Progress or prejudice? Medical school admissions committee members exhibit nuanced responses to applicants revealing bipolar disorder on applications

Mental health conditions can be highly relevant to a student's academic journey, given the challenges, and sometimes strengths, they can provide. However, medical school applicants may be unsure about whether to reveal mental health conditions in their application materials. Prior work has shown that medical school admissions committee members do not show bias against an applicant who revealed general mental health struggles on their application when explaining a unique instance of academic underperformance. However, it is unknown how admissions committees would perceive an applicant disclosing a specific stigmatized mental health condition. We used an audit design to examine medical school admissions committee members' perceptions of revealing bipolar disorder on a medical school application. We found no differences in how participants ranked an applicant's acceptability, competence, or likeability, but 25% of participants in the bipolar applicant condition did mention the applicant's bipolar disorder as a potential concern. The majority of participants in both conditions reported that an applicant revealing bipolar disorder would be perceived neutrally if done to explain a period of poor academic performance. However, many participants perceived that revealing would be detrimental if they do not highlight that they are managing the condition. Our results indicate that while revealing bipolar disorder in a medical school application to explain poor academic performance does not seem to affect acceptance, this decision still risks eliciting negative perceptions related to bipolar disorder.<b>NEW & NOTEWORTHY</b> This is the first study to examine medical school admissions committee member perceptions about applicants revealing bipolar disorder, including what could make revealing beneficial or detrimental to their application.