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@hellanutella Does AOA not coming out until a few weeks before graduation put Hopkins students at a disadvantage when applying for residencies, as they cannot list it?
No it’s not a disadvantage bc programs know that’s the case. The reason people ask about AOA is because if it is released prior to residency apps, then there will be competition among students (similar to asking about internal ranking and clinical grading schemes).
Agree with @Punky Brewster
Since nobody will be applying with AOA, there's nobody scanning for it on your residency app. I think Hopkins is well known enough that most PDs are aware of this convention. In fact, more and more schools are moving to give AOA the boot (ex: UCSF just got rid of it, Harvard doesn't have it either).
I think post-match AOA is advantageous, as AOA is not a standard metric. There's no set criteria across American medical schools for what constitutes an AOA student; what may be a score threshold at one school could be an election at the other. The AOA winners at Hopkins are phenomenal folks, but if I'm being perfectly honest I cannot claim they are any better or worse than my non-AOA peers. When you get to a school like Hopkins, it must be splitting hairs.