For the first time, Yale’s medical school will target gay and lesbian applicants specifically, in the hopes of increasing its LGBT community:
Last month, the medical school released a LGBTQ-specific admissions brochure and plans to release this material in the official informational packets starting with next year’s entering class. Joseph Rojas MED ’11, who designed the pamphlets, said LGBTQ applicants often go to schools in major metropolitan areas rather than Ivy League institutions like Yale, and these brochures will attempt to combat this trend.
“It’s a big step for our medical school to be doing this,” Jorge Ramallo MED ’13, who heads the school’s Gay-Straight Medical Alliance, said. “It will put Yale on the map as a leader in LGBT health, just by making this simple step.”
Ramallo said that the LGBTQ community is often underrepresented as physicians — a difference he likened to disparities in racial and ethnic diversity. He said he did not notice many people in his medical school class who identify themselves as part of the LGBTQ community, he said. The GSMA, in conjuction with the medical school, hope to narrow this gap, he added.
Admissions and admissions marketing to LGBT students remains a controversial issue within and outside the LGBT community. Earlier this year, the Common App considered adding questions about sexual orientation; while groups like Campus Pride, a LGBT-rights group, support these kinds of measures, others say the questions could create additional anxieties for LGBT students, or create more biases in the admissions process.
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