AOA: when is membership/inauguration determined at your school?

[lankysudanese]

AOA membership is one of the strong indicators of success in the match, but when does induction into AOA occur? In our school, the class rankings (which are used for AOA) are not made until after graduation since we have flexibility when it comes to scheduling basic rotations.

So, I wanted to get SDNers' opinion on:

1. when does your school determine AOA?

2. if one's school does NOT determine AOA prior to residency applications, will the PDs at least be made aware of this "minor technicality"?

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[DwyaneWade]

AOA membership is one of the strong indicators of success in the match, but when does induction into AOA occur? In our school, the class rankings (which are used for AOA) are not made until after graduation since we have flexibility when it comes to scheduling basic rotations.

So, I wanted to get SDNers' opinion on:

1. when does your school determine AOA?

2. if one's school does NOT determine AOA prior to residency applications, will the PDs at least be made aware of this "minor technicality"?

Can't answer #2. Junior AOA is announced in the April of 3rd year and Senior AOA in September of 4th year.

 

[NDESTRUKT]

When's the deadline to register for AOA if you were elected? My friend's letter said 1/11/08 but I haven't been home for the whole month of December so I haven't gotten my letter.

I'm afraid if I don't get registered in time (cuz I don't have my membership number) I won't be in!

 

[Pinner Doc]

I don't understand this "registration" thing....?

I was elected in October as a 4th year (we don't have junior AOA). I changed the little piece on my ERAS residency application to say I was elected, so the PDs know... but my school never mentioned anything about having a "number" or registering.

😕

 

[njbmd]

AOA membership is one of the strong indicators of success in the match, but when does induction into AOA occur? In our school, the class rankings (which are used for AOA) are not made until after graduation since we have flexibility when it comes to scheduling basic rotations.

So, I wanted to get SDNers' opinion on:

1. when does your school determine AOA?

2. if one's school does NOT determine AOA prior to residency applications, will the PDs at least be made aware of this "minor technicality"?

Our AOA induction ceremony is in April of each year. Those of us who are selected know before the induction ceremony as we are told by our Dean in August in plenty of time for residency application. If selected as a Junior (third year) you learn April of that year. Our AOA selections are based on first and second year grades + leadership so once we get our rankings, we know if we have made AOA.

AOA is NOT one of the strong indicators in the MATCH. It is nice to have but one of my classmates who was AOA along with me ended up scrambling (successfully but he scrambled). AOA affects such a small percentage of allopathic medical students that it is pretty much not a major factor in MATCH success as most people match without it.

 

[NDESTRUKT]

I was elected senior AOA in October of this year as well. The central organization sent out letters for us to register. I haven't gotten mine because I'm at home and not at school this month.

If you go to http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/, you'll see a link for registering which you need a member number. You need to pay like...dues or something.

I'll fill you in more when I find out.

 

[RockShox]

Our AOA induction ceremony is in April of each year. Those of us who are selected know before the induction ceremony as we are told by our Dean in August in plenty of time for residency application. If selected as a Junior (third year) you learn April of that year. Our AOA selections are based on first and second year grades + leadership so once we get our rankings, we know if we have made AOA.

AOA is NOT one of the strong indicators in the MATCH. It is nice to have but one of my classmates who was AOA along with me ended up scrambling (successfully but he scrambled). AOA affects such a small percentage of allopathic medical students that it is pretty much not a major factor in MATCH success as most people match without it.

I think I get what you are trying to say here but some of it is not clear. According to the NMRP AOA is a "significant predictor of match success" and it is listed in the summary page of the latest research document as one of four things that an applicant who is more likely to be successful will possess. Without knowing what people are applying for it is a bit premature to disregard this. Esp. considering that derm, oto, plastics, ortho, radiology, and rad/onc had 24-41% of their successful applicants possessing AOA. I think what you are saying is that most US seniors do match without it, which is true, but it certainly does not follow that this is true in every specialty or situation and the statistical anaylsis of the NRMP does show it to be a very significant attribute to have on the application.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

Our class (M3) was notified about a month ago. I don't know about senior AOA, but I assume it's about the same time of year.

 

[lankysudanese]

Our AOA selections are based on first and second year grades + leadership so once we get our rankings, we know if we have made AOA.

So what about schools in which AOA is determined using clinical grades because the first two years are Pass/Fail?

 

[njbmd]

So what about schools in which AOA is determined using clinical grades because the first two years are Pass/Fail?

Every chapter of AOA has their own criteria for election. At my school, it's as I described above but this definitely does not apply to every school. In some cases, the school does not have a chapter of AOA. It's quite variable but at my school, we got rankings at the end of second year and we were notified of selection to third-year AOA the next month (May).

 

[NDESTRUKT]

Once you're notified of AOA (October for my institution), you will get a letter from the central administration to go online and register.

Those who haven't registered have until 1/11/08 to do so. Get in touch with the AOA coordinator at your school and get your membership number and go from there!

 

[kdburton]

So what about schools in which AOA is determined using clinical grades because the first two years are Pass/Fail?

I'm not 100% sure if this is a universal practice or not, but at least at my school (which is P/F) they actually keep track of the % you get in each class and rank the class accordingly. The OME keeps track of a class rank that the students never know about other than if they make AOA they know they were obviously in the top X% of the class.

 

[Noeljan]

I'm not 100% sure if this is a universal practice or not, but at least at my school (which is P/F) they actually keep track of the % you get in each class and rank the class accordingly. The OME keeps track of a class rank that the students never know about other than if they make AOA they know they were obviously in the top X% of the class.

at our school🙂 I am pretty sure they take into account total honors points, I was reading it the other day (it is posted outside OME). Something like needing two deans letters (which you get per year if you have 75% of honors points) and some other stuff (like a certain amount of honors in clinicals in third year). Hope this helps. I am sure other stuff goes into it.

 

[kdburton]

at our school🙂 I am pretty sure they take into account total honors points, I was reading it the other day (it is posted outside OME). Something like needing two deans letters (which you get per year if you have 75% of honors points) and some other stuff (like a certain amount of honors in clinicals in third year). Hope this helps. I am sure other stuff goes into it.

Well if you get two deans letters you are eligible for AOA, but since its possible for many people to be eligible for AOA they all obviously won't get it. Only a certain % of students in the top of the class actually get it.

 

[lankysudanese]

so we just had a meeting/lecture about the residency application process by our dean, and he confirmed that AOA is not determined until after graduation b/c we have a flexible MS3/MS4 schedule which allows people to leave some basic clerkships until Q4 of MS4. He said that all residency directors are aware of this 'unique attribute' of our school, which allows for our qualities/attributes to be evaluated by program directors on an individual basis, instead of relying on a number.

yeah right............😡😡😡😡!!!!!!!!

(they used to do the same thing with Step 1: passing Step 1 was (historically) not required for graduation, but they had to change that when the match list started looking worse year after year).

 

[deleted77919]

We are P/F the first two years, but after each module the course directors send the names (and possibly scores) of the top 15% to the selection committee. There is no junior AOA here, selections for AOA are not made until well into the spring semester of MS-IV, so no way for it to make it on the ERAS.

 

[TheMightyAngus]

so we just had a meeting/lecture about the residency application process by our dean, and he confirmed that AOA is not determined until after graduation b/c we have a flexible MS3/MS4 schedule which allows people to leave some basic clerkships until Q4 of MS4. He said that all residency directors are aware of this 'unique attribute' of our school, which allows for our qualities/attributes to be evaluated by program directors on an individual basis, instead of relying on a number.

yeah right............😡😡😡😡!!!!!!!!

(they used to do the same thing with Step 1: passing Step 1 was (historically) not required for graduation, but they had to change that when the match list started looking worse year after year).

cough **gunner** cough

 

[lankysudanese]

cough **gunner** cough

if you take suck pride in labelling "gunners", why are you wasting your time reading this thread. i made the last post to confirm that AOA works differently in every school (which was my original question). what's ur probllem dude?

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

so we just had a meeting/lecture about the residency application process by our dean, and he confirmed that AOA is not determined until after graduation b/c we have a flexible MS3/MS4 schedule which allows people to leave some basic clerkships until Q4 of MS4. He said that all residency directors are aware of this 'unique attribute' of our school, which allows for our qualities/attributes to be evaluated by program directors on an individual basis, instead of relying on a number.

yeah right............😡😡😡😡!!!!!!!!

(they used to do the same thing with Step 1: passing Step 1 was (historically) not required for graduation, but they had to change that when the match list started looking worse year after year).

Hopefully your Dean's letter makes it clear how AOA is decided in your school. I know there are a few big schools that don't do the "traditional" AOA for whatever reason. so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I think it's only a may matter because if somebody waltz in with a extremely good grades and high board scores and they are not AOA, some may start looking to see if there's not something about the applicant's personality that caused them to not be invited and not realize the school's individual policies.