Below average board scores?

[hypersting]

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Average Board scores are in the 210-220 range from what I gather, yet every allopathic school (lower tier or upper tier) seems to claim above average board scores. How can every school be above average? Which schools are below average? Shouldn't it be half of them?

 

[hypersting]

Ok ... 150 views and no replies. Does no one know the answer or does any current student not want to lower their school? I'm just curious since this fact seemed quite strange to me. I guess no one else has been wondering the same thing.

 

[camstah]

well, i think that's a good question.....but i don't have the answer...anyone? anyone?

 

[CalBeE]

I think schools find out the board scores of their students by surveying them. Schools like Northwestern feel that it's an invasion of student privacy and prefer not to do it.

THe bottom line is, the schools probably don't know the true average of their schools, and can only make estimation of the averages.

 

[dread]

There are a lot of US med schools who have lower then avg board scores but don't share the info with their students or their applicants. When you are at your interviews, you can ask your tour guides if they know what their class' avg board score was and if they don't know, that's often a sign that they have below avg scores. You also have to take into account that there are a lot of non-US medical students taking the licensing exams that score lower then avg US students.

 

[babinski bob]

Whoever said that schools estimate their students' scores is wrong. All schools will receive a print-out of ALL their students step 1 scores from the nbme. How else would schools know whether their students passed? In any case, the only schools that advertise their step 1 scores are probably those whose average are at or above the national average. Moreover, step 1 scores are determined by the quality of students that attend a given school and not by teaching. Therefore, on average, upenn or harvard will tend to have high step1 scores compared to lower tiered schools.

 

[CalBeE]

Originally posted by babinski bob
Whoever said that schools estimate their students' scores is wrong. All schools will receive a print-out of ALL their students step 1 scores from the nbme. How else would schools know whether their students passed? In any case, the only schools that advertise their step 1 scores are probably those whose average are at or above the national average. Moreover, step 1 scores are determined by the quality of students that attend a given school and not by teaching. Therefore, on average, upenn or harvard will tend to have high step1 scores compared to lower tiered schools.

Yea I take back what I said. I think you're right. However, board scores of schools are not published publicly.

Also there's a rumor that schools with more traditional curriculum tend to have higher board scores than schools with stronger emphasis in PBL.

 

[hypersting]

Also there's a rumor that schools with more traditional curriculum tend to have higher board scores than schools with stronger emphasis in PBL.

There's just that, alot of rumors. I just brought up the question because intuitively I thought what most do, the higher the "rank" of the school, the better the quality of student, and thus the better score. But then people start talking about lower tier schools (NYMC, RWJ, etc) with better than average scores and the theory doesn't quite hold.

In any case, thanks for your responses, it seems like something that is close to the vest and that no one really knows. However, I do think it certainly has bearing on residency match, but more so, just piqued my curiosity.

If anyone can provide a more definitive answer, I would still be interested in which schools prepare one for the Boards better than others, regardless of rank or prestige. If not, I guess it will remain an unknown.

 

[idq1i]

Originally posted by hypersting
There's just that, alot of rumors.

Can you share the insight that allows you to make such a definitive statement?

My "low tier, low rank" (fill in another premed term) school happens to have Step I scores >10pts above the mean. Shocking, aighn't it

 

[Lochmoor]

What is passing for boards? I think that may be what they mean when they say above average--above the passing score.

Boards arent graded on a curve, i think they just have a pass/fail score. (You also get a number score, but passing is the main goal....obviously)

I dont think that really answers anything, but it's a good question hyperstring.

 

[hypersting]

Originally posted by idq1i
Can you share the insight that allows you to make such a definitive statement?

My "low tier, low rank" (fill in another premed term) school happens to have Step I scores >10pts above the mean. Shocking, aighn't it

I kind of had a feeling this would happen. I'm not attacking any school, lord knows I have no right to. Anyway, to address your statement, its a rumor because its not public knowledge. I have no way to verify if its accurate or not. I only know people make statements, which is why I posed the question in the first place.

No, it not shocking at all. Every medical school in the US and some beyond will prepare one for the Boards, the question is just how well, which could be a function of the teaching or of the quality of student. I'm just trying to ascertain which schools those are. Rank and prestige seem to have nothing to do with it, so there must be another factor at play.

Lochmoor-
I believe the pass score was 182 for this past year, but I'm not positive on that.

 

[idq1i]

Originally posted by hypersting
I kind of had a feeling this would happen.

I'm not accusing of you of anything! I'm just trying to point out that premeds tend to spread unfounded rumors, that's it.

 

[velouria]

Also there's a rumor that schools with more traditional curriculum tend to have higher board scores than schools with stronger emphasis in PBL.

I don't know how this holds overall, but I do know of one exception - the University of Missouri SOM in Columbia is all-PBL-all-the-time and they get great results. Out of a class of 96, 12 people scored >250 (I think that was 2 years ago), and they generally get about a third of the class at or above the 90th percentile. Not too shabby....

(but I'm biased because I'm thinking about going there...)

 

[CalBeE]

Originally posted by velouria
I don't know how this holds overall, but I do know of one exception - the University of Missouri SOM in Columbia is all-PBL-all-the-time and they get great results. Out of a class of 96, 12 people scored >250 (I think that was 2 years ago), and they generally get about a third of the class at or above the 90th percentile. Not too shabby....

(but I'm biased because I'm thinking about going there...)

Of course at the end it depends on how you study. Some schools' curriculum prepare you well for the boards so you don't have to do much study yourself. When I was at Vanderbilt, the students said most people only have to study a little for Step 1, and almost no extra studying for Step 2 (Studying as in extra studying not for classes)

 

[lessismoe]

Okay, sorry to bring up another unsupported claim, but I heard that schools with only PBL may tend to have lower step 1 scores because they don't emphasize the basic science as much, but that they generally have higher step 2 scores. Anyone else heard this?

 

[uclacrewdude]

Originally posted by lessismoe
Okay, sorry to bring up another unsupported claim, but I heard that schools with only PBL may tend to have lower step 1 scores because they don't emphasize the basic science as much, but that they generally have higher step 2 scores. Anyone else heard this?

it wouldnt shock me to find that out. course, if your school has a pretty good clinical set but still has the traditional curriculum, maybe youd do a little better than ave on both scores.

btw, that is the coolest title for your avatar i have ever seen

 

[JohnHolmes]

Originally posted by hypersting
Average Board scores are in the 210-220 range from what I gather, yet every allopathic school (lower tier or upper tier) seems to claim above average board scores. How can every school be above average? Which schools are below average? Shouldn't it be half of them?

If Howard is claiming this, there is one school you can scratch off the list.

Coops

 

[J33]

Someone mentioned earlier that many non-US medical school students take the boards, and most people are ignoring this fact. Think about it--if many foreign (caribbean, etc.) educated students are taking step 1, this will significantly decrease the average. There are a lot more non-US med school educated doctors out there. Therefore, many more than 1/2 of US schools can be "above the average"

 

[Jalby]

Originally posted by lessismoe
Okay, sorry to bring up another unsupported claim, but I heard that schools with only PBL may tend to have lower step 1 scores because they don't emphasize the basic science as much, but that they generally have higher step 2 scores. Anyone else heard this?

I think this would be pretty accurate. We just had our first real PBL experience second year and hated it.

 

[idq1i]

Originally posted by Jalby
I think this would be pretty accurate. We just had our first real PBL experience second year and hated it.

PBL: Because we are just too darn lazy to teach it to you

 

[hypersting]

Originally posted by J33
Someone mentioned earlier that many non-US medical school students take the boards, and most people are ignoring this fact. Think about it--if many foreign (caribbean, etc.) educated students are taking step 1, this will significantly decrease the average. There are a lot more non-US med school educated doctors out there. Therefore, many more than 1/2 of US schools can be "above the average"

By extension, a more telling statistic would be the average Step 1 or Step 2 of the US med schools (all 126)? Interesting, I wonder how many of these schools would be above average then. Thank you for bringing up that point.

 

[Jalby]

Finally read through this entire thread. Mostly skipped over some of it. I was bitter because people answered the questions I was going to answer.

1. Schools get your board scores about 3 days before you do. They also have their schools average. Generally speaking, they tend not to tell the first and second year classes or if they so, those students forget b/c it doesn't really concern them. So if your tour guide doesn't know what the avg board scores is, it's not because it's a bad school. When I interviewed at Umich, Baylor, NUMS and other schools, not a single person who I asked (and I asked at least one person per school) knew their schools board scores)


2. About as many FMG take the boards as Allo students, so the average is going to be lower. So tons of schools will be above the average.

3. PBL versus lecture. It's hard to quantify which will get higher board scores. I've had both types of learning, and I'd go with lecture because you know what is important, where PBL you don't always know. And also your groupmates tend to get things wrong and teach you the wrong stuff (Yes, I'm a little bit about my first and last PBL experience here. Next years class is lucky in that they will totally drop it.
Another thing that leads support to this. Ohio State used to have a PBL and traditional program. So the same level of students can go into both. They had it for 5 years, and now they are dropping PBL. (Someone else might need to fact check this. I might be confusing it with the independant study, but I'm 90% sure I remember correctly)

 

[CalBeE]

Originally posted by Jalby
And also your groupmates tend to get things wrong and teach you the wrong stuff (Yes, I'm a little bit about my first and last PBL experience here. Next years class is lucky in that they will totally drop it.

Keck is totally dropping PBL from the curriculum next year? Or did I misunderstand what you meaned?

 

[Jalby]

Originally posted by CalBeE
Keck is totally dropping PBL from the curriculum next year? Or did I misunderstand what you meaned?

What we have as PBL is different from other schools. We are taught the material in lectures, then we have small group situations where a case demostrates how to use the information and integrate it with other information. That's not quite the PBL that other schools know and love. They teach the information the first time with PBL, where they give you a problem and different resources, and then you have to learn the material for the first time. We absolutely hated it.

 

[cbc]

This is very significant. Not only this, but many (if not all) DO students take the step1. Not to bag on osteopaths, but on average allopathic med schools are more selective, plus the fact that the teaching of DOs is not focused on USMLE. I believe theirs is more on COMLEX. Anyway, point is, foreign med grads (who barely knows general english, let alone medical english; and the carribean schools) plus some DOs drag down the score. Also, top tier schools dont necessarily mean better scores, and many of their students were accepted based on uniqueness of their life experience rather than scores. Rumor is Yale has optional exams (everyone slacks more when there is no pressure), Duke has only 1 year of basic science, and Harvard in 1st yr is focused more on latest research (pubmed, SARS) rather than boards material. NYMC has a curriculum where their notes and exams are focused on boards material, such that the students are forced to always study high yield boards facts all the time rather than medicine focused on step2/clerkship/research.

Hope that clarifies everything.

Originally posted by J33
Someone mentioned earlier that many non-US medical school students take the boards, and most people are ignoring this fact. Think about it--if many foreign (caribbean, etc.) educated students are taking step 1, this will significantly decrease the average. There are a lot more non-US med school educated doctors out there. Therefore, many more than 1/2 of US schools can be "above the average"