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What is the AOA? How to become a member? What are the benefits/advantages of being in the AOA?
What is the AOA? How to become a member? What are the benefits/advantages of being in the AOA?
What are the benefits/advantages of being in the AOA?
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You can read about it on wikipedia or the AOA (Alpha Omega Alpha) site itself. Membership is available to the top quarter of a class, but no more than 1 in 6 students can be a member. Junior AOA (a third of total AOA per class) is elected at the end of MS 2, the other two thirds at at the end of MS 3. Membership should be determined before residency app's are sent out.
At my place, which does not really respect the society the way that it should, goes by top grades only. There is supposed to be consideration for showing leadership and community service, but I don't think that my school's chapter elects anymore than the top one sixth.
What are the benefits? It is the only way that PGY programs can evaluate your grades. It basically says that you were one of the best students that your school had that year. They can't do it with grades because schools vary greatly in how they evaluate students. It can compensate a little bit for a lower USMLE in a competative specialty; and in top specialties, some say AOA is necessary.
What are the benefits? It is the only way that PGY programs can evaluate your grades.
I agree with everything but that statement. I believe that most dean's letters (MSPE or whatever) include information about your performance in relation to your peers. I've seen some with histograms of the student scores with indications of where the applicant fell in the range, etc.
Small point but just trying to offer some hope for folks who do well but didn't make AOA
What are the benefits? It is the only way that PGY programs can evaluate your grades. It basically says that you were one of the best students that your school had that year. They can't do it with grades because schools vary greatly in how they evaluate students.
It can compensate a little bit for a lower USMLE in a competative specialty; and in top specialties, some say AOA is necessary.
The Deans letter will rank you as "top third, middle third, bottom third" or some variation of that. Even the students with the best grades aren't guaranteed to get AOA, so the above statement isn't really true. (ex: Gunner student has Honors in everything, but never did any extracurriculars and has mediocre LORs, and he will not get AOA.)
I've never heard anyone say that AOA is strictly necessary, not even in derm. It helps, sure. But it's not necessary.
The Deans letter will rank you as "top third, middle third, bottom third" or some variation of that. Even the students with the best grades aren't guaranteed to get AOA, so the above statement isn't really true. (ex: Gunner student has Honors in everything, but never did any extracurriculars and has mediocre LORs, and he will not get AOA.)
I doubt that AOA would really compensate for a lower Step 1, since people with a low Step 1 probably wouldn't get AOA. (Step 1 scores and grades tend to correlate.
I've never heard anyone say that AOA is strictly necessary, not even in derm. It helps, sure. But it's not necessary.
Yeah, I think only around 50% of people who matched into derm in 2005 were AOA based on that released NRMP data.
At my school, AOA is given out *strictly* based on grades. Some schools take into account extracurriculars (which, personally, I think makes sense... but maybe only bc that would have helped *me* out. ) and some schools go only on GPA. At my school, it's given to the top 5-10% or so of the highest scorers, period.
"Only 50%?" That's a lot. I go to school in Oklahoma. Yes, I'm thinking I'd need AOA if I wanted to go into derm. All of the derm matches from my school in the past eight years have been AOA, so from MY prospective, yep, better have AOA if I wanna do derm. I'm sure it's different at UCSF, though.
I was being slightly sarcastic when I said ONLY 50% (hence the italics on the word "only") in relation to another person's post. I think saying that approximately half of your derm matches every year are AOA says that it is EXTREMELY advantageous and not having it will probably keep you out of most programs.
Also, I am not a student at UCSF. If UCSF was at one end of the spectrum, my school would be at the polar opposite end. At my school, 6 students are selected for AOA, based on grades (usually how they narrow down the field)--then they evaluate Step 1 scores, evaluations from clerkships, and finally extracurricular activities. We do not have "grade inflation" at my school.
Cool {UCSFbound}
What does your name mean?
Each school writes their deans letters differently. For example, my school doesn't write ranking in the deans letters at all.
Yeah, I think only around 50% of people who matched into derm in 2005 were AOA based on that released NRMP data.