Board Scores

[Andrew_Doan]

Curious what the scores are on this board. Contribute to the poll. It's anonymous.

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[Primate]

Anyone know what the avg/mean and std dev for the 2 and 3 digit scores were the last 2 years? Just curious, as they seem to have changed from year to year.

 

[BeefyRedEye]

This is a great idea for the applicants of next year - vote people!

 

[idoc]

I love the idea of having a Board Score poll, but it really doesn't answer the questions that future applicants want to know. When I applied, I not only wanted to know what board scores were competitive, but also where people applied, how many places they got offers from and where they ended up on their match list. We have got a great group of people here and I wonder if we could set up a more complex, annonymous poll answering these questions. Anyways, I think I'm going to puke...continuously...until friday morning.

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Originally posted by idoc
I love the idea of having a Board Score poll, but it really doesn't answer the questions that future applicants want to know. When I applied, I not only wanted to know what board scores were competitive, but also where people applied, how many places they got offers from and where they ended up on their match list. We have got a great group of people here and I wonder if we could set up a more complex, annonymous poll answering these questions. Anyways, I think I'm going to puke...continuously...until friday morning.

I'll make another poll to address board scores and matching next week. Great idea idoc!

Hang in there... only a few more days.

Man.. there are some that CrUsHeD them boards in this forum. Impressive.

I'm bringing down the average.

 

[Garp]

If the average boards score was 227 for last year's match, I think it's safe to say that the poll isn't that representative of the actual applicants. I didn't even score that high and still got 15 interviews.

 

[Redhawk]

I agree with idoc. There's a lot of info out there about board scores and interview numbers, but I'd really like to know how far successful "matchers" have to go down on their lists on average.

 

[Mirror Form]

Wow, our board scores actually make a pretty nice looking bell curve with the mean around 240. Looks like the SDN ophtho people have a pretty good chance of matching!

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Originally posted by Sledge2005
Wow, our board scores actually make a pretty nice looking bell curve with the mean around 240. Looks like the SDN ophtho people have a pretty good chance of matching!

Looks like the SDN browsers are the above average types.

What's the average on the USMLE now... nationally? When I took it, the mean was 205. It's really gone up, hasn't it?

 

[Redhawk]

The mean when I took it, way back in the summer of 2002, was 216.

 

[TulaneKid24]

Originally posted by Redhawk
The mean when I took it, way back in the summer of 2002, was 216.

The mean in June 2003 was 217.

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Originally posted by TulaneKid24
The mean in June 2003 was 217.

The mean in Aug 1995 was 205.

 

[Primate]

The mean in June 1999 was ~208 or 210, std dev of ~12. I think.

It's been so long, my memories of those days grow hazy.

 

[Visionary]

Originally posted by Garp
If the average boards score was 227 for last year's match, I think it's safe to say that the poll isn't that representative of the actual applicants. I didn't even score that high and still got 15 interviews.

I'm not so sure. I'm betting that ophtho was actually more competitive this year. A mean around 240 sounds reasonable. Many of the programs remarked on the unusually high numbers of applications.

 

[idoc]

With 80 people responding to the above poll, we have about 20% of incoming ophthalmology residents polled. That would seems large enough to be a pretty representative sample.

 

[Redhawk]

With 80 people responding to this poll and less than 40 to the post-match poll, I find it very hard to believe that these scores belong only to those who just went through the matching process.

 

[Mirror Form]

I responded to the board score poll, but I'm a 3rd year and will be applying for ophtho next year. Although, if it turns out you now need 240 to match, i might be applying for ortho instead!

 

[Stark]

Matching ortho is no walk in the park either

 

[PPPD]

I bet the average board scores for ophtho will turn out to be in the low to mid 230's. This year's average ENT scores went up 4-5 points from last year. This year it is 237. Ophtho scores are usually in the same ballpark as ENT, though usually a little less since it's probably slightly less competitive than ENT.

 

[Chanakya]

it looks like ENT is clearly more difficult to get into than optho. 237/228 for matched and 222/218 unmatched. Also, optho has 35 or so IMGs matching. it's just too bad that qualified AMGs didnt match.
chanakya

 

[Andrew_Doan]

bump... may be helpful for applicants

 

[ZR1]

yikes...

 

[GeddyLee]

Well...don't be too discouraged. I'm living proof that board scores don't mean everything. I know the folks from my school who matched had pretty average scores.

 

[loggerd]

This is a quote I received in an email from the NBME regarding recent step 1 test takers. Hope this helps for the applicants this year.

"USMLE score reports include information intended to help in the interpretation of results, including information about the mean score and standard deviation (SD) for a recent group of first-time examinees from US and Canadian medical schools. This information is only used in the text of the reports and does not affect scoring of the examination. Normally, the mean and SD are calculated using a full year's group of examinees and are updated once per year. Unfortunately, the values on the Step 1 score reports for examinees from US and Canadian schools that were reported on July 14, 2004 were based on less than a full year's group of examinees, which is inconsistent with prior years' practice. These score reports listed a mean and SD of 221 and 21. The mean and SD for a full year, which should have appeared in the text of these reports, were 217 and 23, respectively. This has been corrected for score reports released from July 21 onwards. The NBME apologizes for any confusion this may have caused."

 

[Jaded Soul]

This is a quote I received in an email from the NBME regarding recent step 1 test takers. Hope this helps for the applicants this year.

"USMLE score reports include information intended to help in the interpretation of results, including information about the mean score and standard deviation (SD) for a recent group of first-time examinees from US and Canadian medical schools. This information is only used in the text of the reports and does not affect scoring of the examination. Normally, the mean and SD are calculated using a full year's group of examinees and are updated once per year. Unfortunately, the values on the Step 1 score reports for examinees from US and Canadian schools that were reported on July 14, 2004 were based on less than a full year's group of examinees, which is inconsistent with prior years' practice. These score reports listed a mean and SD of 221 and 21. The mean and SD for a full year, which should have appeared in the text of these reports, were 217 and 23, respectively. This has been corrected for score reports released from July 21 onwards. The NBME apologizes for any confusion this may have caused."

Good info for next year's applicants (and all the neurotic people in the USMLE forum), but doesn't apply to this year's group, who took Step 1 in 2003 or earlier.