Any "average" students getting decent interviews?

[irlandesa]

as someone who will be applying next year in IM, just wondering if anyone with <235 Step 1, non-AOA, and/or no spectacular research activities is having any success in the residency app process? some of the posts on here are very discouraging, just wondered if there is hope for those of us like me (non-top 25, 233 Step I, 1 High Pass in Psychiatry so far, Peds pending, finishing up surgery now, would really LOVE to stay in Boston or not too far away)? thanks very much.

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[asm3]

irelandesa,

Relax - you will do fine. My numbers are very similar, and I have interviews from BU, Tufts, and BID.

Good luck,

asm3

 

[avendesora]

Dude

233 is like rock-star for IM. You should get interviews anywhere you want.

Do well third year, honor your medicine rotation and sub-I, consider rotations at places you want to go, and get strong letters. I've heard from chairpeople and PD's that honoring the IM rotation is especially important.

Don't try to match up what you're doing with classmates doing ENT or derm. It's a COMPLETELY different game.

 

[daveM4]

"233 Step I" and you call yourself "average". My first honest suggestion to you is to get a spine. You remind me of that guy from the movie "The Breakfast Club" that was going to kill himself with a flare gun because he was going to get "B" in one of his classes. Good luck in what ever you do, and give yourself some more credit.

 

[ckent]

I got a 230 on step I, ranked in the bottom half of my class with A's and B's, and I go to a state medical school. Thus far, I have been rejected from all of the ivy leagues and top medical schools with the exception of Wash U, and I received interviews from most of the mid-tier schools that I applied to. I have some research experience, but no publications. I got an interview from BU, but was rejected by the Harvard schools and Tufts, which was surprising.

 

[TulaneKid24]

Originally posted by ckent
I got a 230 on step I, ranked in the bottom half of my class with A's and B's, and I go to a state medical school. Thus far, I have been rejected from all of the ivy leagues and top medical schools with the exception of Wash U, and I received interviews from most of the mid-tier schools that I applied to. I have some research experience, but no publications. I got an interview from BU, but was rejected by the Harvard schools and Tufts, which was surprising.

How can you be in the bottom half of your class with A's and B's?? WOW! What school do you attend?

 

[Crypt Abscess]

Thanks for pointing that out TulaneKid. I was thinking the same thing. For a minute, I was starting to think that I go to med school with a bunch of dumb a**es. At my school all A's and B's will easily put you in the top 1/2 and maybe top 1/4. Heck, I know several people who have A's and B's and are AOA.

To answer the original question- it depends. I think it primarily depends on where you go to med school. If you are at a top 25 school with a strong IM dept, then average grades/boards will get you good interviews. For example, I go to a mid tier state medical school in Texas. I have strong boards, and I am AOA. Several friends of mine that go to the two "elite" Texas medical schools (UTSW & Baylor) who have good boards but no AOA have actually gotten better interviews than me. Granted I have gotten some good interviews, but the top 5-10 programs have rejected me. I hope this helps. Crypt

 

[ckent]

I agree with the statement that where you go to med school has tremendous weight in getting interviews at ivy leagues and top med schools. These programs seem to like saying that most of our residents are from harvard or wherever. And to answer the other posters question, I went to the U of Maryland for med school. I got straight B's during my pre-clinical courses, and scored ~ half A's, half B's during my clinical courses. I still managed to end up in the bottom half of the class because a few of clinical courses have students getting more A's then B's (grade inflation), and I think that most students, on average, get one or two A's during their preclinical years. I ended up ranking in the 1/2-3/4 quartile.

 

[irlandesa]

thank you all very much for the geniunely helpful advice.. the poster who said I should get a spine is right too lol.. I guess I just tend to let the chest-thumping of 2 certain posters on the other threads (I won't mention names, but they are both male and have mustered some pretty high-profile interviews) worry me too much at times.. ckent is very right that every school does grading and class rank completely differently. At my school, first and second year grades do not count at all in determining AOA status or class rank reported at the end of third year (we have H/P/F for the first 2 years). However, any first and second year courses that you honored are reported in the Dean's letter from what I'm told. Anyway, ckent, Tufts-NEMC is pretty much an overrated hospital (I go to TUSM and have done most of my rotations there so far) and they seem to be biased toward applicants from New England and New York from what I can tell, so you didn't miss out on anything there (though their Surgery Dept. rocks). Wash U, BID, BU, Brown, Maryland, etc., are all fabulous interviews, please keep them coming guys! oh yeah, and please spare us any comments about how BID sucks or whatever, even if it's not as prestigious as other programs I would rather be there than at a program where the residents are trying to crush each other.

 

[Renovar]

Originally posted by irlandesa
I would rather be there than at a program where the residents are trying to crush each other.

CRUSH each other? or HAVE A CRUSH ON each other?

I thought BID is the former, NEMC is the latter...