Introducing myself

[lapimi]

Hello everyone, I just wanted to introduce myself to the forums. I'm a med student and I'm interested in going into neurosurgery. I've only just spent about 5 mins or so going through a few posts here, and I've seen excellent board scores being stressed as one of the main things to strengthen one's application. How important though are other things such as GPA, research etc. I'm guessing as with all applications, the more (of a good thing) the merrier, but how much will a 4.0GPA help vs. a 3.0 GPA hurt, especially considering that some med schools, unlike mine, are Pass/Fail (or High Pass/Pass/Fail or some other variant)?
Also, I'm eager to know everyone's background as well (med student/resident/know a resident etc.). Do we actually have MDs here on the forum, or do forum members disappear after achieving the ultimate goal (at least for now) - matching Have a great day!

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[mpp]

Just do the best you can. Obviously a 4.0 is better than a 3.0 but a 3.0 will not rule you out from doing neurosurgery. Your Step 1 score will trump the grades you get in the first two years for the most part. Rotations evaluations (especially the core Surgery and Medicine evaluations and your Neurosurgery electives evaluations) will be important as well.

Get involved with the neurosurgery department at Emory as early as you can (now is a good idea). Find out what research is going on and see if you can get yourself involved. Taking a year off to do research is an option that a lot of people use and can be looked highly upon. Attend their meetings and conferences that are generally open to the general public. You'll learn something and they'll get to see that you're interested.

Meet the residents at Emory and find out first hand from them how they went about matching and get good ideas about where to apply and where to do away rotations.

There are people from every background on this forum.