Frustration about Pass/Fail COMLEX

[Dr_Ham]

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BAH! Sorry guys this is just to vent...

I've been working towards becoming a doctor for a while and I'm super glad that I finally made it, I'm an OMS-I now! While I was grinding away at building a strong app, I found a lot of comfort in knowing that competition wouldn't be as fierce/important in my medical school courses. Also P/F courses sounded soooooooooo bomb.

With COMLEX L1 becoming P/F, I now have to think about my class standing more and it's frustrating to have my expectations flipped. Not that I ever planned on barely scraping by in medical school, but it definitely is an additional stressor that I don't appreciate. It feels like every point matters to me, and isn't that what a lot of adcoms try to avoid in their matriculants in the first place? BLEH.

This is a minor grievance considering that I get to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a physician. But I am frustrated nonetheless.

What are your thoughts about L1 P/F?

 

[Surgeon D.O.]

I still don’t think your class standing will be what makes or breaks you.

Focus on STEP 2 and the best way to prep for that is learning as much as you can and preparing for STEP 1.

 

[Whysoez]

BAH! Sorry guys this is just to vent...

I've been working towards becoming a doctor for a while and I'm super glad that I finally made it, I'm an OMS-I now! While I was grinding away at building a strong app, I found a lot of comfort in knowing that competition wouldn't be as fierce/important in my medical school courses. Also P/F courses sounded soooooooooo bomb.

With COMLEX L1 becoming P/F, I now have to think about my class standing more and it's frustrating to have my expectations flipped. Not that I ever planned on barely scraping by in medical school, but it definitely is an additional stressor that I don't appreciate. It feels like every point matters to me, and isn't that what a lot of adcoms try to avoid in their matriculants in the first place? BLEH.

This is a minor grievance considering that I get to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a physician. But I am frustrated nonetheless.

What are your thoughts about L1 P/F?

I am more frustrated about Step 1 P/F. If Step 1 did not go P/F and only COMLEX did, I could imagine myself being quite happy about it.

 

[Redpancreas]

I am more frustrated about Step 1 P/F. If Step 1 did not go P/F and only COMLEX did, I could imagine myself being quite happy about it.

Applies to everyone. Do well on Step 2.

 

[Dr_Ham]

I still don’t think your class standing will be what makes it breaks you.

Focus on STEP 2 and the best way to prepare for that is prepare the best you can for STEP 1.

I'd feel more convinced/inclined to think this way were it not for the uncertainty. There hasn't been a graduating class with P/F STEP 1/LEVEL 1 scores to see how these residency programs evaluate applicants.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

Everyone will be in the same boat. Step 2 is still scored and will most likely take the place of Step 1. Take both Step 1 AND Step 2, and you will be fine. A majority of PDs don't know how to interpret the COMLEX score anyway, so it's not really hurting that it went P/F. Pre-clinical grades don't matter too much due to so many variations in curriculum and grading amongst med schools. PDs just care that you're not out there failing lots of classes and/or having multiple remediation on your transcript. Get involve in research and make connections in your specialty to make you stand out even more.

 

[drducky.]

Level 1 might as well have always been p/f because no one cared about the score anyways.

 

[Goro]

I still don’t think your class standing will be what makes or breaks you.

Focus on STEP 2 and the best way to prep for that is learning as much as you can and preparing for STEP 1.

Gawd, this has been discussed so ad nauseum that SDN's servers are about to melt down.
Listen to the above, shine on auditions, get good MSPEs (or whatever they're called) and network, network, network.

 

[Dr_Ham]

Gawd, this has been discussed so ad nauseum that SDN's servers are about to melt down.
Listen to the above, shine on auditions, get good MSPEs (or whatever they're called) and network, network, network.

Genuinely curious, do you guys have to read everything that goes through SDN? I've seen several mods posting about being sick of certain threads. I'm not on 24/7 so I don't know how popular these posts are and I know I can google it, but this was just meant to vent a little. Also, there hasn't been a graduating class with P/F yet so how can you be so sure? I've spoken to the faculty at my school and all of them have said that quintiles will be an important factor moving forward.

Perhaps I was catastrophizing but I'm also very tired and stressed. Seeing numerous threads about this does make me feel less alone so I don't see the harm in talking it out a bit amongst us lowly med students (besides making your job a little busier, but don't you benefit from more traffic on SDN?).

 

[medDaisuki]

I've spoken to the faculty at my school and all of them have said that quintiles will be an important factor moving forward

How do they rank students into quantiles if the classes are P/F?

 

[iforget2]

How do they rank students into quantiles if the classes are P/F?

Internal rankings - Transcripts will show P/F but the school will keep track of your numerical grades and average them to rank all the students

 

[Lawpy]

Genuinely curious, do you guys have to read everything that goes through SDN? I've seen several mods posting about being sick of certain threads. I'm not on 24/7 so I don't know how popular these posts are and I know I can google it, but this was just meant to vent a little. Also, there hasn't been a graduating class with P/F yet so how can you be so sure? I've spoken to the faculty at my school and all of them have said that quintiles will be an important factor moving forward.

Perhaps I was catastrophizing but I'm also very tired and stressed. Seeing numerous threads about this does make me feel less alone so I don't see the harm in talking it out a bit amongst us lowly med students (besides making your job a little busier, but don't you benefit from more traffic on SDN?).

The thing is these topics have been discussed extensively for months. Goro's exhaustion is completely understandable, and more site traffic doesn't mean cluttering the forums is a good idea.

With one standardized metric gone, PDs have little choice other than relying on remaining metrics, so Step 2, letters, clinical grades are king

 

[Lawpy]

I am more frustrated about Step 1 P/F. If Step 1 did not go P/F and only COMLEX did, I could imagine myself being quite happy about it.

That's really what should've been done but medical education leaders screwed up severely and forced NBME to change it to P/F with zero foresight

 

[Goro]

Genuinely curious, do you guys have to read everything that goes through SDN?

Well, yeah

I've seen several mods posting about being sick of certain threads. I'm not on 24/7 so I don't know how popular these posts are and I know I can google it, but this was just meant to vent a little. Also, there hasn't been a graduating class with P/F yet so how can you be so sure?

PDs have mentioned what I passed on

I've spoken to the faculty at my school and all of them have said that quintiles will be an important factor moving forward.

Perhaps I was catastrophizing but I'm also very tired and stressed. Seeing numerous threads about this does make me feel less alone so I don't see the harm in talking it out a bit amongst us lowly med students (besides making your job a little busier, but don't you benefit from more traffic on SDN?).

Traffic is OK, redundancy isn't

 

[Kardio]

Genuinely curious, do you guys have to read everything that goes through SDN? I've seen several mods posting about being sick of certain threads. I'm not on 24/7 so I don't know how popular these posts are and I know I can google it, but this was just meant to vent a little. Also, there hasn't been a graduating class with P/F yet so how can you be so sure? I've spoken to the faculty at my school and all of them have said that quintiles will be an important factor moving forward.

Perhaps I was catastrophizing but I'm also very tired and stressed. Seeing numerous threads about this does make me feel less alone so I don't see the harm in talking it out a bit amongst us lowly med students (besides making your job a little busier, but don't you benefit from more traffic on SDN?).

Beating dead horses is an SDN tradition. Ragging on people beating said horses is also an SDN tradition.

 

[deleted1100659]

This is pretty funny, in my day I did quite average on step 1 but completely destroyed step 2, was over 80th percentile.

not that it matters now but sure would have made me feel more comfortable in the residency cycle lol

 

[deleted1081396]

Those idiots who wanted Step 1 P/F got exactly what they wanted and have no room to complain. They now have to contend with horribly written school lectures and class rank instead. And by the time the new M1s are M4s there will probably be a lot more programs that require secondaries or that dumb preference signaling thing, or even worse that cancerous CASPer exam. A couple of them have told me that their class is already super stressed out about getting ECs. Thank God I'm graduating this year...