Step 2 CS
is required for licensure in all 50 states. A student who refuses to take it, even if they're at a school that will allow them to graduate without it (lots do, mine did) AND gets accepted to a residency that will take them without it (questionable, state dependent), is still ineligible to ever take step 3 or get a medical license. You're welcome to sue, but for the time being, you still have to take it if you want to work as a physician.
The thing is though, this thread has a ton of hyperbole. Talking about one in ten students failing it and such. There is zero actual evidence of that. The Step 2 CS fail rate amongst US MD students as
of 2016 (the last available data) is 3%. They did tighten up the standard a little bit last year, but the bulletin from last August said they made it only slightly tougher, with anticipated increase in the fail rate by 3%. My bet is it went up by less than that because medical students prepare more as time goes on, but even if it did go up to 6%, that's a far cry from 10%. And it's been 5% a few years ago. It varies in that 2-5% range every year regardless.
The test is stupid. It is a money grab from a population that can't argue with it and is often borrowing money to pay for it. It likely poorly discriminates between good and bad students. But as APD said, there's little to nothing any individual can do about it.
