Fellowship Chances

[Kanife]

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Just got back my ABSITE scores. I'm a little disappointed that the same amount of questions correct gives a way lower percentile on the senior exam than the junior one last year. I'm an R3 and have done really well on my prior junior exams. I'm considering either plastics or pediatric surgery but with my current score I don't how much will that affect my chances of getting into a competitive fellowship. Does anyone know ?

 

[Guile]

There have been a few ABSITE and fellowship questions lately. Seems the consensus is that ABSITE scores are pretty low on the list of things to consider for fellowship. Connections, letters, and research will all go a lot farther than ABSITE scores. Are you going into the lab?

 

[Kanife]

Yes, doing 2 years of basic science research. I don't know how much weight ABSITE scores carry if connections, letters and research are given higher importance. Thanks for your reply.

There have been a few ABSITE and fellowship questions lately. Seems the consensus is that ABSITE scores are pretty low on the list of things to consider for fellowship. Connections, letters, and research will all go a lot farther than ABSITE scores. Are you going into the lab?

 

[Guile]

Yes, doing 2 years of basic science research. I don't know how much weight ABSITE scores carry if connections, letters and research are given higher importance. Thanks for your reply.

Well I think the best resource would be talking to your PD and if you have fellowship PDs, then them too. But it seems from other threads that they carry much, much less importance than the other things listed. You can probably give this forum a quick search and find some more information on the topic.

 

[SLUser11]

Just got back my ABSITE scores. I'm a little disappointed that the same amount of questions correct gives a way lower percentile on the senior exam than the junior one last year. I'm an R3 and have done really well on my prior junior exams. I'm considering either plastics or pediatric surgery but with my current score I don't how much will that affect my chances of getting into a competitive fellowship. Does anyone know ?

Well, they do matter, but you can't change your score now, so you can only focus on improving next year. What is concerning is if you have a very low percentile (<30th) or show a gradual decline over the years.

The importance varies by fellowship. There is a paper on this in the Journal of Surgical Education that can give you some perspective.

From personal experience, I can say that my ABSITE scores were discussed in every interview for colorectal.

 

[mosfet]

I don't know about peds surgery but for plastics, absite scores matter quite a bit, at least in obtaining that initial interview. Of course research, connections and letters help but remember, most applicants get good letters anyway and not everyone has connections.

 

[JPdrain1]

I don't know about peds surgery but for plastics, absite scores matter quite a bit, at least in obtaining that initial interview. Of course research, connections and letters help but remember, most applicants get good letters anyway and not everyone has connections.

From your knowledge/experience, do fellowship programs in PRS care more about good ABSITE scores or good Step scores?

 

[SLUser11]

From your knowledge/experience, do fellowship programs in PRS care more about good ABSITE scores or good Step scores?

My anecdotal experience is that ABSITE matters more. A friend of mine from this program had admittedly average Step 1 and 2 scores, but got 95-99 every year on the ABSITE, and he had a lot more plastics invitations to interview compared to the guys he was interviewing against.

This was a few years back. We've had some others go into plastics since then, but I think their scores were all good.

 

[mosfet]

From your knowledge/experience, do fellowship programs in PRS care more about good ABSITE scores or good Step scores?

I can't tell you for sure, but since absite scores are more recent and revelant to surgery specifically, I would think they are more important than step scores.

 

[Kanife]

It's true that I can't change anything now. The curve this year was a little steep. Have to do better next year. Looked at that paper you posted. Seems hard to believe that Colorectal fellowship PDs give more weight than other fellowship programs.

Given that most competitive fellowship applicants look the same on paper, I would assume PD's use ABSITE scores to filter/discount applicants.

 

[Hometown Diego]

In my experience I would agree that ABSITE scores do matter. Good ABSITE scores will open the interview doors similar to USMLE and residency. When I interviewd for MIS/Bariatric comments were made on how well my ABSITE scores were and I believe that allowed me to interview at places like Harvard, Stanford, Cleveland Clinic, UCSF, etc. USMLE as far as fellowship goes at least in my experience they didn't ask for numbers just if u passed or failed. To sum up, in my opinion, ABSITE, letters of rec and research r ur top 3 (knowing someone or having a connection beats all the above)