People have asked for the last 15 years, “Vijay, how did you come up with pretending like you’re black to get into medical school? That was crazy, huh?”
Uh, yeah, it was. But at the time it seemed like a good idea. I had toed the line in school my whole life. I sailed through a prestigious prep school with great grades. Had always been a model student. But college? Well, it was like Disneyland — so many rides to take, so much fun to have. I joined a fraternity and committed a great deal of effort to fun. But about halfway through, I had an epiphany and it scared the crap out of me.
I wanted to be a doctor. Yes, it’s kind of a cultural thing, but I’m also totally American, grew up in Boston and even got my middle name from Jo Jo White, one of the Celtics stars. My immigrant folks loved basketball. But I wanted to be a doctor mainly because my mom was a doctor and she was universally loved by her patients. I was immensely proud of her.
One of my closest friends, nicknamed Boots — Indian-American like me — shared my dream.
But what happened to Boots next chilled me to my marrow. He began applying to medical schools and we both figured he would sail through, get many interviews and then have his pick. Boots was a year older and medical school was everything he had worked for since starting at the University of Chicago. His grades and test scores were better than mine because, unlike me, he actually studied. But when he applied to 15 medical schools, got only two interviews and was accepted to exactly zero schools, he felt like a college running back who thinks he’ll go to the Patriots in the second round and is stunned when he’s relegated to playing in the CFL.
My moment of clarity came at 3 in the morning at the Golden Nugget Diner on the North Side of Chicago as we sobered up from a party. He admitted his predicament and once I picked my jaw off the table, I resolved that I would do anything within reason to avoid his fate. Or maybe not within reason.
Now I was terrified. What were my chances of admission to medical school?
In the early 1990s, the Division of Community and Minority Programs of the Association of American Medical Colleges devised Project 3,000 by 2000. This program set the quantitative target (a quota — official or unofficial) of increasing minority enrollment in US medical schools from 1,584 to 3,000 between 1990 to 2000.
Many medical schools, including St. Louis University, where I eventually attended, jumped on this program. But the question was whether, in order to achieve their quantitative goal, medical schools were compromising their academic standards, or were they simply going to aggressively recruit minority students? The work of Ward Connerly and Ellen and Jerry Cook suggested that many of the medical schools, especially those in the University of California system, chose the former option. The data suggested that the medical schools were discriminating against their Asian-American and white students and in favor of their black and Hispanic applicants.
I may not have studied all that hard in my economics and statistics classes, but I knew enough to realize that anecdotal evidence was not enough to draw valuable conclusions. I had to work the problem. I studied the statistics and data made public by the Association of American Medical Colleges and came to a surprising conclusion. The data suggested that an Indian-American with my grades (3.1 GPA) and test scores (31 MCAT) was unlikely to gain admission to medical school, but an African-American with the same grades and test scores had a high probability of admission.
While I wasn’t able to pin down the exact number, I reasonably calculated that African-American or Hispanic applicants had as much as a 30 to 40 percent better chance of acceptance than I. This number left me speechless — but it also started my wheels turning.
I ran across a newspaper article about Rommel Nobay, an Indian who lied about being black to gain admission into medical school. Nobay got caught because he lied about a bunch of other stuff on his application, such as being a National Merit Scholar — not because he lied about his race. Light bulb. I wondered if I could pull it off by being completely honest about everything except, of course, my . . . race.
I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, joined the University of Chicago’s Organization of Black Students (a black friend ran it, knew my scam and got me in) and began applying to medical schools as a black man. I transposed my middle name with my first name and became Jojo, the African-American applicant.
I was always in a state of terror that I would be found out. During one interview at Case Western Reserve University, I was confronted by a black doctor and admissions committee member. He barraged me with questions about my family and personal background. I said that my family came from Nigeria. It was technically correct because my Indian parents had lived in Nigeria before moving to the United States.
Finally he said, eyes cold, in more of a question than a statement, “I read your application. It says you’re black.” I nodded.
To my astonishment they sent me a letter of invitation.
Most of my friends were supportive, although for the longest time they saw it as a fraternity joke, that is until I got wait-listed at the Washington University School of Medicine. A few, including my girlfriend, disapproved. It made no difference to me because I was a man on a mission. She and I eventually broke up.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the startling change in the way people treated the “black” me. People became suspicious, even hostile. Walking to class one morning, a lone female student ran into a snowy field to avoid me.
One evening I was driving my shiny red Toyota 4Runner truck slightly under the speed limit. A cop pulled me over and seemed irritated, bluntly asking how I could afford such an expensive car.
One morning I went to the grocery store I’d frequented for three years to buy some junk food to tamp down a hellacious frat-party hangover. I made my purchase and headed to the door when suddenly their security guard stepped in my way and accused me of shoplifting. I protested so he threw me to the floor and rifled through my bag.
Nothing remotely like this had ever happened when I was just another Indian doctor’s son. Walking in a black man’s shoes dimmed much of the youthful enthusiasm I’d had about my deception.
And it certainly wasn’t a cake walk being a black applicant. I had to pass through a long and arduous admissions process that was typical for a medical-school applicant. But in the end I achieved my goal.
I got into the St. Louis University School of Medicine.
Once in med school, I relaxed a bit because it was easy to blend in. With 150 students, nobody ever asked me any questions about my race, probably because medical school was just too hectic.
After two years and a lot of soul searching I realized I just wasn’t cut out to be a doctor. I dropped out of medical school for many reasons, but not being black was not one of them.
Even if I never became a doctor, at least my sister did: on television.
Eventually I got my act together and was accepted, as an Indian-American, into UCLA Anderson, a business school that doesn’t practice affirmative action.
Like every good business-school alum, I started my own business after graduating. Ex-burglars make great security consultants, so, following in that tradition, I am a professional admissions counselor and résumé writer. I show people how to appropriately advertise their skills and accomplishments in the application process.
In each of my clients I see the same fear and desperation I saw in Boots’ eyes at the Golden Nugget Diner 16 years ago. It’s tempting to take the easy path and lie in the hope of achieving your dreams. I advise against it . . . and now they know I speak from experience.
Today, UCLA is thinking of restarting affirmative action. The California legislature considered reinstating affirmative action in the University of California system but only stopped because of the opposition of many Asian-Americans. My experiences have shown me firsthand the reality of racism in America. But I wrestle with the idea that more exclusion in the form of affirmative action is not the best solution.
I am not convinced that affirmative action fully benefits the underprivileged. In my application to medical school, I disclosed that my mother was a doctor, my dad an architect, that I drove a nice car, that I didn’t receive financial aid and that I grew up in an affluent section of Boston. I didn’t even say that I was “disadvantaged.” Yet medical schools such as Case Western Reserve University considered me one of their “affirmative-action candidates.”
My middle-class white girlfriend asked me, “How did a campus rich kid become a candidate for affirmative action?” Good question.
Second, I think that affirmative action tends to promote racial resentment and perpetuates negative stereotypes. Some Asian-Americans and whites believe they are the victims of affirmative-action discrimination and can feel resentment about it. Affirmative action also furthers negative stereotypes about the professionalism and competency of African-American, Native American, and Hispanic professionals by making it seem like they need special treatment.
Is this really the best solution?
Vijay Chokal-Ingam is a professional résumé writer and college and graduate-school admissions consultant for the LA Résumé Service and Interview SOS. He’s working on a book, “Almost Black,” co-written with Matthew Scott Hansen (“Andy Kaufman Revealed!”).