College record matter for residency apps?

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TheMightyAngus

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Just wondering if residency programs want to know about your academic record before med school, i.e. college GPA, MCAT scores, etc., or do you start fresh once you don the white coat?
 
No. However, they do consider your SAT and ACT composite score.
 
2tall said:
No. However, they do consider your SAT and ACT composite score.

why would they consider you sat and act scores? just curious....
 
TheMightyAngus said:
Just wondering if residency programs want to know about your academic record before med school, i.e. college GPA, MCAT scores, etc., or do you start fresh once you don the white coat?

Hi there,
No residency program that I applied to wanted to know anything about my undergraduate academic record other than where I went to school. When you start medical school, the clock begins there. Your undergraduate record is behind you.
njbmd 🙂
 
You start fresh.

Residency programs generally do not care anything about college except that you went to college. Less than 1% of programs would ever ask you your ACT or SAT scores (I had one program I applied to put it on a form for us to fill out, and I was told by others that it was the only program in my specialty that does this...I am pretty sure that plays NO role in their selection criteria---why would anybody care about a test unrelated to medicine you took 8+ years ago?).
 
i heard a physician in Orthopedics say SAT comes in to play when all else is equal and there is no where else to compare, does this come to review!
 
knownothing said:
i heard a physician in Orthopedics say SAT comes in to play when all else is equal and there is no where else to compare, does this come to review!


oh that would totally suck.
 
knownothing said:
i heard a physician in Orthopedics say SAT comes in to play when all else is equal and there is no where else to compare, does this come to review!
sounds like a load of crap to me. You can't even compare scores on the SAT unless people took it in the same year since they've changed it so many times in the last 10+ years. SAT scores have no bearing on how good of a doctor you'll be, and is at least 9 years old MINIMUM before applying to residency programs. Why would you choose a doctor based on their SAT scores when they were a junior in high school?
 
Smurfette said:
sounds like a load of crap to me. You can't even compare scores on the SAT unless people took it in the same year since they've changed it so many times in the last 10+ years. SAT scores have no bearing on how good of a doctor you'll be, and is at least 9 years old MINIMUM before applying to residency programs. Why would you choose a doctor based on their SAT scores when they were a junior in high school?

ridiculous yes, but i'm not deciding anything i'm just a student, could it come it to play? yes; what's the probability? unlikely
 
If I'm not mistaken, the san francisco residency match service, which is used for ophthalmology, neurology, and a few other specialties, requres you to submit your undergraduate transcript to the programs you're applying to. Why would they require you to submit your college grades if they didn't care about them?

I'm kind of worried about this because my college transcript is not the best; due to family problems and a health issue, there were a number of W's and two leaves of absense on my college record. I hope I won't have to explain all this and won't end up at a disadvantage if I apply to a top residency program.
 
I did not encounter any residency programs that wanted my college records. They assume by the fact you are in medical school, you did pretty well in college. Also the only program that require SAT scores for Orthopedics is UNC chapel Hill. When I asked the PD why they did that, the reasoning was that there was a study done a long time ago which showed correlation between all of the standardized tests, SAT, MCAT, USMLE, OITE (Orthopedics in training Exam), and the Ortho boards. So that is why UNC requires your SAT, MCAT scores in the personal statement.
 
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