How would we know? I'm not being rude but i'm genuinely lost here because i don't think anyone knows yet
It's not. We're at an age where DOs can comfortably match General Surgery if they put in the work and achievement.
You’ll be fine. Do as well as you can, but unless you are a very low performing student General Surgery is a very reasonable goal.
You can't. SDN will have the anecdotes to support our preconceived notions, but the NRMP match statistics will look the same. I suppose you will see an average increase in USMLE Step 2 CK scores from prior years across the board.
General Surgery Residency Application Evaluation in a USMLE Step 1 Pass/Fail World: A Retrospective Comparison
Introduction The United States Medical Licensure Exam (USMLE) Step 1 has been used as both a licensing exam and a way for residency programs to evaluate applicants. It has had significant impact upon the match process over time. With the 2020 decision to make the exam pass/fail due to its...www.journalofsurgicalresearch.com
Interesting study from one program. Their rank list would have significantly changed if Step 1 was not a part of the ranking equation.
I just graduated from one of these established "low-tier" MD school. Generally, low tier schools have more distinguishing factors to set students apart - graded clinical years, AOA, class rank etc.
General Surgery Residency Application Evaluation in a USMLE Step 1 Pass/Fail World: A Retrospective Comparison
Introduction The United States Medical Licensure Exam (USMLE) Step 1 has been used as both a licensing exam and a way for residency programs to evaluate applicants. It has had significant impact upon the match process over time. With the 2020 decision to make the exam pass/fail due to its...www.journalofsurgicalresearch.com
Interesting study from one program. Their rank list would have significantly changed if Step 1 was not a part of the ranking equation.
I don’t understand the part about Dr Carmody, I thought he was doing a good job by advocating for transparency in Step + complaining about how NRMP, AAMC etc are all for-profit companies and that Step is just to fill the pockets of the rich?
One rank below my school
That would be the only way to explain it yeah, that everyone is getting perfect scores in every other category so that losing a couple points of the 5% step 1 component drops your tertile. They either made a mistake or 95% of their system is useless.
Honestly having talked to a few people on the other side of the curtain, they’ve all unanimously agreed that most of the rank list is completely arbitrary. They all have stated that there is usually lots of opinions at who should be at the top, and then strong opinions about who should be at the bottom, but the middle of the list is largely interchangeable with itself. I can see how when you have a bunch of applicants that all look very similar (seeing as you screened the apps for certain things and then invited people from that pool) you would just rank according to academics and that 5% would heavily change the list.
He put in a ton of legwork to give a great concise history of the USMLE, the Match, and the constellation of factors that led to Step 1 Mania. That's all fantastic stuff.
Ehhh, Several low tier schools have gotten rid of AoA or took the minimum class rank out of consideration and/or changed everything to P/F. Some schools went as far as changing clerkships to P/F which I suspect will have a tremendously negative impact on their match outcomes as many programs use scoring for rank lists that include clerkship grades. They will be able to match successfully, but the competitive specialties will be a huge uphill battle for these folks unfortunately.
is this per year?Yeah I though so too but check out VTech. I waste a lot of time advising people about what schools to choose via PM and someone told me VT is P/F for M1-4 and even clerkships. To my knowledge they only use superlatives. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure how they do it.
Past Matches by Specialty
medicine.vtc.vt.edu
Started counting. Way too many to be by year which is a good point that they could just be displaying their alltime match list. Let me look for better data.
My understanding is VT is actually fairly academic in nature. I.e. they recruit for students that have research heavy apps, which could lead to them punching above their tier weight in the match.Yeah I though so too but check out VTech. I waste a lot of time advising people about what schools to choose via PM and someone told me VT is P/F for M1-4 and even clerkships. To my knowledge they only use superlatives. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure how they do it.
Past Matches by Specialty
Yeah, VT matches pretty well and recent CK scores average 248. It's newer school and thus not as well known without strong reputation yet. With P/F all four years, I'm not sure how they match so well. Academically strong students maybe, but their incoming average GPA is one of the lowest. They're doing something right.
Step 1 + Step 2 + Research I would assume. I bet they also show shelf scores or something on there.
Same experience, knowing what site to pick / who to ask for evals mattered way more than effort
School name and prestige may matter for T20 or so but not so much after that. With Step 1 P/F, things like research, LORs, away rotations, clinical grades, and certainly Step 2 CK will factor heavily. I think VTech (with P/F clinicals) must do an outstanding job helping their students prepare for residency -- in terms of Step2 CK performance, residency app preparation, letters, interview prep, etc.
I agree, puzzling how they get those higher scores. It might be that VTech achieves the 248 CK average by more thoroughly preparing their students for the exam. Their Step 1 average is a very pedestrian 234, maybe reflecting the very good but not outstanding students they matriculate. Somehow those same caliber students average 248 on Step 2. It's such a small class size, the individual attention and coaching they get (especially in year 3) might be the wild card(?) Agree, VTech might be a model that could support P/F for clinicals across the board.
A 248 on step 2 isn't meaningfully different from a 234 on step 1 when you look at the percentiles.
Yeah this seems inevitable. CK is a test you can take as an afterthought past ERAS with 10-14 days review and still do well on. Having everyone gun 110% at it for several years is going to make it fall apart
Why aren't med leaders proposing caps and tokens to tackle the overapplication problem? All we're doing is removing standardized scores while allowing the flood of apps to continue
Hmm, I don't think 248 is average. Only 12 schools have average CK over 250 (per @DataKing) --- Penn, Wash U, Vandy, Michigan, Sinai, Cornell, Baylor, UTSW, UVA, Ohio St., Northwestern, and Florida.
The NRMP publishes percentiles, 245 is the current CK national average. Even a 250 is a pretty meaningless difference. Schools having step 1 averages in the high 240s was much more significant
