I understand your concern. Before entering, this was my main point of dispute with UCF's system.
I'm going to break this down a little bit because I now understand it even moreso than I did when I was an applicant.
Now being a little deeper in the process, I can say it's going to come down to how well you are at just doing your thing and making your own process. Resources here are abundant. Support here is phenomenal from staff to faculty. The overall environment is laid back. That being said, depending on how badly you want AOA, the grades will play an increasingly important role in your tenure here. The only reasons I see anyone prioritizing this is for attaining an ultra competitive residency.
If you look at statistics, the NRMP charting outcomes show 40% of the incoming resident population in orthopaedic surgery having AOA, 16% of unmatched ortho applicants held AOA status. Derm is 49%, 22% unmatched. Neuro-Sx is 32%, 21% unmatched. Interventional Rads is 30.5%, 12% unmatched. Plastic Sx 44.5%, 12.5% unmatched. Note that the unmatched percentage are only displayed to show AOA does not guarantee program acceptance.
Comparing that to less competitive programs and ignoring unmatched, you see Gen Sx has 18.7% matched, OB/Gyn 16.2%, IM 16.7%, EM 12.4%, Anesthesia 10.5%.
So you see that AOA definitely
helps with acquiring competitive residencies. While that's true, the preclinical grades don't hurt your application. I can attest that you can do well on tests because we are not graded on curves. If 90% of the class gets 90% of questions correct, 90% of the class gets an A. You can still get an A without being AOA due to not being in the top quartile of the class (note that AOA classification also takes into account extracurricular activities, not just pleclinical grades). Getting an A in this respect actually helps in that you're doing academically well but may not be focusing on minutiae that gets you in the top quartile of test scores.
With all that said, being here at UCF has given me the opportunity to speak with many former residency program directors and some current program directors. While they come from both competitive and less competitive residencies, from surgical and non-surgical subspecialties, one thing remains constant across their advice to students. They all hammer home the inconvenient truth: Step is pretty much the end all be all and really it's the only thing we should be focusing on during our preclinical years. Everything else during preclinical years is not only secondary in importance but was not seen as a requirement for their consideration of applicants. Grades aren't going to matter much except for the hyper competitive residencies (i.e. don't get a C in Anatomy if you're wanting to do ortho). And, honestly, Anatomy isn't something that benefits from a P/F system anyway since even small details are beneficial for surgical subspecialties.
So why am I writing all of this up?
To tell you that the preclinical grading system carries as much importance as you give it. You can ignore the grading scheme, study using your preferred resources, do your own thing, prepare for Step, and take the tests as they come. Or you can worry about scoring well on tests, get an A, stick to class resources with a few outside resources mixed in, and still do well on Step. Both paths will get you where you want to be. Focusing on tests and getting A's just gets you
more likely to be selected for AOA.
50% or more of all of the competitive residency residents were non-AOA. Let that sink in and, remember, it is not a requirement.
Hopefully this helps a few of you make your decisions on where to attend. Best of luck!
Data Source:
NRMP
