going for honors.. too risky or worth it?

[Ramoray]

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hey guys, any of you really going for honors and working you assssses off and not having time for any extra activities? i am really working hard having no time and pretty much devoting my time to going for honors.. many others are joining varoius extra activities and i am studying really hard.. if i get honors sure to me itll be worth it.. but it feels so risky i mean if i you end up with an 88 and you just pass and have nothing else to show for your semesters.. or you take someone with a 69 pass.. and they have like 5 activites.. what do u think look sbetter to adcoms.. alot of classes, possible all of them honored or all passes with signifigant activites??

 

[Entei]

We don't have adcoms to impress anymore. We're in med school now. Do the activities if you want to do them. If you'd rather just focus on your classes, then do that. From what I understand, program directors don't give a hoot about extracurricular activites or preclinical honors vs. pass grades. All that matters to them are clinical evaluations and board scores.

 

[DW]

Originally posted by Entei
We don't have adcoms to impress anymore. We're in med school now. Do the activities if you want to do them. If you'd rather just focus on your classes, then do that. From what I understand, program directors don't give a hoot about extracurricular activites or preclinical honors vs. pass grades. All that matters to them are clinical evaluations and board scores.

yup, this is at least what i'm telling myself now 😀

 

[KyGrlDr2B]

I've been told that pre-clinical grades don't matter that much, as well. What you definitely need to do is to get great grades 3rd and 4th year and have good board scores. But if you completely slack off during 1st and 2nd, it may be hard to get the board scores you want. Just find a middle ground somewhere and then kick ass later on. 🙂

 

[DALABROKA]

Preclinical grades may not matter so much directly, but your class rank, and the induction in to AOA based on that class rank, could certainly have an effect come residency application time......so I'm told.

DALA

 

[doc05]

Originally posted by DALABROKA
Preclinical grades may not matter so much directly, but your class rank, and the induction in to AOA based on that class rank, could certainly have an effect come residency application time......so I'm told.

DALA

keep in mind that learning everything well in ms1/ms2 is a huge part in determining how you do on step-1, which is a huge part in where you end up for residency. Class rank/AOA is also dependent on preclinical grades.

and also keep in mind you need to know everything from ms1/2 for when the attendings pimp you during ms3.

have fun.

 

[::Seabass::]

Originally posted by DW
yup, this is at least what i'm telling myself now 😀

right.......... 😛

 

[::Seabass::]

but to answer your question Wall$treet, I think they do matter to some extent. it really isn't that impressive to just pass all your pre-clinicals. good residency programs will want some record of achievement. who wants a slack off?

maybe pick a class or two to honor, one to high pass, and one to pass and make sure you are enjoying yourself or you will burn out. I'm personally part of some clubs just to learn more about different specialites and have lunch with my classmates. I have however tracked down an attending to get some time in OR because it will be nice 3rd year to see some friendly faces and being in the hospital excites me and motivates me to study. Those relationships I form doing this can be just as important.

 

[Rod Farva]

I really don't think that getting honors necessarily means you have a better grasp on the material than if you are in the high range of pass scores... I think in most cases, it just means that you spent a lot of extra time memorizing details that are tested for the particular class, not necessarily details you will remember after turning in the exam. I think getting a solid conceptual grasp of the material (which you don't have if you get a 65 on the exam, but you probably have if you get an 88 and not a 92) is all you really need to do to be able to recall stuff for the boards later. I don't think I've remembered more info from classes I've honored versus those I haven't. If I honor a class, great, but if I don't, I could care less.

 

[OB1🤙]

P=MD. Now go have a beer. 😉

 

[Street Philosopher]

P = FPMD
H = Dermatologist
NP = broke loser

 

[Ramoray]

funny how time flies. good to see all you not-so-long ago pre medders here and full out in med school just like we never knew anything different! good to see you guys.. thanks for the tips, it sure is NICE not to have to do a ton of activities just to b.s and impress the med adcoms.. but i know a balance is good in med too. but thanks everyone

 

[GoodMonkey]

ohhhhhhhhh how i love pass/fail.
ohhhhhhhhh how i love pass/faaaaaaaaaail
ohhhhhhhhh how i love pass/fail
there are no grades for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

 

[scully]

I guess my school is different than all of yours. Extracurriculars are very important here. You will not get a good Dean's letter if you don't have some community service, leadership, or research (or best, all three!) In addition, when the residency directors came to talk to us, they said MANY people exceed the cut off for board scores, MS1and 2 grades don't matter, and they pick people who are very well rounded, with demonstrated committment to the community and leadership experience.

 

[carrigallen]

Originally posted by Street Philosopher
P = FPMD
H = Dermatologist
NP = broke loser

🙄 this kind of noob stuff belongs on pre-allo.

 

[OB1🤙]

Originally posted by scully
I guess my school is different than all of yours. Extracurriculars are very important here. You will not get a good Dean's letter if you don't have some community service, leadership, or research (or best, all three!) In addition, when the residency directors came to talk to us, they said MANY people exceed the cut off for board scores, MS1and 2 grades don't matter, and they pick people who are very well rounded, with demonstrated committment to the community and leadership experience.

I think you're definitely right- in the first two years, extracurriculars are important, and highly encouraged at our school as well. I'm doing a bunch, not because it'll look good later, but because I'd be bored to tears without having non-academic outlets. Plus in a lot of them you get patient contact you wouldn't get otherwise.

And yeah, MS1 and 2 grades hardly count for anything in the long run. Obviously, the more you learn and retain, the better you do on step one, but in things like embryo and cell bio, I'll happily take a P instead of poring over minutae for five hours just to get two extra questions right on test day.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by GoodMonkey
ohhhhhhhhh how i love pass/fail.
ohhhhhhhhh how i love pass/faaaaaaaaaail
ohhhhhhhhh how i love pass/fail
there are no grades for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Hmmm. OR, are there grades and you just don't get to see them?

P/F = grades behind the scenes?

 

[GoodMonkey]

Originally posted by ItsGavinC
Hmmm. OR, are there grades and you just don't get to see them?

P/F = grades behind the scenes?

welcome to the state of mind of 6.2% of my class. 🙄

no. no behind the scene grades. if you look up my official transcript, i have a P for the last block of classes we had. i need a 75% to pass. that's all i care about at this point. i learn as much as i possibly can just for the sake of learning it - because i'll have to know most of it at some point or another. but one of the reasons i chose this school is because of at least a year of pass/fail. i refuse to compete for grades at this point. and i'm not paranoid to think that they're secretly keeping vigilant record only to jump out and say "aha! your first year 'pass/fail' raw percentages WERE really included in calculating class rank! neener neener neener!" 🙄

 

[Adcadet]

Originally posted by ItsGavinC
Hmmm. OR, are there grades and you just don't get to see them?

P/F = grades behind the scenes?

Yup.

My school (U of MN) is pass/fail the first two years, but a record is kept. The top 10% in each course, and top 20% for the year get letters put in their file noting this, so we do have "honors" of sorts. And there is an MSPE (Medical School Personal Evaluation, I think) which includes a "class rank" type thing in which pre-clinical grades count for about 4% of the overall score, so it's not huge. Other than that though, nothing can ever be said about my pre-clinical grades other than that "I passed," even if I fail a course the first time only to pass it later.

 

[Street Philosopher]

if we had grades i would be in the bottom 25%. but since it is p/np i'm in the top of my class. lol

 

[carrigallen]

Originally posted by Street Philosopher
if we had grades i would be in the bottom 25%. but since it is p/np i'm in the top of my class. lol

still, you have a class rank...regardless of grades.

 

[Street Philosopher]

what are you talking about? we absolutely 100% do not in the first year. unless you have some insider info on my school.

 

[doc05]

Originally posted by Street Philosopher
what are you talking about? we absolutely 100% do not in the first year. unless you have some insider info on my school.

you probably do. even schools that are p/f have some way of ranking students.

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by doc05
you probably do. even schools that are p/f have some way of ranking students.

Ive heard about this secret ranking system myself? Of course, since its secret, I cant tell if its made up or exists but is on the dl. Anyone have info on this?

 

[Street Philosopher]

we were told emphatically that we don't. i tend to believe this since we have honors/hp/p/f in the second year to differentiate.

 

[SunnyS81]

I'm backing up Street philospher and Good Monkey on this one...

According to our assistant dean of eduction, no record is kept besides pass fail. The only time we are ranked is for AOA and that is based on second year. Our rank is not released to the places we apply to for residencies although it is sort of implied (they give the grade distributions for each class).

Good Monkey, I think that 6.2% is down to 0% after Fantone spoke.........otherwise people are stressing out unneccessarily.......although I just worry about passed (for a legitimate reason)........

 

[WatchingWaiting]

Originally posted by carrigallen
🙄 this kind of noob stuff belongs on pre-allo.

This kind of anal-retentiveness belongs in pre-allo.

 

[Street Philosopher]

man passing is hard enough as it is. i'm getting my ass kicked here. i will be crossing all my fingers and toes to pass this damn module.

 

[Entei]

We've got the same kind of grading system that UMich has: strictly Pass/Fail with NO devious ranking machinations going on behind the scenes. Of course, this only applies to the first year... I'll just have to "enjoy" it while it lasts.

 

[P Diddy]

Originally posted by SunnyS81
I'm backing up Street philospher and Good Monkey on this one...

According to our assistant dean of eduction, no record is kept besides pass fail. The only time we are ranked is for AOA and that is based on second year. Our rank is not released to the places we apply to for residencies although it is sort of implied (they give the grade distributions for each class).

Good Monkey, I think that 6.2% is down to 0% after Fantone spoke.........otherwise people are stressing out unneccessarily.......although I just worry about passed (for a legitimate reason)........

At my school they told us the exact same thing - that only in second year did grades start mattering for class rank/AOA. When I became AOA and we compiled the lists of people eligible for election...I found that they were right. Everyone had an 'S' for each block of 1st year (my school was PBL). However, there WAS a class rank by fourth year, and that is likely the case at every school. How else would they hand out awards at the end of fourth year?

For the record. AOA is based on 2nd AND third year, even at Michigan. Some school take part of fourth year into account.

diddy

 

[HamOnWholeWheat]

Originally posted by Street Philosopher
we were told emphatically that we don't. i tend to believe this since we have honors/hp/p/f in the second year to differentiate.

Just a quick question, what's the point of pass/fail if its honors/hp/p/f? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? I can picture the dean of the school reading an article about the merits of pass fail grading, and then just changing his school's printout of student transcripts from 'A' to 'HONORS', 'B' to 'HP', etc.

 

[chef]

ham, some schools have true p/f only systems while others have h/hp/p/f systems. h/hp/p/f=a/b/c/d.

only school i know that has all 4 yrs true p/f is stanford.

michigan, harvard, yale, washu, columbia, and many others have true p/f preclinical yrs, either 1st yr or both. then 3rd & 4th yrs are h/hp/p/f.

hopkins, u maryland, and some others have h/hp/p/f grades starting day 1.

another thing to keep in mind is some schools limit # of honors to certain %, while others do not. for example hopkins will give honors to top 5-10% only depending on each sequence. places like michigan i heard give honors to any1 who gets above certain cutoff, so theoretically the whole class can get honors.

hope this helps.

 

[Samoa]

Like Hawaiian Bruin, I seem to have signed up for a bunch of extracurricular stuff as well. It has nothing to do, really, with wanting to look good for residency directors. There are just a lot of interesting things to do. My problem is that I do need to study like a madwoman just to pass some of my classes, so I'm not having as much fun as I'd like. Plus I'm trying hard not to badmouth my roommate to our class, which is totally making my life hell right now, since I'm pretty sure that I'm NOT getting the same consideration in return. Plus she's very outgoing and witty, so it's entertaining to listen to her, and it takes a while to see through it. It's really really frustrating, but I just can't worry about what people think of me right now.

However...it was great to rock cell bio, even though it did mean studying minutiae for a few hours. The nice thing was that the syllabus told us exactly what minutiae to study. Embryo, however, was just a bunch of lucky guesses. One more test, and then I can relax!