OK I will get this thread started. I know it is weird to give this info, but I found this extremely helpful last year when figuring out how "competetive" I was. I urge as many people as possible to post their info and please be honest! Also, all types of applicants would be great. Last year, there was a ton of 250 on step 1 etc that is really not represenative of everybody applying.

Step 1: 234
Step 2: 242

Honors in Medicine, OB, Psych, Sub-I. HP in peds, family, surgery
non-AOA
Top 30 school
Zero publications
No real extra curriculars worth mentioning (I'm married :) )

INTERVIEWS
BU
BIDMC
U of Chicago
Northwestern
Univ of Washington, Seattle
UCLA and affiliates
UCSD
UC Davis

REJECTIONS
BW
MGH
UCSF (I even did an away rotation here :confused: )
Stanford

Overall, I am very happy with my interviews with the exception of UCSF. Those top places are tough! Oh well, I wish the best of luck to all future applicants and remember to RELAX!!!! Everything happens for a reason.

I also found this helpful last year in determining what places to apply.

DO applicant:

Step 1 - 245 COMLEX 1 - 685
Step 2 - 249 COMLEX 2 - 752

Honors in all 3rd year rotations expect Surgery
no medical school research, 2 years as an undergrad (please mention it on your application, I didn't, and was told on several interviews that I did myself a great disservice)
lots of tutoring and community service in medical school

INTERVIEWS:
Dartmouth
Yale
NYU
UMDNJ-RWJMS
Temple
Emory
Cleveland Clinic
Ohio State
Wisconsin
Rush Univ.
Iowa
OHSU

REJECTIONS:
BIDMC
Cornell
Tufts

Hope this helps.

Wow guys ... I can't believe with those step scores you didn't even get an invite to the top programs.

Well ... I'm screwed... I go to a bottom tier MD med school with an avg step score of 208. I hope to be able to get in the 220's (I take the beast in june), which would be high for my school.

I really wanted to have a chance at hopkins but I don't think I can pull a 250 on step. I think there is no way.

Thx for posting this stuff ... it is really helpful.

this is for a down to earth applicant: from Michigan applying in midwest

step 1:201
step 2:216

interview:
Wayne State
Michigan State
Case Western
Ohio state
U of Cincinatti
Wright State(dayton. Ohio)
Indiana U
U of Illinois-Chicago
Rush
Community programs in Michigan

didn't apply to U of Mich because I want to train in inner city

reject:
Hopkins

From personal and others' experiences from last year, unless you are somehow very very stellar, you will not get interviews at UCSF, Hahvahd, or Hopkins without AOA.

US-IMG from caribbean med school
3.8 Basic Sciences gpa
4.0 Clinical Sciences gpa

Step1: 232
Step2: 244

3 publications....1 poster

and i have one hell of a smile.....

Interviews:
Drexel
Umdnj-newark
suny upstate
suny downstate
suny stonybrook
St. Vincents-Manhattan
St Lukes Roosevelt
Lennox Hill
Temple
Suny Buffalo
Albany med ctr.
Univ of Arizona
Jackson Memorial-Miami
Winthrop
NYHQ
Maimonides
St. Barnabas-NJ
Case Western
Univ of Okhlahoma
Univ of Kansas
UMass

is this another self-ego boosting thread

i'm sorry, but this thread and all others like are useless. i don't know what use it is to spend all that time posting your scores, grades, and other academic stats while leaving out so much other pertinent information. if you want to be helpful to future applicants, you need to give them the full picture, not some filtered version that just showcases the impressive parts of your application, in order to put it all into context and give people a sense of what you had or didn't have that led to the interviews and/or rejections you received. if you're going to post your step 1 and 2 scores, why not just say what school you're at too? "top 30 med school" to me just sounds like a euphemistic way of saying that us news ranked it #29.

all these threads do is make future applicants worried that unless they have similar stats, they won't get interviews at the same places. likewise, it creates false reassurance and hopes for those who do have similar stats, yet their confidence takes a hit when they start getting rejections from places that invited others with the same stats. letters of rec are extremely significant, as are other intangibles in the application, so don't let any of these posts discourage you or make you over-confident when it comes time for you to apply.

all i have to say is i can debunk any applicant's constellation of stats and how they appear to correlate with their interview invitations because my step scores are below average, and since people love to use that as the prognostic indicator of one's success as an applicant, let me assure you that you can get any interview you want, even at places that rejected the ones who post stellar scores. it can be for several reasons, but don't, i repeat don't let anyone give you the sense that your scores and grades are the things that will make or break your application. there's no magic formula or set of stats that determines your fate as an applicant. if you don't believe me, look at the interview invite thread and see how there's no rhyme or reason to who gets invited where...it's very random, and we're all more than a bunch of stats. each application is unique and because of this you can't make generalizations.

I disagree ... PLEASE keep posting guys, this is really helpful trying to decide where to apply AND that I need to do a hell of a lot better on Step 1 then I thought.

Sorry if that other guy is down on it and I don't think it is an ego boosting thread. Its good to see numbers and actual interviews to help me plan my applications.

Also, regarding invites, I have to disagree on scores not getting them for you. My father was PD now Chairman and they way they determine invites at his place is: 1) anyone that does an away rotation gets invite 2) Raise step 1 cutoff to bring apps down to 100.

Yea, I have to echo the sentiment of the last post and strongly disagree that these stats are useless. As an applicant this year, one thing I can tell you, despite what others say- unlike for college or med school even- your stats are weighed a lot more heavily than your extracurriculars and probably your LOR's too (for interview purposes anyway). I get the impression that it makes for good interview chatter and gives a sense of a more well rounded person, but it really seems that at this point (when you're about to become a doctor at their hospital), they care more about is how competent/knowledgable you are. School name is probably not much of a deal breaker, but as a state schooler, you can't get around the "old boys club" and the fact that I'm impressed when anyone says that they're going to Harvard/Hopkins/Stanford gives me the idea that others probably are too. We (students, PD's etc) all know that stats don't summarize a person blah blah blah. But you have to stop deluding yourself that they don't screen based on numbers and most programs want to stack their roster with intelligent, well rounded, exuberant kids who happen to be AOA with a 260. If you're a coach do you want Peyton or Eli? Luckily for me, these people are a rare commodity:luck:
I consider myself very hopeful about the application process. However, optimism is one thing, distortion of reality is another. Like it or not, a 210 and passing every clerkship is not going to get you an interview at MGH. If it does, you are the exception and deserve a pat on a the back and a book deal to explain how you did it.

Incidentally, my medical school (though not top 30 :-) ) has a collection of the statistics of where people matched and what their grades and boards were for the past 10 years. It's an invaluable tool to help you learn where you're competitive at and saves many, I think, the agony of rejection but more often provides a sense of "Wow, if he got in there, I can too!" . It works both ways. I agree that to place your entire self esteem based on these numbers almost guarantees you disappointment (you may get rejected by safeties) but that doesn't mean that you can't constructively use this data. Keep it up. As the plaque on of Faber College in Animal House says "Knowledge is Good".

This may be too public of a forum for people to post their stats, but I would definitely urge applicants to check out if their school has data on this stuff.

I disagree ... PLEASE keep posting guys, this is really helpful trying to decide where to apply AND that I need to do a hell of a lot better on Step 1 then I thought.

Were you planning on studying less before you saw these posts? Do you think any of us wanted an "average" score, or were satisfied if we weren't above the mean? And what are you going to do if you don't score as high as you'd like? Just throw in the towel and not bother applying to places because you think that you're just a score and that's the most important measure of your aptitude and potential as a resident?

It doesn't matter to me that your dad was a PD...I'm telling you that my score wasn't anything to brag about and I got invited to interview at nearly every place I applied, many of them "top" places. Thankfully there are a lot of PDs that aren't like your dad, and I am so glad I didn't take anything he said into consideration when applying. Otherwise I would have shortchanged myself and underestimated my potential.

I have a hard time believing that threads like these suddenly make students do something different when it comes to step 1...like they weren't going to study for it and wing it, but now all the sudden they're going to study harder because they only now realize that they want to score well...come on!

The only thing that would truly be helpful and worthwhile is if the program you're interested in listed the scores of everyone they invited, so you could see the average score, median, std. deviation,etc. Then you could get a REAL idea of what it takes. Publications are important, too. Letter of rec are critical. Your med school is important. If you go to a top 10 med school, that alone will get your application more attention than a similarly qualified applicant from a lower ranked school. And with AOA, there are a few schools that don't even award AOA until late in 4th year, after the match, so that's not even a factor if you go to certain schools (to those who claim AOA status is a must...not at my school! for years people have been matching at hopkins, ucsf, and harvard, so that myth is completely false). I could go on but what's the point....if you don't have anything else on your application to impress a program, then I guess you have to dwell on your board scores.

Mcindoe, way to take the high road and insult someone's father. Jackass.

I did not insult him. I said how glad I was that most other PDs at the places to which I've applied don't do as he does, cause I wouldn't have had much success this year in getting interviews if my board scores were so central in deciding who gets invited. I disagreed with him, and I'm entitled to my opinion.

I will, though, take the high road now and not insult you, as tempting as it may be. You may want to follow your own advice the next time you call someone a jackass.

I have to say I agree with mcindoe. Rather than rely on a bunch of anonymous, insufficient data, I would recommend talking to someone at your school whom you trust and who has access to your entire application. Also, there are other things that go into a good program rather than the name. I interviewed at Hopkins this year and was really turned off by their arrogance. Yeah, it might be cool to say "I'm training at Hopkins," but if you can't stand the place, what good does it do for you? The strength of the training available at a program should certainly be one of your top considerations, but other things may be important to you as well, like teaching opportunities, location, friendliness, etc.

I find these posts as ego-boosters and really pretty annoying. Congratulations for getting above a 240 on step 1 and getting 35 interviews. But I think the majority of us don't really care.

I have to disagree with a few of you. I actually found these stats to be helpful when I applied. It would be great to have someone look at my entire application and tell me where I stand, but unfortunately such a system does not exist at my school. You're pretty much on your own for the application process. As far as taking these stats and applying them to yourself, based on my interview invites I found that there was a good deal of correlation as far as other posters' board scores/clinical year grades and the invites that I received. That is not to say that certain board scores/clinical year grades equals an invite to MGH etc, but they do provide some indication as to what kinds of scores people have to get an invite to some of these places. With that being said, I have gotten interviews at places that I did not think that I had good enough of stats of getting interviews at and I have also gotten rejections at places that I thought I would be well-qualified for. So as are all things in life, nothing is black and white. And I do feel that these stats helped me in trying to figure out where I stood.

Hey guys, I honestly wasn't trying to create hard feelings. I was just trying to pass on information as I have seen it.

Look, I'm goinig to bust my butt for Step 1, but honestly, I think a 250 is out of my league so I better just accept Hopkins is out, this thread really made me realize I need to target a 235-240 if I can and likely I'll make the cut for some top IM programs.

As far as the application process, it is what it is and we have to deal with it. Doctors who have a clinical practice just can't read 1200 applications, so I think the step 1 filter is one efficient way they use to cut it down. But, also, like I said, i fyou do an away you'll get an invite ... so if you really want the place there is an option beyond the scores.

Anyway, good luck to everyone!

Mcindoe, way to take the high road and insult someone's father. Jackass.

I must say being hypocritical is one of your strengths

Everyone's right. That was really hypocritical and just bad taste overall. Totally unnecessary and I'm sorry, mcindoe and everyone else.

If this is useful fine, if not just ignore.
Top 15 depending on the year med school
Clinical Honors: All except psych
Senior AOA
Step1 240s
StepII did not take yet
Research: Pretty strong. 1 publication a couple of awards.
Demonstrated leadership ECs

Interviews:
OHSU
UC Davis
UCSF
Stanford
UCLA
Mayo
Michigan
UVA
Duke
UNC
Pitt
Brigham
MGh
Brown
Yale

rejects: nada

It seems to me that a big part of my good luck was doing research with a big dog in my field of interest. everywhere I go, people ask about him and our research and his letter I think carries a lot of weight. I also looked at these when I was applying and thought they were helpful. Anyone who tries to built up their ego on SDN just needs to unplug and get out more.

US-IMG from caribbean med school
3.8 Basic Sciences gpa
4.0 Clinical Sciences gpa

Step1: 232
Step2: 244

3 publications....1 poster

and i have one hell of a smile.....

Interviews:
Drexel
Umdnj-newark
suny upstate
suny downstate
suny stonybrook
St. Vincents-Manhattan
St Lukes Roosevelt
Lennox Hill
Temple
Suny Buffalo
Albany med ctr.
Univ of Arizona
Jackson Memorial-Miami
Winthrop
NYHQ
Maimonides
St. Barnabas-NJ
Case Western
Univ of Okhlahoma
Univ of Kansas
UMass

Thanks for posting. It is very helpful. What are your top 5 programs that you will be ranking?

my top 5:
1. St. Barnabas
2. NYHQ
3. Maimonides
4. Winthrop
5. Lenox Hill

my top 5:
1. St. Barnabas
2. NYHQ
3. Maimonides
4. Winthrop
5. Lenox Hill


Any reason you are not ranking any of the university programs ahead? Do you want to pursue a fellowship?

i want to go to a small community program and pursue primary care....i see no need to do a fellowship..i just want to start working as soon as possible and not prolong the suffering with a fellowship

i want to go to a small community program and pursue primary care....i see no need to do a fellowship..i just want to start working as soon as possible and not prolong the suffering with a fellowship

Thanks for the useful input.

US img from Carib

Step 1 230
step 2 235
1 clinical poster (1st place APC comp.)\
graduated in june ....currently doing research at top 3 med school

interviews

Lsu x2
SLU
Medical University of South Carolina
U Conn
U of A
University of Louisville
University of Kentucky
Michican State University
UAB
UMASS
University of Hawaii
East Carolina University
Maine Medical Center
Mercer
East Virginia Medical School
University of Florida/ Jacksonville
PH/University of South Carolina
U Mississippi
Medical College of Georgia

.....and a butt laod of rejections

Dr. ZZ you went to all those interviews? thats like 5-7,000 grands in airfares, car rentals, hotels etc etc!!