Med Schools Put DEI Above the Best and Brightest
The Dr. Phil Podcast
Dr. Phil McGraw
4.3 • 13.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A brilliant pre-med student. 521 MCAT — 98th percentile. 4.0 GPA. Published research. Primary author. Rejected by ten medical schools. If that résumé isn’t good enough, what is?
On The Real Story, I examine how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies are reshaping medical school admissions. Across the country, schools describe “holistic review,” equity mandates, and diversity goals as central to their mission. Academic metrics are no longer the primary standard and that merit is being subordinated to ideology.
We break down AAMC data, LCME accreditation shifts, pass/fail grading trends, and looming physician shortages. Medicine is not a sociology lab. When you’re on an operating table, credentials matter. Excellence is not negotiable.
Thank you to our sponsor: Preserve Gold - text "ASK PHIL" to 50505 and go to https://DrPhilGold.com
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Okay, I want to talk to you today about DEI. And before you gloss over and say, oh, no, not more DEI. |
| 0:08.4 | Hell no, not again. I want to talk to you about it from a common sense standpoint. And this relates to |
| 0:14.8 | your life. Trust me, you want to hear this because it relates to your life, my life, your family's life, everybody. |
| 0:22.2 | We use DEI so much. |
| 0:24.0 | We forget what it stands for. |
| 0:26.5 | Diversity, equity, and inclusion. |
| 0:29.9 | And I'm going to talk about what each of those mean here in a minute. |
| 0:33.3 | The reason I'm talking about it is it's really good in concept, but in practice it just doesn't work. |
| 0:44.0 | Great theory, bad practice. |
| 0:47.9 | And here's what I'm talking about. |
| 0:50.5 | A recent guest on my show is applying to medical school. Now, I'm talking about a sharp |
| 0:57.2 | kid, really, really sharp. He got a 521 on his MCAT. That's the medical college admission test. |
| 1:04.4 | That's high. 98th percentile. How do he do in school? 4.0 GPA. How about all of his other stuff, extracurriculars? |
| 1:15.2 | Ten years of summer and extracurricular research. I mean, he wasn't just out working as a lifeguard, |
| 1:22.5 | which is okay. You got to be well-rounded, but he was doing research. Two published scientific papers. One is the |
| 1:30.0 | primary author. That's not average. In universities, there's a term among professors, publish or perish. |
| 1:37.7 | It's hard to get published. So here's a kid that's not even a professor. He's a student. |
| 1:44.6 | Two publications. |
| 1:45.8 | We're talking about elite. |
| 1:47.7 | Now, why am I talking about him? |
| 1:50.1 | Because he's having a hard time getting into school. |
| 1:53.4 | He's also a white male. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. Phil McGraw, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. Phil McGraw and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.