Got Score Back - would like some advice

[SteelResolve]

Got a 243/86. Knew I could do that well but it was a pleasant surprise as it was 10 points higher than any practice test I took (though I only did NBME 13 and one UWorld practice test).

Went through the first two years around the middle of the pack (mainly passes, got high pass one block and honors in a couple of the bedside/clinical classes). Again though without knowing anything about class rank would guess I'm right around the mean. I did research last summer with some pretty cool cutting edge stuff but thus far have no publications out of it. Just started third year and am still getting the hang of it but I feel like I can stand out more in rotations than I did in the classroom setting in the first two years.

Anywho I am pretty undecided on specialty, I just wanted to see what people here who know things thought of what specialties I would be competitive for. I realize my score is competitive for pretty much everything, but I was curious as to how much my average grades and lack of publications to this point counterbalanced that.

Also if people have some advice on how to really add to the resume in the third year (outside of doing well with rotations grades). I would be happy to hear it.

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[mdeast]

Got a 243/86. Knew I could do that well but it was a pleasant surprise as it was 10 points higher than any practice test I took (though I only did NBME 13 and one UWorld practice test).

Went through the first two years around the middle of the pack (mainly passes, got high pass one block and honors in a couple of the bedside/clinical classes). Again though without knowing anything about class rank would guess I'm right around the mean. I did research last summer with some pretty cool cutting edge stuff but thus far have no publications out of it. Just started third year and am still getting the hang of it but I feel like I can stand out more in rotations than I did in the classroom setting in the first two years.

Anywho I am pretty undecided on specialty, I just wanted to see what people here who know things thought of what specialties I would be competitive for. I realize my score is competitive for pretty much everything, but I was curious as to how much my average grades and lack of publications to this point counterbalanced that.

Also if people have some advice on how to really add to the resume in the third year (outside of doing well with rotations grades). I would be happy to hear it.

Congrats! You're competitive for everything. If you decide on a competitive specialty that requires research, it might not be a bad idea to try and take a year off after 3rd year and do research in that area.

If you decide that you actually enjoy a non-competitive specialty more, you'll find that your match process will probably be a lot less stressful (at least from the standpoint of getting interviews) than other people.

I'd concentrate more on figuring out what specialty you love during 3rd year and doing well on clerkships and cross the hurdle of figuring other factors once you've figured that out. Not much point in investing time in research/etc. until you've decided on what specialty track you want to pursue. In other words, wasting time on rads research while you might end up doing emergency medicine or ENT (random examples) will just take away from your clinical performance and might not add much to your residency application. On thing you could do- When on clinical rotations, if you find a particular specialty interesting, maybe try and work out a case report to write with an attending or resident.

Also, despite popular belief, most people (even competitive specialties) enter ERAS without having a 1st author publication (or, often, any publications at all). Some competitive specialties don't even really care about research.

Also curious...what's the 86 mean?