Are there any sources which provide average step 1 score for each medical school?
Average step 1 score for each medical school?
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About 228
My school was above average of course
My school was above average of course
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Nothing reliable. Some schools put that info out there, but I think it's mostly kept in-house. Also, people lie through their teeth all the time. Unless a ton of people are failing or getting crappy scores (which I'm sure the LCME would notice), Step 1 score shouldn't really be a major concern for you.
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its
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Not an error, just an automatic edit. I see what they're going for. It's It's It's. It's the season...
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Most schools don't post this information. U Virginia does, however:
http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/handbook/academics/licensure.cfm#results
http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/handbook/academics/licensure.cfm#results
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only because they get great scores
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you earn the score you get. Step 1 isn't some arcane test that some schools have the secret answer to and others don't. It's all about the effort you put in.
Jesus, that average.
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Does it have anything to do with natural ability, test-taking skills, natural intelligence? Or just brute hard work?
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Yes.
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All of the above, with a large pinch of luck.
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276 here. We're also just slightly above average.
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I agree on the most part.
But schools do differ on the amount of time allotted to students for Step 1 studying. Some schools also teach towards the exam, while others deliberately do not teach toward the test. I can't say if this has an effect on scores or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if this did effect average step 1 scores. If this is the case, then step 1 scores might be used as a proxy for many factors (just like how AOA membership is viewed as a proxy for student performance by PDs) that may interest prospective applicants.
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I might be the only here with this thought, but your step one score is mostly about you and how you prepare. There is no curriculum in the world that will guarantee a high step one, you've got to put in the work at the end of the day. Whether you go to an Ivy League school or even overseas medical schools, you're still going to still be responsible for how well you do.
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Having a right to that information sounds a bit...entitled. The overall score of the class has many factors affecting it besides the individual program's curriculum and having it published as a metric for picking medical schools just encourages an arms race to up Step 1 scores, which is just not useful.
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Just about every school in the nation has a 95-100% pass rate. I go to a low-tier school and we had a 97% first pass rate with an average right at the national average.
Low tier basically refers to how much NIH funding that school gets. It has nothing to do with the education or clinical experience.
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Let me put it this way. Your spending money (or your future earnings in the case of loans) does not actually entitle you to anything. It's time to grow up and realize that you will be making decisions with incomplete information for the rest of your life and that the things that you view as important now may actually be meaningless.
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So as a consumer, say buying a car, you accept that you have incomplete information to base your decision and shouldn't ask about objective metrics out of fear of sounding entitled? As much as I hate our generation's sense of entitlement, trying to gather facts about anything you're about to dump a ton of money on to make an informed decision sounds rational, not entitled. Whether or not certain fact is useful is up to the individual consumer. It's also up to the merchant to provide that information or not (supply/demand).
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No, I have not suggested that one not ask about metric which one thinks are important, but I do take issue with the use of the word entitlement by a previous poster because it is used in the context of "I deserve to have access X, Y, Z". Yes, it is rational to try to gather facts, but when someone starts tossing around the word entitlement related to access to information, I think it's reasonable to point out that there are very few entitlements around and that some right to access this information does not appear to be on the horizon right now.
Yes, but in the end, it does not matter. Plenty of people do well on Step 1 in EVERY medical school. It is not like one school has the secret of getting 250+. If a school has a high proportion of people who do well, it speaks more about the quality of the students they accept. You might not understand this now because ignorance is bliss, but just you wait
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No it's not. You're barely an M1, you have no idea what the test is like. Everyone uses the same resources to study, everyone has enough time to prepare for the exam. How well you do is up to you and only you. It's not like UVa learns the secret nerve of the brachial plexus or the secret ILs, which gives them a leg up on the boards.
Believe it or not, but not everyone wants to score a 260, not everyone wants to do dermatology/ortho/plastics/uro. A significant portion of my peers were content with doing average on the exam because that aligned with their goals as a physician. Contrary to SDN, you don't need a 260 to match in EM or IM or peds or gen surg, etc etc.
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Everyone uses the same resources to study, yes. But not every curriculum or instructional philosophy is the same. It may be the case that everyone uses First Aid, Pathoma, etc., but Step 1 studying does not consist merely of the month(s) leading up to the exam. It consists of the entire first two years. If you can learn and retain more coming up to the Step 1 dedicated study time, you will have to learn and review less, and will have a more efficient climb to a high percentile score. In this sense, at least theoretically, curriculum could make quite a big difference, if a sort of curriculum was implemented that increased learning and retention.
I do know, for instance, that during interview day, some of the Step 1 high scoring schools do tout their curriculum, and even specific aspects of it, as amenable to producing high Step 1 scorers. Whether these differences in the curriculum actually do make the difference is of course subject to debate. But the fact is that such differences do seem to, at least in principle and plausibly, impact Step 1 scores.
Therefore, I do not understand how someone could dogmatically assert that curriculum doesn't matter. Given the lack of arguments or evidence, the insistence on this claim seems more like a personal hope or ideology than a coherent point of view.
I do know, for instance, that during interview day, some of the Step 1 high scoring schools do tout their curriculum, and even specific aspects of it, as amenable to producing high Step 1 scorers. Whether these differences in the curriculum actually do make the difference is of course subject to debate. But the fact is that such differences do seem to, at least in principle and plausibly, impact Step 1 scores.
Therefore, I do not understand how someone could dogmatically assert that curriculum doesn't matter. Given the lack of arguments or evidence, the insistence on this claim seems more like a personal hope or ideology than a coherent point of view.
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@kevinnbass... TBH, I am kind of baffled that people find that I am entitled because I think school should publish step 1 score... They do it for MCAT and GPA of their accepted students... Some even massage it by publishing accepted students in their websites as opposed to matriculated students...
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Who is talking about matching into specialties here?
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To use your car analogy as an example, to ask about a school's average step 1 score is akin to asking about how many accidents a certain car is involved in. Certainly there are some minor factors that the manufacturer controls, like good mirrors, warning systems, etc, but the major factor in accidents is the driver. In med school there are definitely minor factors that can affect step 1 performance, but the major factor is the individual student, which is largely independent of the school he or she attends.
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This.
Compared to other standardized tests however, it takes way more hard work and preparation.
Also this.
The 2 main reasons why some schools have higher averages than others:
1) they recruit people with better stats/test taking abilities and 2) a larger proportion of their class is interested in academics/competitive specialties.
You can get a 260 from any school, you just have to put in the hard work, be a great test taker, and also have some luck come test day.
At lower tier schools, most people are interested in primary care and they're not going to spend 3 or 4 months studying for a sky high score. They'll only take 3 or 4 weeks to study and are happy with a 220+.
At places like UVA, Baylor, and Vandy its the opposite. Most people aren't interested in primary care and need those higher board scores.
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Do you think school should publish their match?
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You're not really answering the question at its root, which is: Does the school I go to affect my ability to perform on board exams? And the answer is of course, of course it does.
The amount to which the material matches the boards, the quality of the professors, the amount of time given to study for board exams (a huge factor that I did not know to ask about), the testing style of the school and how it matches boards style questions...it is amazing to me that you think that your prior 1.9 years of preparation can be trumped with some determination and luck in the last .1.
School matters. If it didnt, people would go to the cheapest one they get into.
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Step 1 score tends to correlate with what specialties one is competitive for, so I would think that if they were having difficulty matching into their specialty of choice (or just simply matching) then you would have a point.
School ranking is determined primarily by NIH funding. Step 1 score doesn't have anything to do with NIH funding. The LCME would step in if the pass rate were low such that a significant proportion of students weren't matching, indicating that PDs may not have confidence that students from that school have the appropriate preparation to practice medicine. PDs aren't just going to take people if they don't think that person can cut it.
Why should the NBME be required to publish Step 1 scores? What useful purpose would it serve for applicants?
If you're really curious as to what arbitrary hard cut-off they would impose, you could always write the LCME a letter. I'm sure they'll send you a long, detailed letter that isn't in any way a form letter with a canned response written by some poor intern that doesn't answer any of your questions. Kind of like writing to your congressman.
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TBH, you probably shouldn't be surprised when people start talking about entitlement when you start talking about a "right" to know about whatever. If you had said, "I'd like to know what the average Step 1 score is for a program", I wouldn't been pointing out your sense of entitlement. Publishing the MCAT and GPA of accepted (or matriculated students) is a backward looking measure of the admissions process, not a forward looking measure of the quality of education the school is providing. Average Step 1 score is a very poor surrogate for assessing quality at a program level when the actual outcome measure that everyone cares about is whether most students are matching into the specialty of their choice in decent programs.
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Then you'll see students picking schools based on avg step 1 score, which isn't what they want. It will also further increase the conceptual understanding of step 1, which they also don't want because people will take pre-clinical classes even less seriously and focus more on step 1. Like other people said, there are so many resources available for step 1, I don't really think the school is responsible for any percentage of a students success/failure on it, unless they're going over like 10 hours of minutiae per day in lecture.
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not sure why. when I'm buying a car, a large portion of whether that car will experience a mechanical failure over the first X amount of miles is based on the quality of build. my maintenance will also play a part, but nowhere near as significant as how well the car is built.
compare that to step 1 where what your school is teaching you isn't really that important, because its relatively standard what everyone is taught. they can teach to step 1 but that's going to cause a minor difference in step 1 scores since most step 1 studying is done on your own. in that situation, the initial " build quality" is much less important than the "maintenance" ( how you study)
not to mention as other people said before, the LCME is aware of the passing rates, so they're not going to let a school have 40 % of a class fail and keep on doing the same stuff.
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Like everyone has said, Step 1 is such a small portion of the medical school experience, and one that has very little to do with the school itself. It would do nothing but force schools to focus more on Step 1, disregard other important aspects of the curriculum, and add another superficial metric to the application process. There are so many great things about my school that I love that have little to do with Step 1. If they were forced to get rid of these things due to a 'Step 1 arms race' that other have referred to, it would be immensely unfortunate and probably take away from other things that are important to a round application, like promoting research opportunities.
If you want to do well, start studying early. How early I can't say, but ultimately it's up to you. Don't give pre-meds another reason to make unknowledgeable decisions.
I don't really want to argue about this, and I think it's great you want to do well, but you're missing the point. It's about what you study. It's about you. If you want to do well, you should go study. The school publishing Step 1 scores would do nothing but force school to focus more on it and leave other things behind. This would artificially elevate the scores for all schools, force all schools to lose things that were valuable, and make nothing better for anyone.
Again I think it's great you want to do well, but there is a reason schools aren't forced to share this stuff. I'd like to think the above is important.
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Your step one score is tangentially related to your school. Our spread was probably 190s to 270s as it will be at every school. Average step one score tells you nothing, will not predict your score and will only serve to put pressure on schools to cater to the test
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I have nothing invested in that since I am already in med school... My problem is was during one of my interviews, one interviewer presented the school as 'doing better than the national average in step1'. However, when we went to dinner with MS2-3, the scores they told us were lower than the national average... Why not make the score available so people don't have to subject themselves to that?
