Almost Black ─ The True Story of How I Got into Medical School by Pretending to Be Black

I got into medical school by saying I was black. I lied. Honestly, I am about as black as Gandhi. Once upon a time, I was an ethically challenged, hard-partying Indian American frat boy enjoying my third year of college. That is until I realized I didn’t have the grades or test scores to get into medical school. Legitimately. Still, I was determined to be a doctor and discovered that affirmative action provided a loophole that might help. The only problem? I wasn't a minority. So I became one. I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied as an African American. Not even my own frat brothers recognized me. I joined the Organization of Black Students and used my middle name, Jojo. Vijay, the Indian American frat boy, became Jojo, the African American med school applicant. Not everything went as planned. During a med school interview, an African American doctor angrily confronted me for not being black. Cops harassed me. Store clerks accused me of shoplifting. Women were either scared of me or found my bald black dude look sexually mesmerizing. What started as a scam to get into med school turned into a twisted social experiment, teaching me lessons I would never have learned in the classroom. I became a serious contender at some of America’s greatest schools, including Harvard, Wash U, UPenn, Case Western, George Washington, Pitt, Yale, Rochester, Nebraska, and Columbia. I interviewed at 11 schools while posing as a black man. After all that, I finally got accepted into medical school. Almost Black combines the comic tone of 1986’s Soul Man, starring C. Thomas Howell, Rae Dawn Chong, and James Earl Jones, with the deeply poignant observations of Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin’s classic. Resembling a mashup of the two works (but far more humorous), the hedonistic frat boy discovered something far more than what he’d bargained for while posing as a black man: the seriousness, complexities, and infuriating injustice of America’s racial problems. In Black Like Me, Griffin was a white man posing as a black man in the American South, prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I wasn’t on some intense social mission like he was, but just as Griffin did, I came away changed. Before I finished this book, I stirred a hornet’s nest by telling the story. It’s been featured on more than 100 media outlets, including CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX, TIME, The Guardian, National Review, Washington Post, Salon, Gawker, VOX, VICE, Complex, Buzz Feed, Huffington Post, Daily Mail, and Perez Hilton. Many loved it, but not everyone approved of what I did. My college classmate, Tucker Max (I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell), disapproved. My sister, Mindy Kaling (The Office / The Mindy Project), furiously declared, ?This book will bring shame on our family!” I'll let you be the judge.

Vijay Jojo Chokal-Ingam (Chokalingam) is an ?Affirmative Action Hacktivist” who was successfully admitted to the St. Louis University (SLU) School of Medicine by posing as a black man, despite having a pitifully low GPA. Vijay detailed his misadventures masquerading as a black man in his recent book Almost Black. His story has been featured on more than 100 media outlets, including CNN, NBC, ABC, TIME, FOX, and Huffington Post. Vijay received his B.A. in Economics without distinction from the University of Chicago, where his more academically gifted classmates included Tucker Max (the New York Times best-selling author of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell / Sloppy Seconds and the founder of the ?fratire” literary genre). After failing out of medical school, Vijay got his act together and became a CFA charterholder, an advanced accreditation in finance. He even succeeded in gaining admission to the UCLA Anderson School of Management, a top-ranked business school. This time, Vijay did not pose as a black man, since UCLA does not practice affirmative action in admissions. Professionally, Vijay works as a career coach, resume writer, and admissions consultant for SOSCareerService.com. He has helped thousands of clients get into top educational institutions and secure prestigious jobs by helping them with their resumes, personal statements, application essays, and interview preparation. Vijay is the author of The Definitive Guide to Ace Your Interview and Get the Job, a guide to job interview preparation, available at major retailers. For the record, Vijay NEVER advises his clients to lie about their race in their applications. He is an active member of several writers’ communities, including the GrubStreet creative writing center, the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society, and the UCLA Writers’ Program. Vijay is the brother of Mindy Kaling, actress (The Office), comedian, New York Times best-selling author (Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? / Why Not Me?), and the creator of the Fox and Hulu sitcom The Mindy Project. Visit AlmostBlack.com, follow @almostblack, and use the hashtag #almostblack on Twitter to share your thoughts on Vijay’s book, affirmative action, and beyond.