What % of students at your school get honors?

[MCsoundt]

In each rotation, what percentage of students get honors at your school? Just curious to know the variability among programs.

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[username456789]

Max of 10%.

I am flabbergasted when I hear of schools that give out like 20-30 (or more) % honors.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Hopefully 4th years who have seen their dean's letter can comment on this. I cannot comment just yet.

 

[username456789]

Hopefully 4th years who have seen their dean's letter can comment on this. I cannot comment just yet.

Is it not clearly outlined in your syllabus or school code or some such thing?

My medical school made it pretty clear that to get honors you must earn a grade of "A" and also be within the top 10% of the class to be considered for "honors", in both preclinical and clinical years.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Not that I know off. I was speaking more about 3rd year grades, as those are the most important ones.

Pre-clinical was anywhere between 90 or above; some classes were 93 and above. One was 96% and higher (but it was biostats, so whatev). However, some classes, in order to get 10% of the class, had to drop to ~85% cause the classes were so badly taught.

 

[Mass Effect]

I'm surprised your school doesn't outline all this in your third-year manual/syllabus. At my school, the top 10% for any rotation will get honors or high pass.

 

[DrSnips]

For us, each clerkship director has full authority to set not only the grade cutoffs, but how much each component counts toward the raw score. So some rotations may have the top 7% get honors, while another may have top 20%. Some may make the shelf worth 50%, others might make it 30% and still others may decide to have an oral exam in addition to the shelf, each worth half the total exam grade.
We have one clerkship where the bottom 5% as compared to the previous year automatically fail. Go ahead and imagine that.

 

[Pipers]

The clerkship directors set the cut off for honoring based on evals, shelf, etc. There is no limit to how many people can honor per rotation. Do the work, you earn the honors.

That being said, generally 10-30% get honors per rotation.

 

[tco]

The lack of standardization is hilarious when you think about the fact that PDs look at honors in third year as a major criteria for applicant acceptance.

 

[ijn]

The lack of standardization is hilarious when you think about the fact that PDs look at honors in third year as a major criteria for applicant acceptance.

The whole system is nonsensical. 1st and 2nd year grades more standardized across schools but are deemed unimportant. However a single test based on unimportant 1st and 2nd year material is deemed the most crucial portion of your application before the interview.

And to top it all off the single standardized test based on your third year knowledge is deemed unimportant.

I think it's clear program directors have no clue and we're just trudging along based on historical norms without a real rhyme or reason.

 

[johnmendes]

The whole system is nonsensical. 1st and 2nd year grades more standardized across schools but are deemed unimportant. However a single test based on unimportant 1st and 2nd year material is deemed the most crucial portion of your application before the interview.

And to top it all off the single standardized test based on your third year knowledge is deemed unimportant.

I think it's clear program directors have no clue and we're just trudging along based on historical norms without a real rhyme or reason.

"if it sucked for me, I sure as hell will make it suck for them."<--- Medical educator reasoning

 

[tco]

The whole system is nonsensical. 1st and 2nd year grades more standardized across schools but are deemed unimportant. However a single test based on unimportant 1st and 2nd year material is deemed the most crucial portion of your application before the interview.

And to top it all off the single standardized test based on your third year knowledge is deemed unimportant.

I think it's clear program directors have no clue and we're just trudging along based on historical norms without a real rhyme or reason.

THIS.

Wonder who actually thinks that Dr. Osler would be proud that, 100+ years later, the US is using virtually the same medical education system that he set up? He would be extremely upset at our lack of progress.

 

[ArcGurren]

Who cares

 

[username456789]

Who cares

The OP. I would've thought that was obvious.

 

[ChiDO]

the best part is that the USMLE was never meant to be a predictor of how well you do in residency or how smart you are nor a tool for residency selection..

it's purpose is for minimum competency...thus it should be P/F

 

[tco]

the best part is that the USMLE was never meant to be a predictor of how well you do in residency or how smart you are nor a tool for residency selection..

it's purpose is for minimum competency...thus it should be P/F

Great idea for everyone in a top 10 medical school! Terrible idea for everyone else...

 

[thefritz]

the best part is that the USMLE was never meant to be a predictor of how well you do in residency or how smart you are nor a tool for residency selection..

it's purpose is for minimum competency...thus it should be P/F

That's not really true. The USMLE is designed to stratify students. If what you said was true, the writers would create a series of questions they think is "minimum competency" and not care who gets it right.

The reality is that they carefully analyze each question and throw out ones that too many people get right or too many people get wrong and try to keep questions that 50-70% of people get correct. The distribution allows for a smaller amount of questions outside of this range that result it some students getting 190 and some students getting 280. This is done purposefully. The entire point of the exam is to stack you up against everyone else, which is supported by the fact that you can't take it twice to improve your score.

If this were a minimum competency exam, everyone would be pulling 99s. Needing to know the name of the enzyme that is missing in Gaucher's disease is not a minimum competency for doctors. Virtually no practicing physician knows that.

 

[NTF]

At my school it depended on the rotation. The lowest I think was 15% honors. Usually most were 1/4 or 1/3 of the students.

Most students get high pass (25-60% of the class depending on rotation).

The evals were usually so subjective that much of the class would get similar scores. The thing that often differentiated the grades was whether you met the shelf cut-off for particular grades.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Also depended on the rotation. Medicine, Surgery, OB/Gyn, and Peds all had a heavy weight on the shelf, and I'd say they wound up having an arbitrary cutoff of the top ~10% or so getting honors, maybe less for some and more for others. I agree with NTF that the evals were roughly the same across the board, so the shelf was what really wound up determining your score. The other core rotations had a lower weight on the shelf and had no obvious max number of honors, so there may have been more honors on those rotations.

 

[siliso]

10-20% by policy, usually 20. Next 30% Hp, the rest P.

 

[laconfidential]

It's probably like 50%, if not more, for us.

It's pretty pathetic. For some rotations showing up is apparently enough to net you honors. And this is third year, not fourth. When I saw our Dean's letter showing that like 60% of my classmates honored surgery I couldn't help but roll my eyes, way to make sure everyone knows how worthless our clinical grades are.

 

[tco]

It's probably like 50%, if not more, for us.

It's pretty pathetic. For some rotations showing up is apparently enough to net you honors. And this is third year, not fourth. When I saw our Dean's letter showing that like 60% of my classmates honored surgery I couldn't help but roll my eyes, way to make sure everyone knows how worthless our clinical grades are.

But they don't know how worthless your clinical grades are. When you compare a student that honors your surgery rotation with mine, where they grade incredibly harshly (60% is pass), if our student doesn't honor, they could look incredibly inferior to someone from your class.

Sorry if the post is a little weird. Hard to make them on my phone...

 

[evilbooyaa]

But they don't know how worthless your clinical grades are. When you compare a student that honors your surgery rotation with mine, where they grade incredibly harshly (60% is pass), if our student doesn't honor, they could look incredibly inferior to someone from your class.

Sorry if the post is a little weird. Hard to make them on my phone...

The PDs see from your dean's letter what percentage of the class honors each clerkship.

 

[lrkoehle]

The PDs see from your dean's letter what percentage of the class honors each clerkship.

This is assuming your application doesn't get thrown in the trash first, which for the more competitive specialties could happen. "300 applications for 60 interview spots for 4 residency positions...this guy got too many passes 3rd year: trash! This one had a fair amount of honors, we'll look closer at that one." I know that is not exactly how it goes down, but they have to cut down the pile of applications somehow.

 

[tco]

The PDs see from your dean's letter what percentage of the class honors each clerkship.

That's assuming that they care enough to look past, "H vs P," which they don't. Do you HONESTLY think they're going to check to see what percentage of every applicant's class gets honors? They might look before an interview, but they really don't give two you know whats after the screening process is over...

 

[username456789]

That's assuming that they care enough to look past, "H vs P," which they don't. Do you HONESTLY think they're going to check to see what percentage of every applicant's class gets honors? They might look before an interview, but they really don't give two you know whats after the screening process is over...

They do get big colorful graphs that make it clear at a glance where you stand compared to the rest of your class. One prelim interviewer had the graph in his hand and talked a good bit about it with me last year.

 

[HalladayWeekend]

They do get big colorful graphs that make it clear at a glance where you stand compared to the rest of your class. One prelim interviewer had the graph in his hand and talked a good bit about it with me last year.

The graph though compares the class as a whole and not site-by-site. In my experience, the biggest issue with clinical grading is some sites within a clerskship give honors out like crazy while some give few to none out. This is not accounted for at all in the bar graph.

 

[evilbooyaa]

The graph though compares the class as a whole and not site-by-site. In my experience, the biggest issue with clinical grading is some sites within a clerskship give honors out like crazy while some give few to none out. This is not accounted for at all in the bar graph.

Exactly, which is why it's still BS.

 

[username456789]

The graph though compares the class as a whole and not site-by-site. In my experience, the biggest issue with clinical grading is some sites within a clerskship give honors out like crazy while some give few to none out. This is not accounted for at all in the bar graph.

It's not accounted for by anyone and there's clearly nothing you can do about it (or ever will be able to), so I don't know why you're even worrying about that. It sucks, but it's the way it is unfortunately.

The graphs at least make it clear whether the school participates in grade inflation, and to what extent.

Do we expect the PD's to have access to the temperature inside the room where we took our shelf exams? Surely yours was not the same as mine.

 

[tco]

It's not accounted for by anyone and there's clearly nothing you can do about it (or ever will be able to), so I don't know why you're even worrying about that. It sucks, but it's the way it is unfortunately.

The graphs at least make it clear whether the school participates in grade inflation, and to what extent.

Do we expect the PD's to have access to the temperature inside the room where we took our shelf exams? Surely yours was not the same as mine.

You are *so* good with hyperbole. I want to be just like you when I grow up to be 50 feet tall.

We're discussing something that really is a significant problem. If we can't discuss these things on this board, there's really nowhere that it should be discussed, which is an absurd notion. It's because of people that say, "That's the way it always has been, so it must be good enough," that we still use a 150 year old third year rotation schedule. Also, to say that there's "nothing that can be done about it, so stop worrying" is equally as ridiculous. Do you really believe that there is not at least one person on this board that might end up in a position to make a difference in our academic system one day?

 

[evilbooyaa]

You are *so* good with hyperbole. I want to be just like you when I grow up to be 50 feet tall.

We're discussing something that really is a significant problem. If we can't discuss these things on this board, there's really nowhere that it should be discussed, which is an absurd notion. It's because of people that say, "That's the way it always has been, so it must be good enough," that we still use a 150 year old third year rotation schedule. Also, to say that there's "nothing that can be done about it, so stop worrying" is equally as ridiculous. Do you really believe that there is not at least one person on this board that might end up in a position to make a difference in our academic system one day?

If only that's what could happen.

Unfortunately, when most (if not all) SDNers become PDs, we aren't going to spend the time determining which percentage of students got honors in a certain rotation from a school. That's an extra amount of work for each applicant, which most PDs (even ones that graduate from SDN University College of Medicine) won't be able/willing to put in. I doubt even their secretaries or whoever pre-screens the application would be willing to do that, especially in positions with hundreds of applicants.

 

[username456789]

You are *so* good with hyperbole. I want to be just like you when I grow up to be 50 feet tall.

We're discussing something that really is a significant problem. If we can't discuss these things on this board, there's really nowhere that it should be discussed, which is an absurd notion. It's because of people that say, "That's the way it always has been, so it must be good enough," that we still use a 150 year old third year rotation schedule. Also, to say that there's "nothing that can be done about it, so stop worrying" is equally as ridiculous. Do you really believe that there is not at least one person on this board that might end up in a position to make a difference in our academic system one day?

I understand your frustrations, but you're living in a fantasy world.

 

[tco]

I understand your frustrations, but you're living in a fantasy world.

How, exactly, is medical education reform a fantasy world? The AMA just put millions towards funding it this year.

I'm about as far from naive as they get...Medical education will be changed in the near future. Whether or not we're involved is another topic.

 

[username456789]

How, exactly, is medical education reform a fantasy world? The AMA just put millions towards funding it this year.

I'm about as far from naive as they get...Medical education will be changed in the near future. Whether or not we're involved is another topic.

The problem is that you're trying to standardize something that is (and always will be) inherently subjective.

Part of growing up and entering the work force is realizing that "fairness" and "standardization" come into play far less often than we'd like them to. If (and please correct me if I'm mischaracterizing your stance) you're trying to minimize variation in experiences between numerous clinical sights among well over >100 different schools, you (the collective you) have to realize this is not exactly feasible. Yes, it sucks that you may have worked harder and performed at a higher level than some kid at another school across the country (or even a kid in your own school at a neighboring hospital) and still got the same grade (or lower) on a rotation. The reality is that it's exceedingly unlikely that one person would draw the short straw on every rotation, so even in that situation one's ability to establish an overall trend of high performance will generally not be weakened by a preceptor's ambivalence on the day grades are due.

So far the only real trends in changing medical education recently seem to be moving more towards adding extra touchy feely stuff, which is pretty much the definition of subjectivity. I do think the RIME rubrics can be helpful in evaluating a student; however, even something like these rubrics are essentially based entirely in subjectivity.

We can tweak and change as many things as we want, but unless we eliminate clinical rotations in M3/M4 and just make medical school 4 years of straight standardized tests, people are always going to be upset about how evaluations are executed and utilized. But at least it's good practice, because you're going to run into the exact same types of problems in whatever job you choose for the rest of your life.

 

[JasonE]

its true that evaluations are subjective, but some things are just unfair. at my school, depending on the rotation, there are sites where no student has ever gotten honors. thats just how they evaluate. that is something can easily be corrected

 

[rocketbooster]

I would say 2/3rds of my rotations probably give 10% honors. Then the remaining ones (especially psych and surgery) probably give out 50% honors. There is no set rule on how many honors are given out. Each rotation has its own grading criteria as well. Evals are always worth at least 50% of our grades. I would say shelf exams are usually 30-35% of the grade, but in some rotations they are only 15-20%. The remaining % is divided into oral presentations or some sort of subjective clinical skills exam.

I agree that evals are extremely subjective. I don't even see how you can compare ppl within the same school. Rotations done at different times in the year at the same location have different attendings. Many rotations have ppl at different sites as well. There's no objectivity to it. Consider yourself lucky if your school doesn't make evals worth >50% of your grade.

I've just accepted the unfair nature behind 3rd year grades and stopped worrying about it since every attending I've talked involved in residency admissions say grades are not a huge factor since every school has a different grading system. They always view boards as the most objective academic way to compare applicants.

Also, if you want to know the secret to honoring, it's not necessarily your medical knowledge. Kissing ass is a major component because your perceived level of interest plays the biggest factor in what your attendings think of you. Kissing ass = asking questions on things you could easily look up and every now and then asking for more work to do. Also, being able to give solid patient presentations, regardless if you're right or wrong, is HUGE.

 

[JJMrK]

It's probably like 50%, if not more, for us.

It's pretty pathetic. For some rotations showing up is apparently enough to net you honors. And this is third year, not fourth. When I saw our Dean's letter showing that like 60% of my classmates honored surgery I couldn't help but roll my eyes, way to make sure everyone knows how worthless our clinical grades are.

Eh. Unless you go to a school with a big (huge) name, this is actually probably better for the students.

I agree that it'd probably be best if this was standardized across schools, but since it's not your school may as well do you the favor.

 

[sanityonleave]

15-20% here for the most part. The evaluation form technically states that honors should be given to the top 20% of the class but there's no cap on it so it can go as high as the evaluators would like. There's also a shelf cutoff but it's pretty easy to achieve.

Ours ranges from 50% on family med (you work for 1 month with a single preceptor, so it's pretty uncommon for them not to give you honors) to ~10% for OB/GYN (eh, they're bitchy). I agree the system is incredibly arbitrary, but in my experience it mostly evaluates who works well with the team, which is something valuable to know for residency. Theoretically residencies already have an idea of your "knowledge component" based on your step scores.

To all those above complaining about step 1 scores being so heavily weighted, I pose the perpetual question: how would you do it? The reality is that step 1 scores are a crude instrument, but they do at least give a rough idea of a student's knowledge base. Sure, you don't know how well they apply that knowledge clinically, but it is something to go on. I know being constantly evaluated on standardized tests sucks if you're not a good test taker, but it is what it is.

I will say that contrary to the popular opinion on these boards, step 1 scores are actually a decent predictor of clinical performance at my school. They don't do a great job of individually stratifying people (i.e. people with 260s don't seem to be consistently better than people with 230s), but the overall clinical performance and acumen of those >230 was significantly higher in most cases than those <220. YMMV -- this is definitely not 100% true and there are awesome students with terrible step scores, but it is correlated.


My feeling is that there's a ton of subjectivity in this process, so I like having at least a bit of objective data involved, however flawed. As a PD told me about residency interviews -- it's a lot like speed dating. You figure out someone has the base ability based on their LORs and step scores, so the interview is really seeing how likely you are to murder someone after working 4 nights in a row with them. It's not a great process, but for the vast majority of people, it works.

/rant

 

[BeastInfection]

My school varies by rotation as well. Currently on OB/GYN, and it's set so >90%=H. That sounds nice and everything, but I don't foresee ever getting honors with such a cutoff. Even if you look at an example of the perfect, allstar student, the subjective evals and clinical exam observation alone will inevitably knock at least 5 or so points off of their total even if they do everything right (due to the "no one is perfect so I cannot give you a perfect eval" types), leaving them with just a few measly points buffer for the shelf and oral exams which--regardless of how knowledgeable you are on the subject--seems exceedingly difficult to come out of with 100%. Seems hopeless. I'd honestly prefer if the school just said x% gets honors.

 

[Textbookversion]

To all those above complaining about step 1 scores being so heavily weighted, I pose the perpetual question: how would you do it?

Thanks for asking! It's really easy.

1. Make step 1 pass/fail.
2. Require everyone to take step 2 by the end of July and have the NBME report scores taken on or before July 31st by September 15th
3. ????
4. Profit!

What other awesome incentives would this plan provide? Well first off schools would have an incentive to trim time from the preclinical years, and start rotations early. That way they could give more time to study before July of fourth year. More of your education would be focused on clinically relevant material, electives, and research rather than completely worthless errata about the names of enzymes and the signalling molecules relevant to a developing embryo. (my life would be just as complete without ever having heard about sonic hedge hog)

 

[Wordead]

Thanks for asking! It's really easy.

1. Make step 1 pass/fail.
2. Require everyone to take step 2 by the end of July and have the NBME report scores taken on or before July 31st by September 15th
3. ????
4. Profit!

What other awesome incentives would this plan provide? Well first off schools would have an incentive to trim time from the preclinical years, and start rotations early. That way they could give more time to study before July of fourth year. More of your education would be focused on clinically relevant material, electives, and research rather than completely worthless errata about the names of enzymes and the signalling molecules relevant to a developing embryo. (my life would be just as complete without ever having heard about sonic hedge hog)

So basically just stratify students by step 2 instead of step 1?

I think it's a good idea in theory, but the problem is that step 2 is much more variable than step 1. Right now, with some exceptions, step 1 calendar is standardized for AMGs. 2 years of classes, 4-8 week dedicated step 1 period, take step 1.

For step 2, people are doing aways, getting research/recs in order, etc. People study for it for wildly different time periods as well. So scores are not generally relative to each other.

To me, Step 1 isn't a measure of who is the better doctor. It's a measure of who has the best work ethic, ability to study well and apply a large body of information, etc. AKA who will you be able to TRAIN to be a good resident. So in that sense, step 1 is a good test for ranking students.

 

[Textbookversion]

So basically just stratify students by step 2 instead of step 1?

I think it's a good idea in theory, but the problem is that step 2 is much more variable than step 1. Right now, with some exceptions, step 1 calendar is standardized for AMGs. 2 years of classes, 4-8 week dedicated step 1 period, take step 1.

For step 2, people are doing aways, getting research/recs in order, etc. People study for it for wildly different time periods as well. So scores are not generally relative to each other.

To me, Step 1 isn't a measure of who is the better doctor. It's a measure of who has the best work ethic, ability to study well and apply a large body of information, etc. AKA who will you be able to TRAIN to be a good resident. So in that sense, step 1 is a good test for ranking students.

In this hypothetical world the schedule would be more standardized. Likely shift clinical rotations to start earlier by cutting out preclinical crap, take step 2 in May of 3rd year, then start doing all that other stuff like audition rotations after that.

Obviously the people that are doing well now would do well under the new framework. The difference is more time to learn clinically relevant material, and a focus on greater clinical relevance. It's about getting a better education, not about changing who wins and loses.

Don't you think it'd be beneficial for us to have more time, and more pressure to study step 2 material rather than molecular bio? The same people are going to score high, the difference is what the focus of their education and time is spent on.

 

[Wordead]

In this hypothetical world the schedule would be more standardized. Likely shift clinical rotations to start earlier by cutting out preclinical crap, take step 2 in May of 3rd year, then start doing all that other stuff like audition rotations after that.

Obviously the people that are doing well now would do well under the new framework. The difference is more time to learn clinically relevant material, and a focus on greater clinical relevance. It's about getting a better education, not about changing who wins and loses.

Don't you think it'd be beneficial for us to have more time, and more pressure to study step 2 material rather than molecular bio? The same people are going to score high, the difference is what the focus of their education and time is spent on.

No disagreement here, but now you're talking about changing the curriculum for every single medical school in the nation - I dont see how that will be feasible aside from a government mandate.

 

[evilbooyaa]

No disagreement here, but now you're talking about changing the curriculum for every single medical school in the nation - I dont see how that will be feasible aside from a government mandate.

Not necessarily. If Step 1 was converted to Pass/Fail and Step 2 was given more importance, schools would quickly adapt their own curriculums after student feedback to give more time for studying Step 2 rather than Step 1.

 

[blaqmamba]

note to wordead - some schools take step1 after third year. Some, but not all, incorporate board-style exams into the curricula, while the rest don't. Some also get 12 weeks. Some get 4. There is no consistency with the test.

Step 1 should be MORE standardized IMO, and so should step 2
Then, even if clinical grades remain as they are, they wouldn't be as important as board scores, but still play an important role (as they should)

As someone said above, real life isn't a standardized test, so we all need to get used to it.

edit: didn't notice you said 'with some exceptions' - leaving my post because I like my idea better.

 

[Wordead]

note to wordead - some schools take step1 after third year. Some, but not all, incorporate board-style exams into the curricula, while the rest don't. Some also get 12 weeks. Some get 4. There is no consistency with the test.

Step 1 should be MORE standardized IMO, and so should step 2
Then, even if clinical grades remain as they are, they wouldn't be as important as board scores, but still play an important role (as they should)

As someone said above, real life isn't a standardized test, so we all need to get used to it.

edit: didn't notice you said 'with some exceptions' - leaving my post because I like my idea better.

There are only a couple that take step 1 after third year. I did say "with some exceptions". And yes, there is variation, but those first 2 years are about as standardized as it can be. You have a list of things to learn, you have 2 years to do it, everyone sees the same material.

Unlike the wards - sometimes you dont see particular pathologies ever. And free hours are so variable. Some rotations I had 8 hours/day free, some I barely had time to eat.


edit - lol didn't read your edit.

 

[tco]

Here's an example of why third year is ridiculous and honors doesn't matter:

I just received my AOA application (I wouldn't know my third year grades yet if I didn't receive said application, so it boggles my mind how people know if they honored as soon as the rotation is over). My neurology shelf percentile was 96th, and clinically, I'm pretty sure I was decent. The course coordinator and another attending were trying to convert me to neurology. No negative comments/evaluations from anyone. No honors. My peds shelf exam was 95th. Pretty sure I was decent clinically. The course coordinator wrote nothing but praises on my evaluation and another attending literally said, "One of the best medical students I have worked with," in another evaluation. No negative comments whatsoever. No honors.

Those were two rotations that I considered slam dunks for honors. With the way my school does honors, it's a freaking joke. The specifics are too complicated to go into here...Ultimately, people that honor state that they have no idea how, and then there's people like me, that figured to have a slam dunk, with only "S's" on our transcripts (no high pass...Only Fail, Satisfactory, Honors). It doesn't matter how hard you work in third year here, you're guaranteed nothing.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Here's an example of why third year is ridiculous and honors doesn't matter:

I just received my AOA application (I wouldn't know my third year grades yet if I didn't receive said application, so it boggles my mind how people know if they honored as soon as the rotation is over). My neurology shelf percentile was 96th, and clinically, I'm pretty sure I was decent. The course coordinator and another attending were trying to convert me to neurology. No negative comments/evaluations from anyone. No honors. My peds shelf exam was 95th. Pretty sure I was decent clinically. The course coordinator wrote nothing but praises on my evaluation and another attending literally said, "One of the best medical students I have worked with," in another evaluation. No negative comments whatsoever. No honors.

Those were two rotations that I considered slam dunks for honors. With the way my school does honors, it's a freaking joke. The specifics are too complicated to go into here...Ultimately, people that honor state that they have no idea how, and then there's people like me, that figured to have a slam dunk, with only "S's" on our transcripts (no high pass...Only Fail, Satisfactory, Honors). It doesn't matter how hard you work in third year here, you're guaranteed nothing.

Agreed. Which is exactly how I feel. The rotations I did well in I didn't think I particularly deserved honors, and the one I got a pass in, I thought I should have done better. One can hope that you'll hit the target and get a few. My sense is that schools realize some of this and that therefore having a few honors in various clerkships is better than (randomly) getting honors just in the field of interest and then HP/P in all the rest.

 

[IkeBoy18]

very few people.. im at one of those 3.8, 35 schools and the last 4 cycles of IM have had no students getting honors. Its not about a certain %, its about making a certain shelf score with just as good evals and x/5 ratings.

 

[Trefoil]

There actually has been research done on this, so it might be silly to speculate with these surveys. Based on objective data from schools 25-30% honors seems to be the norm. To be fair, students here are likely honest, but student doc probably is not a representative sample. Here is a link if you are interested.http://skepticalscalpel.blogspot.com/2012/10/medical-school-grading-and-t-ball.html?m=1