Did Step 1 after CK and the score improved...

[DrIvanhoe]

Hello folks,

When you think of "the scores increase over time" thing, which I previously read was important, does it matter what order the Step 1 and CK were done in? E.g. Step 1 is 249 and CK is 232, with the CK done before the Step 1. Technically, the score has improved, but does the PDs/programs know what was the order for that matter? If not, it'll look that score has gone down.
Not that anything can be changed or the answer will affect much, but I'd rather know what my application will look like.
On the side note, one PD tells me that the CK score is definitely more important than the Step 1 score.

Much appreciated

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[Dral]

When scores are reported, it will be evident on what dates you took the exams. This is to let the people who review your app know that you took the exams at relatively normal intervals apart from one another.

Certain reviewers may not notice the dates and that you took them out of order.

If a reviewer does notice it, I doubt it would matter (it wouldn't really matter to me).

However, a temporal score improvement would not matter to me in this case (emphasis on ME). Does it mean you got used to the format and possibly did better subsequently? Possibly. Does it mean you did better on the basic material and not as well on the more clinically oriented material? yes.

Does the latter point matter? It does to some people possibly, which is the usual context of improving from I to CK. So not so much the order, but more the content that matters.

 

[Keladry]

http://www.usmle.org/pdfs/transcripts/USMLE_Step_Examination_Score_Interpretation_Guidelines.pdf

The mean score on step 2 is usually ~10 points higher than step 1. The idea behind a score "improving" from step 1 to step 2 means that you stay at roughly the same percentile (or higher) - so a 230 on step 1 and a 240 on step 2 mean you did about the same on both tests, whereas a 230 on step 1 and a 230 on step 2 means you did relatively worse on step 2.

In your example, a 249 on step 1 is almost 84th percentile, and a 232 on step 2 is below 34th percentile. It looks like your score went down because it did, both in absolute terms and in percentile. If step 2 was your very first time ever taking an NBME exam (like no NBMEs or shelf exams in med school), then it explains things a little, but given the relative cheapness of practice exams I'm not sure why that would be the case. Might help your case if true, though.

Relative importance of step 1 & step 2 varies a good deal by specialty.

 

[DrIvanhoe]

Thank you.