For the head of admissions at a medical school, Dr. Mark Henderson is pretty blunt when sizing up the profession. “Mostly rich kids get to go to medical school,” he said. In his role at the medical school at the University of California, Davis, Dr. Henderson has tried to change that, developing an unorthodox tool to evaluate applicants: the socioeconomic disadvantage scale, or S.E.D. The disadvantage scale has helped turn U.C. Davis into one of the most diverse medical schools in the country — notable in a state that voted in 1996 to ban affirmative action.

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Persons: Mark Henderson, ”, Davis, Dr, Henderson, U.C Organizations: University of California