Mindy Kaling’s Brother: I Faked Being Black To Get Into Medical School

NewImageAnd someone more qualified was turned away from medical school. 

I think of MLK Jr.’s words whenever I read stories like this. 

My graduate school econ professor once said that because of the color quota system, patients always wonder whether their minority doctor got into and thru medical school because of the quota requirement vs. merit. 

In an unintentional stinging rebuke to the idea that institutional racism exists in America, Vijay Chokal-Ingam, brother of The Mindy Project actress Mindy Kaling, admits that he faked being black so he could get into medical school.

Writing in The New York Post, Chokal-Ingam states that he was a model student in high school before joining a fraternity in college and committing “a great deal of effort to fun.”

NewImage

Wanting to be a doctor, he noticed a friend had been refused acceptance to every medical school despite his good grades and test scores. That prompted him to study “the statistics and data made public by the Association of American Medical Colleges,” which led 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.”

Reading about an Indian who lied about his race to gain admission into medical school but got caught because he lied about other things, Chokal-Ingam went a different route:

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.

He got wait-listed at the Washington University School of Medicine, then got accepted into the St. Louis University School of Medicine.

Via the Daily Wire

Right-Mind