Trends in Optometric Education – A Demographic Snapshot of the Optometry Applicant Pool and Student Enrollment

ASCO has prided itself on being the “go to” source for any data related to optometric education. Two of the most useful reports ASCO does annually are the OptomCAS Applicant Data Report – A National Snapshot, and the ASCO Student Data Report. This article will focus on data trends from both of these reports, specifically detailing the numbers and demographics of the optometry applicant pool and student enrollment over the past twelve years.

Mission-Based Filters in the Electronic Residency Application Service: Saving Time and Promoting Diversity

ABSTRACT Background Holistic review promotes diversity, but widespread implementation remains limited. Objective We aimed to develop a practical approach to incorporate holistic review principles in screening applicants in the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) and to assess the impact on diversity. Methods Three residency programs (internal medicine [IM], pediatrics, and surgery) at McGovern Medical School developed filters to identify applicants with experiences/attributes aligned with the institutional mission. These filters were retroactively applied to each program's 2019–2020 applicant pool using built-in ERAS capabilities to group applicants by user-defined features. We compared the demographics of applicants reviewed during the cycle with those identified retrospectively through experiences/attributes filters. Results The IM, pediatrics, and surgery programs received 3527, 1341, and 1313 applications, respectively, in 2019–2020. Retrospective use of experiences/attributes filters, without scores, narrowed the IM applicant pool for review to 1301 compared to 1323 applicants reviewed during actual recruitment, while the pediatrics filters identified 514 applicants compared to 384 at baseline. The surgery filters resulted in 582 applicants, but data were missing for baseline comparison. Compared to the baseline screening approach utilizing scores, mission-based filters increased the proportions of underrepresented in medicine applicants selected for review in IM (54.8% [95% CI 52.1–57.5] vs 22.7% [20.4–24.9], P < .0001) and pediatrics (63.2% [95% CI 59.1–67.4] vs 25.3% [20.9–29.6], P < .0001). Conclusions Program directors can leverage existing ERAS features to conduct application screening in alignment with holistic review principles. Widespread implementation could have important repercussions for enhancing physician workforce diversity.

Racial Discrimination in Housing: How Landlords Use Algorithms and Home Visits to Screen Tenants

An extensive literature documents racial discrimination in housing, focusing on its prevalence and effect on non-White populations. This article studies how such discrimination operates, and the intermediaries who engage in it: landlords. A fundamental assumption of racial discrimination research is that gatekeepers such as landlords are confronted with a racially heterogeneous applicant pool. The reality of urban housing markets, however, is that historical patterns of residential segregation intersect with other structural barriers to drive selection into the applicant pool, such that landlords are more often selecting between same-race applicants. Using interviews and observations with 157 landlords in four cities, we ask: how do landlords construct their tenants’ race within racially segmented housing markets, and how does this factor into their screening processes? We find that landlords distinguish between tenants based on the degree to which their behavior conforms to insidious cultural narratives at the intersection of race, gender, and class. Landlords with large portfolios rely on screening algorithms, whereas mom-and-pop landlords make decisions based on informal mechanisms such as “gut feelings,” home visits, and the presentation of children. Landlords may put aside certain racial prejudices when they have the right financial incentives, but only when the tenant also defies stereotypes. In this way, landlords’ intersectional construction of race—even within a predominantly Black or Latino tenant pool—limits residential options for low-income, subsidized tenants of color, burdening their search process. These findings have implications for how we understand racial discrimination within racially homogenous social spheres. Examining landlords’ screening practices offers insight into the role housing plays in how racism continues to shape life outcomes—both explicitly through overt racial bias, and increasingly more covertly, through algorithmic automation and digital technologies.

Preventing Attrition among Women and Minority Police Applicants

Diversifying has been a challenge for police agencies, despite their increased efforts to attract qualified candidates. Even when recruiters manage an adequately diverse applicant pool, the dropout rate of candidates throughout the notably long hiring process threatens the representativeness of the applicant pool. Thus, police agencies are eager to examine why applicants—especially women and minority applicants—withdraw from the hiring process to address any common reasons and retain desirable candidates. To explore reasons for withdrawal, 143 women and minority police applicants who withdrew from the hiring process reported their reason for withdrawal during a telephone interview conducted in the spring and summer of 2016. The primary reasons for applicant attrition, after changing their mind or another personal reason, was finding other employment and the length of the hiring process. Recommendations for policy include increasing communication to applicants, shortening the hiring process and hiring on a continuous basis. Implications are discussed.