Hmm, interesting. Because of the large amount of schools that are switching over to PBL and "Sat, Concern, Unsatisfactory", I've been told that most residency's don't look so much at your GPA (since SCU systems don't have GPA's), but really at your "Dean's Letter". Interesting thing about this. You're first two years only end up being a paragraph about 4-6 sentences long on the thing that basically notes that you did well in class and whether or not you had to do any remediation, that you showed up for exams, and that you played nice. Then for your 3rd and 4th year, you have a similar paragraph for every clerkship you do! In general, the longs have a longer paragraph than the shorts and pretty much note how you did in each. So, moral of the story, the only real important thing for your first two years is STEP 1 Prep. So, don't stress too much over it (A disclaimer here would probably be that students who get better grades probably do better on the USMLE, but this isn't always true) Some residency's still do things the old fashioned way, and from what I've heard, its the more competetive residency's that like to stick with the old fashioned ways. Other than this small pickpoint, I agree with the above poster.