Boards part 1

[dtrack22]

Actually their graduated class had 100% pass rate on both part 1 and part 2 and did well on match with only 3 scrambling; I believe they all got spots.

Western has been consistent with their first time pass rates, 2013 was 81% (22/27) and 2014 was 78.5% (22/28). I'm not sure about residency placement though as the person who posted 100% may have jumped the gun as that post was edited.

Western is capped at 49 students and 2016 is the first class to take all 49. However, each class since 2013 has gotten larger. Again, this is just my observation, but without more applicants any school who increases their class size is more than likely going to lower board pass rates and residency placement statistics. So I guess I wouldn't be shocked if 2015's first time pass rate is lower than 2014's...

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[Shireiqiang]

the only podiatry school that takes all its courses with medical students

azpod, dmu?

 

[JEB88]

Azpod takes every single class with the DO's except except the pod and DO specific courses like OMM. I think there is both an upside and downside to this. The upside being it prepares you for boards the downside being less podiatry specific courses/hands on that some of the other colleges get to see (most of 2nd yr I felt like a DO). What I here back from some graduates and 4th year students is that some of those schools that are not with paired with DO/MD programs are very good with their clinical skills.

 

[dtrack22]

This further proves that the APMLE is a flawed test. The only podiatry school that takes all its courses with medical students and they don't have > 90% pass rate with such a small class?

Medical school courses don't prepare you enough for a podiatry board exam???

A minimal competency podiatry exam??? Come on now.

I think it makes sense. What one subject makes up 20% of our scored exam? If you don't have a second, detailed LEA course you are going to struggle on many of those questions. Nobody is acing the rest of the exam with how random and detailed those questions are, so you have to get a big chunk of the LEA questions right to pass.

 

[TimmyT]

Azpod takes every single class with the DO's except except the pod and DO specific courses like OMM. I think there is both an upside and downside to this. The upside being it prepares you for boards the downside being less podiatry specific courses/hands on that some of the other colleges get to see (most of 2nd yr I felt like a DO). What I here back from some graduates and 4th year students is that some of those schools that are not with paired with DO/MD programs are very good with their clinical skills.

It's one thing to take the same class. And it another thing to take the same class with all the SAME exams throughout the entire first two years. The dental students at western technically take the same classes as the DO's also, but they take a diluted course because the exams are a lot easier. HUGE difference. I personally think our part I boards is really based on luck.

 

[JEB88]

It's one thing to take the same class. And it another thing to take the same class with all the SAME exams throughout the entire first two years. The dental students at western technically take the same classes as the DO's also, but they take a diluted course because the exams are a lot easier. HUGE difference. I personally think our part I boards is really based on luck.[/QUOTE

What schools that combine POD with DO/MD in same classes dilute the material for POD students? We take all the tests with the DO's (265 DO + 30 POD) Same test, Same room, same grading scale....There's no dilution where i'm at.

 

[vegasbound]

I'm in the unfortunate boat of having to retake this exam in Oct.......still trying to accept what happened...does anyone have any idea on how the oct test compares to the july test?? is it the same type of "randomness"? cuz I have absolutley no idea on how to prep for this again

also, what would you say is the pass rate for 2nd time test takers? I searched but cant seem to find the information...

 

[hematosis]

The first time pass rate is usually an 82%. It usually only inc by 3% after 2nd time to 85%.

 

[vegasbound]

so if there were roughly 600 first time takers in 2015 an 82 percent pass rate means rougly 108 ppl failed....if the pass rate overall goes to 85 as you say, that means 90 or so ppl failed the retake?? that doesnt seem right. no disrespect but where did ypu get your percentage from?

 

[trinifootdoc]

.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

so if there were roughly 600 first time takers in 2015 an 82 percent pass rate means rougly 108 ppl failed....if the pass rate overall goes to 85 as you say, that means 90 or so ppl failed the retake?? that doesnt seem right. no disrespect but where did ypu get your percentage from?

First time takers was actually around 570 this year.

I believe the overall pass rate was about 85% last year, but the overall pass rate often is higher than 85% when the October re-take is accounted for, 90% or so is not uncommon.

 

[heybrother]

Thatguy,

Can you provide any perspective/thoughts on the link below taking into account what you've already indicated?

http://www.aacpm.org/html/statistics/PDFs/MatrStats/12-13_Total_Enroll_CLASS.pdf

For example - you indicated ~570 people took the exam. The enrollment was ~600 though for the class year wasn't it?

Do you have any thoughts on the class size of 2016 (yes, I am in that class). We are quite a bit larger than any class size has been for many years aren't we?

(thanks!)

 

[jellybean2020]

so if there were roughly 600 first time takers in 2015 an 82 percent pass rate means rougly 108 ppl failed....if the pass rate overall goes to 85 as you say, that means 90 or so ppl failed the retake?? that doesnt seem right. no disrespect but where did ypu get your percentage from?

If 600 ppl take the test and the pass rate is 82%, then 108 ppl failed. Now the pass rate for the retake is 85%. So 85% X 108 = 91. Therefore only 17 ppl failed the retake. C'mon man, this is really simple math.

 

[shenanigans327]

so if there were roughly 600 first time takers in 2015 an 82 percent pass rate means rougly 108 ppl failed....if the pass rate overall goes to 85 as you say, that means 90 or so ppl failed the retake?? that doesnt seem right. no disrespect but where did ypu get your percentage from?

The first time pass rate is usually an 82%. It usually only inc by 3% after 2nd time to 85%.

If 600 ppl take the test and the pass rate is 82%, then 108 ppl failed. Now the pass rate for the retake is 85%. So 85% X 108 = 91. Therefore only 17 ppl failed the retake. C'mon man, this is really simple math.

ummmmm...........yeah.

 

[hematosis]

If 600 ppl take the test and the pass rate is 82%, then 108 ppl failed. Now the pass rate for the retake is 85%. So 85% X 108 = 91. Therefore only 17 ppl failed the retake. C'mon man, this is really simple math.

No.

 

[jellybean2020]

ummmmm...........yeah.

Lol I misread it as "pass rate for retake is 85%." But I see now you meant the retake raised the pass rate to 85%. I just got owned by myself

 

[shenanigans327]

Lol I misread it as "pass rate for retake is 85%." But I see now you meant the retake raised the pass rate to 85%. I just got owned by myself

Haha no prob... Know what you meant, all in good fun

 

[DrGonz]

There is a very interesting discussion that could be had regarding NYCPM's board scores. The problem is keeping it positive and students who attend the school not getting their feelings hurt. It still provides some evidence for the theory that the real problem is a lack of an applicant pool and no school in the country can get over 100 quality students. There simply aren't enough applicants. In NYCPM's case, a trend back up in class size has correlated with a trend back down in first time pass rates. The numbers are pretty darn accurate but not exact. They are from memory so NY students feel free to correct me.

2013 had ~75 kids in the class during part I: 98% pass rate
2014 was high 80's, maybe right at 90: 95-96% pass rate
2015 had 100 (may have dropped slightly in the last year): 91%

Again, all are above the national average and all would place them above most other schools in the country, so kudos to NY. But it makes you wonder how other programs can take 110, 120, 130 kids every year knowing its gonna drop their scores. In a normal world, it wouldn't happen because those kinds of things damage your reputation and hurt enrollment figures. In the podiatry world, however, you can (for now) keep it a secret and bank on the fact that there are a few hundred kids who just wanna be called Doctor and will go to your school regardless of historical success/failure of your students.

I don't expect much because this is SDN, where reasonable discussion and reading comprehension go to die, but is be curious to hear what the NY kids think about the new sort of "no-nonsense" attitude that their admin has taken and if they believe class size affects board scores and residency placement at all.

I actually enjoy that we post our scores. Even though they are "dropping" we are above average by almost 10%. its something to be proud of, especially since our class is so big!


Will it effect residency placement? I don't think so. You will visit and if they like you you will get the spot ( a few other factors play into this obv lol) but you get my drift. And for now I know that we will stay capped at 110 for a while until the residency debocle is resolved, so if we continue to see our pass rates fall then that is a concern.

 

[dtrack22]

Will it effect residency placement? I don't think so. You will visit and if they like you you will get the spot ( a few other factors play into this obv lol) but you get my drift.

I agree with it not really affecting residency placement, but for different reasons. The more students you have, the more likely you are going to have someone with serious personality or work ethic issues (even though they are "qualified"). Therefore, as class sizes increase, your chance of leaving a kid unmatched increases as well (even more so with a shortage).

NYCPM is unique though in that it can always keep itself somewhat insulated from these problems due to the large number of programs around NYC that frankly, nobody else rotates through. It's because of the number of local programs that I don't think NYC will ever have an issue matching most to all of their grads.

I find it interesting because you guys are at a disadvantage with your 4th year schedule, especially during a shortage, but it hasn't seemed to matter. It will be interesting in a couple years when programs are still tight and the class size continues to outgrow the number of local programs.

 

[HaimFeldman]

This further proves that the APMLE is a flawed test. The only podiatry school that takes all its courses with medical students and they don't have > 90% pass rate with such a small class?

Medical school courses don't prepare you enough for a podiatry board exam???

A minimal competency podiatry exam??? Come on now.

Or it further proves that taking courses with DOs has very little to do with the education you're receiving, because students from the pod schools that don't are doing just as well. The material being taught at all these schools is more or less the same.

 

[josebiwasabi]

I actually enjoy that we post our scores. Even though they are "dropping" we are above average by almost 10%. its something to be proud of, especially since our class is so big!

definitely agree with that statement. i think it reflects a paradigm shift in our school's administration towards greater transparency, which is something that i wholeheartedly support.

imo pre-pods should be very wary of any school that doesn't publish their first-time and total pass rates somewhere prominently on the school's website. it's true that a good student will be able to pass the boards at any school but i think things like this reflect the values of each school's administration.

fortunately this shouldn't be a problem anymore, since i believe schools are supposed to publish all their numbers starting this year.

I agree with it not really affecting residency placement, but for different reasons. The more students you have, the more likely you are going to have someone with serious personality or work ethic issues (even though they are "qualified"). Therefore, as class sizes increase, your chance of leaving a kid unmatched increases as well (even more so with a shortage).

NYCPM is unique though in that it can always keep itself somewhat insulated from these problems due to the large number of programs around NYC that frankly, nobody else rotates through. It's because of the number of local programs that I don't think NYC will ever have an issue matching most to all of their grads.

I find it interesting because you guys are at a disadvantage with your 4th year schedule, especially during a shortage, but it hasn't seemed to matter. It will be interesting in a couple years when programs are still tight and the class size continues to outgrow the number of local programs.

i agree with your assessment but i think it'll be very interesting to see how things end up beginning with the class of 2014, as it seems like NYCPM has an increasing amount of non-northeast natives enrolling. i think we're going to see more students from NYCPM going to programs in other geographic regions than the tri-state/new england area.

 

[CaptainCool]

Just out of curiosity, I've always heard that NYCPM makes their class take a boards pretest, and if they don't pass they can't sit for the boards. Is this true?

 

[josebiwasabi]

Just out of curiosity, I've always heard that NYCPM makes their class take a boards pretest, and if they don't pass they can't sit for the boards. Is this true?

False, everyone who passed their preclinical classes sit for the boards. This includes students who may have failed subjects not on part 1 such as pod surg, research methods/epidemiology, anesthesiology, etc.

 

[DrGonz]

I find it interesting because you guys are at a disadvantage with your 4th year schedule, especially during a shortage, but it hasn't seemed to matter. It will be interesting in a couple years when programs are still tight and the class size continues to outgrow the number of local programs.

What chu talkin about willis?

aka why are we at a disadvantage w/ our 4th year sched? b/c we get less externships?

Just out of curiosity, I've always heard that NYCPM makes their class take a boards pretest, and if they don't pass they can't sit for the boards. Is this true?

yea def not... although we do have a capstone after our 3rd year that we have to pass in order to move on to our fourth year which is kind of like a boards part 1 1/2

 

[dtrack22]

Yes, because you have less externships

 

[OhEmGee]

Yes, because you have less externships

I did not realize that 5 was not the norm. How many are the other schools doing?

 

[dtrack22]

DMU lets students go in June and every month is free to do externships. So 7 between June and December.

 

[DrGonz]

(until dtrack22 quotes me super secret statistics from DMU's vault of knowledge stating that 25.663333555% of DMU students actually matched into their December month).

LOL

 

[dtrack22]

a handful of kids from our school alone end up at their December program every year. Maybe we are the only school to email out to younger students where everyone in the previous years rotated and then which program they are at? With a little work it would be easy to figure out a % of students from DMU who got a program they spent a month at in December...

Outside of a few programs, the "best" student will get a shot at the program no matter when they rotate. Your month there is what matters the most and even big name programs have years where they aren't impressed with their externs throughout the year. There are also programs who consistently have to rank 20+ students to fill 2 or 3 spots. A good student can get that program in December (whether you'd want it is another story). More students wind up at programs that they visited in July, Aug, Sep, and Oct, sure. But a big part of that is due to most students putting their "favorite" programs in those months. There are also schools who give students December off to study for boards/interviews or have many students back in the area for local rotations. So naturally the numbers are going to be skewed. It shouldn't be some big shock that less students match at programs they visited in December than August. But it being worthless for the 99.99% of students that have an externship in December is a gross exaggeration.

With such a tight number of residency spots to graduates, I'd sure want as many months as possible. December included. I'd rather have 7 chances at programs that I like than 6. And I'd rather have a rotation in December than February, March, or April of my 3rd year.

And while we are on the subject. I'd recommend not going to what you think is going to be your "favorite" program in July, only because as a student you don't get a great idea at how the residency will run the other 11 months out of the year. It's harder to evaluate a program in July because you aren't getting a realistic view at how efficient the program runs after the interns have a month or two under their belts. And you've probably just come from a program where the 3rd years had completed all 3 years and the July 3rd years are only a few days removed from being 2nd years. It should be easy to make that distinction, but you have to constantly remind yourself to compare them to the 2nd years at your last program. This has nothing to do with not being able to get the program if you are there in July. People who think that residents and attendings aren't always paying attention and evaluating future co-residents are kidding themselves.

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

December is worthless for 99.99% of students (until dtrack22 quotes me super secret statistics from DMU's vault of knowledge stating that 25.663333555% of DMU students actually matched into their December month).

Funny you should mention this... We did have a residency presentation yesterday by a guy who rotated through the program in January...

Hahaha, he said he was at the program for a total of 8 days but really liked what he saw and he ranked them number 1 and got it!

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

DMU achieved a 92.25% first time pass rate, and 100% overall pass rate!

I'm interested to hear Scholl's and the other school's that also wait for the second round to release info. So far we have reliable info from AZPOD and NYCPM. I know Sam Meritt, Temple, and Kent (I think Kent?) won't release their scores ever, but what about Barry, Scholl, and Western?

 

[podd007]

Which months are the most critical?

 

[hematosis]

DMU achieved a 92.25% first time pass rate, and 100% overall pass rate!

I'm interested to hear Scholl's and the other school's that also wait for the second round to release info. So far we have reliable info from AZPOD and NYCPM. I know Sam Meritt, Temple, and Kent (I think Kent?) won't release their scores ever, but what about Barry, Scholl, and Western?

Barry class of 2015 had 100% pass rate. Not sure about western or scholl.

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

Barry class of 2015 had 100% pass rate. Not sure about western or scholl.

Do you know first time??

If average is 83% first time, and DMU, AZPOD, NYCPM, and maybe Barry scored in 90%, that leaves a pretty big gap for the other schools...

 

[EggRolls]

WesternU obtained 100% pass-rate after retake. Based on these 100% pass rates, it is pretty likely that the residency shortage will be present for the upcoming future classes unless urgent changes are done.

 

[hematosis]

WesternU obtained 100% pass-rate after retake. Based on these 100% pass rates, it is pretty likely that the residency shortage will be present for the upcoming future classes unless urgent changes are done.

Roughly 570 students from the c/o 2015 took boards part one. Even with an overall average of 90%, it brings the total students to 513. Boards part 2 CS and CK will bring it down to below 500. Currently there is over 540 spots. Therefore, There will be more than enough residency spots for the class of 2015 leaving approx. 50 to 60 spots for unmatched students from previous years. Just rough estimated here.

 

[podiatrydream]

I must admit: I was a bit skeptical about all of the advice on here about how to pass boards part 1, but I must admit that I went ahead and took the advice anyway at only studying lower, micro, and pharm (some physio and VERY LITTLE biochem). I totally ignored First Aid (except for micro and some pharm), Upper and Pathology were out of sight out of mind. After taking the test, I could have sworn that I failed boards (guessed at over 100 questions); however, I felt very confident about LEA and Micro/Immun, felt OK about pharm, but felt the rest (Biochem, physio, upper and path) was a complete disaster...I knew very little! Sure enough, the guys on here were right (THANKS A MILLION FOR EVEYTHING!!!!)...I'VE NOTICED you can pass with mostly knowing LEA, micro, and one of the other subjects IF YOU A-CE THEM OR B-EAST THEM. Also, if I were you, I would at least know emphasized topics covered in physio (i.e. everything about Na, K+, Ca2+ (at the cellular, SM, Sk-M, and Cardiac muscle level), H+ (Cellular/ATP, renal/Acid-base, etc.), Mg2+, BICARBONATE, ALCOHOL, etc., lung capacity (volume capacity = VC, inspired and expired, etc.) acid-base regulation/renal, CARDIO, etc. I would ALSO know popular enzymes in biochem. ALSO, KNOW THE BRACHIAL PLEXUS (boards like these questions because the arm and hand is very similar to the leg and foot). Know blood supply to the brain and what it affects (e.g. If a 12 yo child has damage to his/her speech methods from a car accident, what supply is damaged? ANSWER: middle cerebral...EASY QUESTION IF YOU KNEW WHAT SUPPLIES WERNICKE'S AND BROCA'S AREAS). GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!

 

[pod87]

Can anyone recommend a good question book/question bank, or just a general source of questions to use in the weeks leading up to the exam? I already have most of the review material that was previously suggested by many people (FA, LEA school notes, Micro Made Ridic. Simple, BRS Physio...etc.) but I am still unsure as to what to use to test myself on the material I reviewed, especially for big subjects like LEA. Has anyone used UWorld or Kaplan Qbank, and if so, did you find them useful and relevant? I tend to learn a lot from answer explanations, so any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

 

[jasechabigj]

I’d recommend board vital for practice questions. Another Huge recommendation I have is for studying physiology. I always hated Phys BUT there are new video up on YouTube by Ninja nerd, WATCH THEM! All the phys you need to do well on the boards.

 

[Weirdy]

I’d recommend board vital for practice questions. Another Huge recommendation I have is for studying physiology. I always hated Phys BUT there are new video up on YouTube by Ninja nerd, WATCH THEM! All the phys you need to do well on the boards.

Last reply was 4 years ago...