540, got in. I was like   They literally took a grade C student over me just because he was an athlete. I get the work hard to be fit and all but I think it's discriminatory how they have loophole for athletes. 

[Kulture Kiari 3,433]

Something similar, yet totally different. My friend was really desperate to get scholarships to pay for uni. Anywho, he applied for a scholarship that pretty much asked for you to write about why are you proud to be black. He did it, and won. When the foundation rewarded him, they found out he was white skinned and muslim. But they told him, "Eh. You were the only one that applied to our scholarship anyways. Keep the prize." Since that incident, our school counselors were advising us to do the same: "Google scholarships for minorities and who cares if youre not even that race. Just do it."  

[AyaKara 2,282]

​It's not Indian hatred. It's just that medical schools apply the affirmative action policy that's supposed to open up opportunities to minorities but many Asians are sometimes rejected although they are qualified. It's a complicated issue because some argue it should all be on merit even if there isn't much diversity and others preach there should be diversity by any means. 

​It's not affirmative action, per se. There are simply an overabundance of Caucasian, Asian, and Middle Eastern doctors. There are tens of thousands of patients whom are uncomfortable with their doctors because they feel that they don't understand them culturally. Therefore, medical schools accept African-American, Hispanic, and Native American students whose low grades can be attributed to limitations placed on them by society; people from these backgrounds are usually low income and cannot afford textbooks and must work to help at home. Students whom are one of these races but are wealthy are looked at like every other applicant. I am a disadvantaged 'URM' applicant so I've read into this a lot.

Speaking of -- when are you taking your MCAT and applying? If it's next year, I hope we end up in the same school

[Hola Soraya 4,367]

Genuine question, no tea, no shade:

Does this count as cultural appropriation? If not, what would be considered cultural appropriation? Thanks!  

[uo111 5,282]

If a white person did poorly compared to his white peers, and a black person did great compared to his black peers, but the white person technically did "better" than the black person, I would choose the black person over the white person. Not because the white person is less qualified, but because the black person obviously overcame something that his peers did not, and the white person obviously didn't overcome something that his peers did.

I don't agree with "quotas" but I also don't agree with looking at just the concrete numbers, because the numbers don't show the whole story.

@AyaKara knows what's up tbh.