AAMC representatives are currently reviewing criminal background check vendors, says Sabalis. After a vendor is selected, officials will create a pilot system for completing background checks by the summer of 2007. Accepted applicants to the 2008 entering class at ten schools will be subjected to the pilot system and the final system chosen will be provided to all interested medical schools for the 2009 entering class.
Although the debate over the background checking system remains contentious, Dennis Spencer, who is pursuing a medical degree at Cornell as well as a doctorate at Rockefeller University, says it will have little effect on minority applicants.
“For those of us who had to overcome odds, it’s probably one of the least significant obstacles we would have encountered if we’ve reached the point where a school would even be interested in reading our application,” he says.
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