To HONOR or not to HONOR?

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OneStrongBro

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I have a question for all of the current medical students.
I am currently a 2nd year Med student. I have honored Gross Anatomy, and Biochemistry. From this experience, I have realized that it is a lot of "WORK". No matter what people tell you. Honoring is a function of minutia, test taking skills, and discipline.

So is it worth honoring a preclinical class in the big scheme of things?

It will give you more of a headache to comb through every single word of every paragraph in every note to find "minutia".

I have started high in pharmacology this semester and I will have to decide if it is worth my effort to "kill" myself.

Tell me what you guys think. Is honoring a preclinical course that impressive to resident directors?
 
Honoring in preclinical classes means absolutely nothing to program directors in most specialties. That being said, it is the major criterion for the holy grail of "Junior AOA status" which can be crucial (or at least a huge plus) if you're doing, say, a competitive surgical sub-specialty (e.g. derm). It also affects your "class rank" -- again important for competitive specialties. (Some schools will put your class rank in your dean's letters, other schools refuse to rank.)

Most residency committees are much more interested in your clinical grades, letters of recommendation, and other activities (research, extracurriculars, etc). I can tell you that I interviewed for pediatrics and preclinical grades were the furthest thing from any of my interviewers' minds. An interviewer at Johns Hopkins told me that they don't care about first and second year grades at all. Granted, this is Johns Hopkins peds -- a competitive institution but a comparatively noncompetitive specialty (which is just fine with me). I think it is especially true that programs don't care about preclinical grades if your step 1 USMLE score shows you learned enough.

So, in my mind there are two good reasons to bust your ass to get honors 1st and 2nd year. 1) you have your heart set on a hyper-competitive specialty, or 2) you are amazingly anal and won't be able to sleep at night without telling yourself "I am soooo much better and smarter than my peers!". Since neither of these reasons applies to me, I'd have to say for me no, it's not worth honoring in the grand scheme of things.

bpkurtz
 
If you are within striking distance and don't have anything better to do, I would go for it. I had the opportunity to honor one of my pre-clinical courses just by writing a 5 page paper, but I chose not to do it because I didn't have honors in anything else at the time and I didn't want my transcript to look weird with one honors standing out. I discovered during fourth year that standard MSPE/Dean's letters actually give a 2-3 liner about your pre-clinical years out of a 2-3 page summary of your performance, and they always include which subjects you honored in that brief summary. I think that your dean's letter would look weird if they didn't have anything positive to say about your pre-clinical years in that section. I can definitely empathize with what your going through though, if you look at a bar graph of all of my preclinical exam grades, everything course begins with me having an A or high B on the first few tests of the course and then ends with me just being over the low B cut-off. I certainly wouldn't stress about getting honors, and if you have a family that you'd like to spend more time with or other activities that you think would be more worthwhile, I would do that; but if you are just going to be sitting around using the extra time and grade buffer to watch TV and surf the web like I did, I would go for it.
 
I'd go for AOA if I were you. It'll be huge if you get it b/c it's a big help when applying for almost any residency.
 
And there are people who say that people who are at graded schools arn't under any more pressure than pass/fail schools.
 
wondering the same thing.....

in my case I'm wondering if doing other stuff (research, lots of specialty-related extracurriculars) would be more beneficial in the residency match game than honoring a class each semester.


Adcadet
 
People at graded schools are under MUCH more pressure...

If I were at a school with P/F grading system, I think I would be much more relaxed...
 
How so?

Schools with Pass/Fail system have honors. Graded schools have a cutoff for Honors and Fail just like Pass-Fail schools.

Furthermore, schools that have pass-fail have class rankings like graded schools.



So, how can one school have more pressure?
 
I guess I just feel that is everyone were getting a P or an F, people would be more relaxed....

When numbers are involved it seems sooooooo much more stressful.... I guess I will never know since I am at a H/HP/P school....

🙄
 
Originally posted by OneStrongBro
How so?

Schools with Pass/Fail system have honors. Graded schools have a cutoff for Honors and Fail just like Pass-Fail schools.

Furthermore, schools that have pass-fail have class rankings like graded schools.

So, how can one school have more pressure?
Click to expand...

Because our class rankings are more based on the third year grades than P/f grades (if they are used much) And P/F schools don't have honors during the first two years. So the difference between studying the minuta and getting a 92 vs getting an 88 and not studying the minuta is way different because it won't show up on your transcript. I'm happy with the 88 and just study the thing I think will most likely be on the boards and not the professors individual favorite part of the lecture.
 
Isn't H/HP/P the same as A, B, C.........so in reality you are experiencing the exact same grading system as the rest of the world. H translates to A etc.....

what's the diff what they call it. It can all be added up and calculated in the end as a class rank, GPA etc...

later
 
umm to comment i guess on the original question

I say, do what you can do and if it happens then it happens and feel good about your work.

i wouldn't say that your stress yourself out completly in order to get.

in the grand scheme of things, I dont think it matters much except that if you know your stuff during the basic sciences it should help you that much more for step I (in both scoring and preperation). And that does matter.

basically, you'll get out what you put in.
 
Many Pass/Fail schools do indeed have honors, their 1st two years.

Granted, if Pass/Fail schools didn't have honors than my premise would not hold water.

For schools that don't have honors their 1st two years, then I agree.
 
Originally posted by OneStrongBro
Many Pass/Fail schools do indeed have honors, their 1st two years.
Click to expand...

Those schools are honors/Pass/Fail. I always hate it when people say "We are a pass fail school, but we have honors" Pass/Fail schools do not record honors the first 2 years.
 
Jalby...you are very anal(not a bad trait). Just like most med students.

This is semantics. And my last post indeed made clear that my comment would not hold water if the pass/fails did not have honors(this is known as conceding a point).

I hate it when someone has to get the last word even when there is a resolution. For those people, I say, "You are a very smart person." Now, that you got that acknowledgement. Please be constructive in your future posts.
 
I've been called many things, but this is the first time I've gotten Anal. If someone is wrong, I tend to call them on it. And saying Pass/Fail schools have honors is not only not understanding what pass/fail means, but wrong.
 
Jalby,
Nice to know that there is a righteous police around here(i.e. if i know someone is wrong I tend to call them out on it).

Besides, what do you get out of calling people out on such a minor detail? If you have to point out that you are right and "call them out on it". Then, I must revise my analysis. You are not Anal per se. You are COCKY.

p.s. i don't understand how you can be "continually bored" when you are calling people out on every minor detail. Furthermore, to "call people out on it" at SDN takes alot of your TIME and energy.

My advice to you is let it go. You don't have to be right all of the time i.e. to make yourself feel better or make others around here think you are smarter. You have a pretty good following around here. So don't always try to prove yourself. As this implies the opposite of confidence.
 
all jalby did was point out the fact that a pass/fail system is one that doesn't have honors in it. he didn't flame, starting calling people "anal", etc.
 
By Jalby's reasoning, I go to a "honors/letter of commendation/pass/fail" school. And yet, for some reason, everyone here calls it "pass/fail." So, Jalby's definition of pass/fail does not meet the common definition used by the 800 medical students at my institution.

Draw your own conclusions.

bpkurtz
 
Originally posted by Jalby
I've been called many things, but this is the first time I've gotten Anal. If someone is wrong, I tend to call them on it. And saying Pass/Fail schools have honors is not only not understanding what pass/fail means, but wrong.
Click to expand...

Temple University School of Medicine grades on what it calls a "P/f" system. It is, for the most part, a grade-based system, not a true P/F one, as we have Honors, High pass, pass, conditional, and fail.

And yes they are recorded onto our transcript. And play into our class rank.

From what i gather, lots of schools call their systems pass/fail, but are not true pass/fail systems and instead are grade-based with changed names.
 
Originally posted by Sledge2005
I'd go for AOA if I were you. It'll be huge if you get it b/c it's a big help when applying for almost any residency.
Click to expand...

How do you get AOA? Is it dependent on both pre-clinical and third year rotation grades plus some butt kissing on the side?
 
Originally posted by phllystyl
From what i gather, lots of schools call their systems pass/fail, but are not true pass/fail systems and instead are grade-based with changed names.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I think it's just done so that they won't be contrasted to much with other schools that really are pass fail.
 
Originally posted by OneStrongBro
I have a question for all of the current medical students.
I am currently a 2nd year Med student. I have honored Gross Anatomy, and Biochemistry. From this experience, I have realized that it is a lot of "WORK". No matter what people tell you. Honoring is a function of minutia, test taking skills, and discipline.

So is it worth honoring a preclinical class in the big scheme of things?

It will give you more of a headache to comb through every single word of every paragraph in every note to find "minutia".

I have started high in pharmacology this semester and I will have to decide if it is worth my effort to "kill" myself.

Tell me what you guys think. Is honoring a preclinical course that impressive to resident directors?
Click to expand...

wait, i thought you went to michigan?
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=97104&highlight=umich
and by this post, it looks like you're a 4th year? you linked to the class of '04 and you acted as though you knew some of the people in their facebook and on that site. 😕

in any case, umich doesn't have discreet classes like biochemistry, pharmacology or gross anatomy - especially 2nd year. gross (and maybe biochem, but i think that may have been lumped into MCB 1st year, if you are indeed a 2nd year right now) was a class, but is no longer, as it is integrated into the systems-based new curriculum and runs concurrently all year...

uh, right now, if you are a 2nd year and if you are at michigan, you are in your neurology sequence, not taking pharm as a discreet course, and would have just finished up, what, GI, with a big batch of standardized patient exams in there? and if you're at umich, why does your location say chi-town?

i'm confused.

anyway, umich is pass/fail - NO honors, NO grades, NO rank first year. 2nd year moves to honors/pass/fail, and rank is established. 3rd and 4th year are h/hp/p/f.
 
I think he is semi full of it. HE's had some interesting posts about how people go to med school and is humbled and how grades should be better than Step ones scores.
 
All I know is that a school w/ P/F looks a lot better than H/P/F to me. (YSM please let me in...)
 
Originally posted by GoodMonkey
[
anyway, umich is pass/fail - NO honors, NO grades, NO rank first year. 2nd year moves to honors/pass/fail, and rank is established. 3rd and 4th year are h/hp/p/f. [/B]
Click to expand...



i thought UMich was h/hp/p/f from 2nd year on, no?
 
Originally posted by morecowbell
i thought UMich was h/hp/p/f from 2nd year on, no?
Click to expand...
not what they told us w/the new curriculum. the m1 class right now (07) is the first in the new system, and from what i understood, it was p/f first year, h/p/f 2nd year and h/hp/p/f 3rd and 4th. *shrug*
 
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