crappy score

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My friend bombed Step 1 with a 210/87. My question is which residency programs are available realistically? ....thanks.😎

 

[dragonfly99]

It depends a lot on the rest of the application.

210 is actually not that horrible for a lot of residencies...yes, it is below average, but it's not barely passing or something.

I actually know of an ortho resident who got a 208 and got ortho at a competitive university program, but that is quite unusual and honestly the score was kind of a fluke, since he did much better on Step 2 and also had strong grades. It doesn't happen often.

There are plenty of specialties that don't care a ton about USMLE scores, particularly if you're not looking at a super high tier university program (like Harvard, UC San Francisco, etc.). These include peds, fp, psych, probably IM and to some extent neuro. I also think physical med/rehab and pathology probably don't have a very high average USMLE score, if you look at average programs and not the super famous academic hospital ones. I suspect there are a not insubstantial number of emergency medicine and general surgery residents also running around who got 210 or so on the Step 1 (but not things like plastic surg, urology, etc.).

If this person is a US grad, the 210 on Step 1 is not going to help and very likely will cut out certain residencies such as derm, urology, some surgical subspecialties and perhaps radiology, but not many others. Much depends on the rest of the application, like 3rd year grades and who writes the LOR's, and perhaps whether the person has done research in the desired specialty.

If the person is a foreign medical grad, then the 210 is likely to be more problematic, but I'm not a foreign grad so can't speak authoritatively about how much of a problem the 210 would be...

 

[lynda19]

I have a friend who went to Ross & he was an excellent med student there. I beleive he got a pretty good step 1 score along the lines of 250-260. Well supposedly bc he was from Ross (& I dont think this is fair at all) he had to settle for IM at an urban hospital that mostly accepted only foreign grads. I had a significantly lower score than him, interviewed at the same hospital & swore I would never accept a residency there. The PD basically told me to forget them bc other programs would be happy to have me...(not cuz Im all that special but moreso bc I am a US grad).

I have heard of foreign grads who have had great scores & not getting residencies. I feel for them bc they seem to work especially hard...
Of course, derm, rads, uro & a few other more compettive residencies were likely not going to consider me though. Thankfuly I was not interested in the competitve fields.

 

[Tigerz_Fan]

Are you sure he scored that high on Step 1? I know IM University programs that definitely would look at his application with a score that high, even from Ross, and I speak from experience.

It is a possibility that he simply did not apply to the right places........

 

[HotDigity]

My friend bombed Step 1 with a 210/87. My question is which residency programs are available realistically? ....thanks.😎

Dude, what year are you? You have not taken the exam yourself if you are asking this question. 210 is not bad unless your pal is going for the most competitive specialties. He is well with in std dev of the avg.

 

[lynda19]

Are you sure he scored that high on Step 1? I know IM University programs that definitely would look at his application with a score that high, even from Ross, and I speak from experience.

It is a possibility that he simply did not apply to the right places........

from what he told me, yeah. & he was always pretty honest about his scores. he was kind of a below avg student in college & never hid it. I remember being surprised that he couldnt get a different residency bc he wasnt looking for IM but was councelled that that would be best, then ended up in this program.

 

[silas2642]

I have a friend who went to Ross & he was an excellent med student there. I beleive he got a pretty good step 1 score along the lines of 250-260. Well supposedly bc he was from Ross (& I dont think this is fair at all) he had to settle for IM at an urban hospital that mostly accepted only foreign grads. I had a significantly lower score than him, interviewed at the same hospital & swore I would never accept a residency there. The PD basically told me to forget them bc other programs would be happy to have me...(not cuz Im all that special but moreso bc I am a US grad).

I have heard of foreign grads who have had great scores & not getting residencies. I feel for them bc they seem to work especially hard...
Of course, derm, rads, uro & a few other more compettive residencies were likely not going to consider me though. Thankfuly I was not interested in the competitve fields.

He must have been deficient in another area... he had to have not honored medicine in his third year, had a bad evaluation, or something.

 

[silas2642]

Dude, what year are you? You have not taken the exam yourself if you are asking this question. 210 is not bad unless your pal is going for the most competitive specialties. He is well with in std dev of the avg.

Yeah, I don't think a 210 is the end of the world. I'm currently studying for this beast... if I got a 210 I'd be pretty disappointed in myself but it certainly isn't something that is going to sink your career.

 

[JPmamd09]

http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2007.pdf

This is a link to "Charting Outcomes in the Match" from the NRMP (resident matching) website. The data is from 07, so it's a little older, but it gives (among other things) average Step 1 scores for matched and unmatched applicants in each specialty. Certainly these are only averages and as previous posters have mentioned it isn't the only thing programs take into account. However, I've heard that most of the competitive specialties have "cut-off" board scores for interview.

Hope you find this helpful, and hopefully the next edition will be out soon!

 

[stool sample]

Dude, what year are you? You have not taken the exam yourself if you are asking this question. 210 is not bad unless your pal is going for the most competitive specialties. He is well with in std dev of the avg.

yea i have not, ....he is now going to 3rd and feels bummed out. He had a bad test day, says he froze up on the second block. I was just trying to get some info for him as he doesnt come on here.

 

[gutonc]

yea i have not, ....he is now going to 3rd and feels bummed out. He had a bad test day, says he froze up on the second block. I was just trying to get some info for him as he doesnt come on here.

Of course, in the initial post, before you edited it, this statement was first person...which kind of makes you a troll. 210 is not the end of the world unless you're a Carribean grad who will kill him/herself if they don't match Derm. Move on and rock 3rd year and you'll be fine.

 

[stool sample]

Of course, in the initial post, before you edited it, this statement was first person...which kind of makes you a troll. 210 is not the end of the world unless you're a Carribean grad who will kill him/herself if they don't match Derm. Move on and rock 3rd year and you'll be fine.

... ...thnx for the responses.

 

[Winged Scapula]

yea i have not, ....he is now going to 3rd and feels bummed out. He had a bad test day, says he froze up on the second block. I was just trying to get some info for him as he doesnt come on here.

Honest question:

is it really so hard to register? I don't get this reasoning. Is your friend Amish (hell, even some of them have computers)? Why not just register and ask yourself?😕

 

[stool sample]

Honest question:

is it really so hard to register? I don't get this reasoning. Is your friend Amish (hell, even some of them have computers)? Why not just register and ask yourself?😕

Doc, not rocket science he posted under my name and i changed his post...but thanks for the help nonetheless. I have told him to register and post under his own name.

 

[Dimoak]

Doc, not rocket science he posted under my name and i changed his post...but thanks for the help nonetheless. I have told him to register and post under his own name.

You may want to avoid letting others post under your account in the future as it is a violation of the TOS.

 

[stool sample]

You may want to avoid letting others post under your account in the future as it is a violation of the TOS.

I think certain people are missing the point, my buddy and I were discussing his score and my laptop was nearby, he posted a Q and before there was a response I changed it to my own, to make it accurate, within a matter of minutes. Someone else who had read it in those few minutes decided to make an issue of it. Thereafter, a few more jumped on the bandwagon and hijacked the thread, those responses if anything are against the TOS seeing that it is unrelated to the topic. Thank you to those who did in fact answer the question. Talk about OCD...jeeze.

 

[Winged Scapula]

This is silly. This is not a TOS violation unless you allow your friend to troll with your account or in the case of some users, try to confuse users as to whom they are.
I was honestly confused because I've worked on sdn around friends and none have ever asked to use my account to post. So I genuinely wanted to know if the registration process was that onerous.

 

[dragonfly99]

People, quit piling on! I agree too much OCD on here...it's ridiculous.

The best advice I can give the friend right now is to put this out of his head for now, since he'll need all his best stuff to put his best foot forward during 3rd year. Despite what a lot of med students think, letters of recommendation from powerful attendings, and having "honors" in your specialty of choice during 3rd year, tend to trump USMLE scores for a lot of specialties...especially if the USMLE is halfway decent (i.e. not way below the mean or something). I think the 210 makes a few specialties out of reach, but the list is fairly short (I mean derm, probably rad onc, urology, plastic surg, neurosurg). But even that list is not absolute. Suppose he pulls a 250 on Step 2, rocks every 3rd year clerkship and the subI, and does research with a dept. chair? This isn't possible for the vast majority of people, but it's not completely impossible. Geography is also a big factor in where people can match...if you just want ER and don't care if it's in Nebraska or Iowa, it will be easier to get ER than if you insist on only living in big cities like Chicago or Atlanta. There are a lot of trade-offs involved in specialty the Match process and specialty choice.

More importantly, I think that if he does well from here on out, he still has a shot at most specialties, including things like ER and anesthesia. He just needs to be proactive about going after what he wants, and be sure to study more for Step 2 (but worry about that later, not now).

 

[chocomorsel]

My friend bombed Step 1 with a 210/87. My question is which residency programs are available realistically? ....thanks.😎

Seriously? She BOMBED step 1 with a 210. Don't call that bombing in my books. Considering that is my step 1 score. Sure it's below average, but I would call BOMB 180's-190's.
Get a hold of yourself. I matched into anesthesia without problems. Of course I also kicked ass on step 2. My friend with the same scores on both 1-2 matched into gen. surgery without problems. Other's matched into EM, IM, Peds, psych. What might be difficult will be specialty surgery, and other areas such as optho, rads, and of course everyone's favorite, derm. Try to improve on step 2, don't be an ass during interviews and you should be fine.

 

[stool sample]

Seriously? She BOMBED step 1 with a 210. Don't call that bombing in my books. Considering that is my step 1 score. Sure it's below average, but I would call BOMB 180's-190's.
Get a hold of yourself. I matched into anesthesia without problems. Of course I also kicked ass on step 2. My friend with the same scores on both 1-2 matched into gen. surgery without problems. Other's matched into EM, IM, Peds, psych. What might be difficult will be specialty surgery, and other areas such as optho, rads, and of course everyone's favorite, derm. Try to improve on step 2, don't be an ass during interviews and you should be fine.

lol...thanks I will relay your advice.

 

[dragonfly99]

chocomorsel is basically right.
Also, keep in mind that 2nd/3rd year med students tend to overemphasize the importance of the Step 1 score for getting into residency. Of course, it definitely helps to get a high score and is pretty necessary in some of the hyper-competitive fields, but even with very average scores, or slightly below average, a lot of fields are still open to you.

One thing that students often forget is that a lot of the people who got good scores on the steps are the same people who tend to get good LOR's, do the most research and ace their clerkships too...this makes it appear that the Step 1 score is the most important thing for getting residency (because people see the stats about rates of matching into "x" specialty with a certain board score, etc.). There are certainly nerdy types who have not good people skills and ONLY have good board scores, but there are definitely a lot who are just smart, have a good knowledge base and are skilled with people and often know the medical system well (i.e. parents in health care field, such as MD's or RN's) and tend to do well during clerkships too. I didn't have a great Step 1 score but just OK...I was also disappointed and think that I put too much importance on that score and it made me worry about my ability to do well during 3rd year. Just keep in mind that you shouldn't let this affect your whole experience in 3rd year and should just proceed exactly as if you got a 230...and try to do as well as you can. The only way I think it should change what you do is mainly to influence you to study a bit harder for Step 2, start studying early for it, and perhaps take it early enough in the fall/early winter that it can be seen during the Match (assuming you think yo u can do better).

 

[RussianJoo]

is your friend at a US med school or a carib med school? while 210 isn't terrible.. as an IMG you do need better stats than your US counterparts to match. Also depends on what they wanted to match into...