**** Grades, literally don't know what residency I'm shooting for at this point.

[dixoutforharambe]

Hello,

I got a pass in Medicine, barely passed the shelf. Pass in Psychiatry. High pass in Neuro. Pass in Primary Care. I have never got above 42nd percentile on a shelf. It has been difficult for me to sit down and do uworld questions every day. I take longer than most people because I know less and get distracted, and the knowledge gap issue compounds daily. I have not taken Step 1 or 2 yet. I had a 99th pct MCAT so I was once able to do this, but the rate of med school has been difficult to handle.

Obviously competitive residencies are out. What is still in the cards? Are there any surgical routes still open for me? I want to turn this around obviously, but like optho ortho derm are long gone imo, which is sad.

I don' t know what to do. Literally thinking about getting a script for adderall as my best option.

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[Cornfed101]

How have you not taken step 1 yet but you’re already taking shelf exams?

 

[M&L]

How have you not taken step 1 yet but you’re already taking shelf exams?

Some schools have step 1 after/during M3.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

How have you not taken step 1 yet but you’re already taking shelf exams?

Lots of schools are moving to this model. We start rotations halfway through M2 and then take step 1 a year later after our core rotations.

 

[M&L]

Lots of schools are moving to this model. We start rotations halfway through M2 and then take step 1 a year later.

I am taking mine during M3 as well .

 

[M&L]

Hello,

I got a pass in Medicine, barely passed the shelf. Pass in Psychiatry. High pass in Neuro. Pass in Primary Care. I have never got above 42nd percentile on a shelf. It has been difficult for me to sit down and do uworld questions every day. I take longer than most people because I know less and get distracted, and the knowledge gap issue compounds daily. I have not taken Step 1 or 2 yet. I had a 99th pct MCAT so I was once able to do this, but the rate of med school has been difficult to handle.

Obviously competitive residencies are out. What is still in the cards? Are there any surgical routes still open for me? I want to turn this around obviously, but like optho ortho derm are long gone imo, which is sad.

I don' t know what to do. Literally thinking about getting a script for adderall as my best option.

Look, honestly, I really don’t think competitive stuff is off the books yet ! You haven’t taken steps yet, you haven’t failed anything yet ! It’s not that bad ! I think if you can get good steps (I know this is hard to figure out , but I am saying If you can turn it around) you can shoot for something competitive. Especially if you do a research year .

you are M3, right ? Or rising m4?

 

[Type2Fiber]

Hello,

I got a pass in Medicine, barely passed the shelf. Pass in Psychiatry. High pass in Neuro. Pass in Primary Care. I have never got above 42nd percentile on a shelf. It has been difficult for me to sit down and do uworld questions every day. I take longer than most people because I know less and get distracted, and the knowledge gap issue compounds daily. I have not taken Step 1 or 2 yet. I had a 99th pct MCAT so I was once able to do this, but the rate of med school has been difficult to handle.

Obviously competitive residencies are out. What is still in the cards? Are there any surgical routes still open for me? I want to turn this around obviously, but like optho ortho derm are long gone imo, which is sad.

I don' t know what to do. Literally thinking about getting a script for adderall as my best option.

if you have a 99th percentile MCAT, you are being inefficient in how you study with those shelf scores. good news is that if you havent taken step 1 yet, you're still in the running for pretty much any residency, especially given your track record on standardized tests. what are you doing to prepare for the shelves?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Hello,

I got a pass in Medicine, barely passed the shelf. Pass in Psychiatry. High pass in Neuro. Pass in Primary Care. I have never got above 42nd percentile on a shelf. It has been difficult for me to sit down and do uworld questions every day. I take longer than most people because I know less and get distracted, and the knowledge gap issue compounds daily. I have not taken Step 1 or 2 yet. I had a 99th pct MCAT so I was once able to do this, but the rate of med school has been difficult to handle.

Obviously competitive residencies are out. What is still in the cards? Are there any surgical routes still open for me? I want to turn this around obviously, but like optho ortho derm are long gone imo, which is sad.

I don' t know what to do. Literally thinking about getting a script for adderall as my best option.

You’re not totally screwed. You still have some rotations left, and most people don’t honor everything. You haven’t taken step 1 yet. When are you taking it? Before or after it becomes p/f?

 

[dixoutforharambe]

if you have a 99th percentile MCAT, you are being inefficient in how you study with those shelf scores. good news is that if you havent taken step 1 yet, you're still in the running for pretty much any residency, especially given your track record on standardized tests. what are you doing to prepare for the shelves?

You’re not totally screwed. You still have some rotations left, and most people don’t honor everything. You haven’t taken step 1 yet. When are you taking it? Before or after it becomes p/f?

Thanks for the support

Yeah, I am extremely inefficient in preparation for shelf exams. I typically just barely finish a first pass of uworld during the clerkship (as in, the day before the shelf). I would take detailed notes for each question I got wrong, but spent too much time on that and ultimatey have a very long document I would never have time to review. I would also not do questions for like 3 days at a time, and things would fade fast.

I am going into surgery next week, and am 1/3 done with onlinemeded and simultaneously doing the relevant Anking anki. I think anki will hammer things into my brain better. Planning to do UWORLD and read the divirglio surgery textbook and emphasize quantity more to get things done so I can redo wrong/marked q's. Hoping I can finish quicker with those and then review some medicine incorrects towards the end before the shelf. But who's to say if my good intentions will make the drastic change I want to see?

For the MCAT, I took a lot of time to prepare, and made "cheat sheets" for every topic, and rewrote each one so many times I could almost draw it from memory. I don't have that luxury of time in M3.

And yeah I'm M3 but my school scheduled step 1 for after rotations, at which point it will be P/F. So that's less than ideal.

I will have 3 pubs: 2 case reports and a review from during med school, but they're all ortho. 2 neuro-ish pubs from lab research before med school. Thinking I should get some plan-B research in the pipeline.

Thanks again, really surprised to get this many replies so fast.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I am going into surgery next week, and am 1/3 done with onlinemeded and simultaneously doing the relevant Anking anki. I think anki will hammer things into my brain better. Planning to do UWORLD and read the divirglio surgery textbook and emphasize quantity more to get things done so I can redo wrong/marked q's. Hoping I can finish quicker with those and then review some medicine incorrects towards the end before the shelf. But who's to say if my good intentions will make the drastic change I want to see?

Divirgilio is very dense and takes forever to get through. I found Pestana much more useful for the shelf. I also added on another qbank to uworld because uworld wasn’t super useful for the surgery shelf IMO. I also didn’t do all of anki and stopped a few days into the rotation because it took so much time.

 

[Type2Fiber]

Thanks again, really surprised to get this many replies so fast.

Happy to help out anyone who appreciates the greatest gorilla there ever was

This is my approach that was very successful for me and I have a much lower MCAT than you. Take it fwiw but my lowest raw shelf score was an 88

1) unlock all anki cards with the no dupes tag for the shelf from the anking deck and just go straight through them. no online meded, no reading anything, just crush the cards. keep up with reviews for that block only and then suspend them after the shelf
2) once you've done all the new cards, do all the uworld questions. medicine is tough to finish but everything else you shouldnt have trouble with
3) take all the practice nbmes for each shelf and review them well
4) watch the divine intervention youtube shelf reviews in the last day or two before the shelf. I thought these were absolutely fantastic. his podcasts are a good listen as well and i did listen to them in the car but i dont think it is make or break to do them if you dont like podcasts

Just repeat this for every shelf and you will be golden. Anki is perfect for third year as it helps streamline studying and is economical with your limited time to study. writing notes and such is way too inefficient for third year, I would stop that especially given your results so far

 

[Dral]

I think I had passes and high passes...maybe an honors or two. These are basic equivalents since my school actually gave letter grades for clinical rotations (see below). I think I had high pass in medicine maybe? I dunno I think it was an A- (yes they even gave us +'s and -'s. I ended up in Derm somehow.

I don't know about other fields, but Derm likes highest possible in surgery and medicine...and honors in derm rotations (which most reasonable people get since most of us seem to go by the assumption that honors means "This person knows their stuff and they are neither obnoxious nor unsavory, dishonest, etc).

With that said, a pass in medicine or surgery isn't a deal breaker. We get it that schools grade differently (see above). There was a whole thread focused on this topic not that long ago on this forum.

With that being said, if I see a pass in medicine, but then a high pass or even better honors in medicine Sub I, I don't even start to think twice about the pass in medicine.

Anyway, step back and think about why you aren't doing as well as you expect. I'm sure you are already doing this to some extent. Maybe a different study method as mentioned above? Don't let the stress/anxiety compound and make studying/preparing more difficult. You're not 'sunk'.

 

[operaman]

I don’t think competitive fields are out but clearly you are struggling. I hope you’re taking advantage of all the resources at your disposal in making sure your mental and physical health are optimized. Usually when I see large swings in performance - 99th percentile mcat and then subpar scores - it suggests substance abuse and/or mental illness. Smart people are great at compensating but Med school often overwhelms their ability to do this. Obviously this is deeply personal stuff so no need to get into it here; just food for thought and something worth discussing in person with your people if you think it applies to you.

If you can turn things around and do well on steps then most things should still be open to you. Yes your grades will hurt but they can be balanced out by better grades and letters and strong step scores. Good research and whatnot is also a big part of hyper competitive fields. So you’ve got plenty of time and opportunity to right the ship, but clearly continuing to perform below average of that extends to steps and everything else will be an issue.

 

[Cornfed101]

Lots of schools are moving to this model. We start rotations halfway through M2 and then take step 1 a year later after our core rotations.

you wonder if this is going to flip completely now that step 1 is p/f. Our school is giving us the option to start 3rd year rotations early so we can take step 2 a few months earlier