Honors vs pass

[uhmocksuhsillen]

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Curious how big a deal this is... My school only does honors vs pass and despite a good eval ended up with a pass in psych because my shelf score wasn't quite high enough for honors. Have I just closed the door to many programs?

Got a solid letter from the rotation and have good grades and 243 step. Thank you.

 

[Amygdarya]

Curious how big a deal this is... My school only does honors vs pass and despite a good eval ended up with a pass in psych because my shelf score wasn't quite high enough for honors. Have I just closed the door to many programs?

Got a solid letter from the rotation and have good grades and 243 step. Thank you.

I know that a very small minority of the very top programs do filter by Honors in psychiatry (coughColumbiacough), but screw them for putting so much emphasis on something so fickle as clinical rotation grading*. The vast majority of programs, including the top ones, don't do this, so you still have a great chance at the vast majority of programs assuming the rest of your application is solid. You can't do anything about the grade anyway, so just go ahead and apply to the programs you're interested in and see what happens.

(* eg., at my P/HP/H school the difference between P and HP is meaningful, while the difference between H and HP is basically whether every single person you worked with liked you or whether at least one didn't, which essentially comes down to the luck - or the lack thereof - of who you happen to work with, just one person can lower your grade and it doesn't matter how strong your evals from everyone else are... but I should stop venting.)

 

[raisinbrain]

Also keep in mind that most (all? did I dream this?) medical schools also send out a brief overview of the grade brake down for your entire med school class, e.g. 30% honors, 69% pass, 1% fail etc (or whatever it is). It also includes the grading scheme (H/HP/P vs H/P). I have no idea how much this gets looked at, but I imagine there would be a recognizable difference in getting a pass if 10% of a class typically honors, vs if 90% did and you were the odd one out.

But I agree - you'll never know before you apply, but it's definitely not the end of the world.

 

[NickNaylor]

I didn’t honor my psych rotation and still got a lot of interviews at great programs. It’s not as big of a dealbreaker as you’re likely catastrophizing it to be.

 

[908377]

I only got a pass and ended up doing just fine. The attending responsible for filling out our evals waited until the end of the year and just marked everybody as 'pass'. It's a really stupid reason to not interview somebody (all else being equal)

 

[psychattending]

I look at pattern of performances; so one score will not make or break you. I would think that is the norm among my fellow PDs but don't have any real data.

 

[J ROD]

You will be fine. You have a Step 1 243. I would be more worried about following up with a strong CK score for Step 2. More programs are looking at and require it for interview.

 

[Bartelby]

Your clinical grades, especially on the core rotations, are one of the most heavily weighted factors in your application. With that said, getting a pass instead of an honors on a single rotation (even if that rotation is psychiatry) will not close doors at most places. To keep the doors open at the most competitive programs, I recommend getting honors in at least some of your other core rotations and doing a Psychiatry subinternship early with very good reviews.

 

[NontradCA]

Best you can do from this point is focus on other areas of your application, like step 2, research, and letters of rec. I don’t think a pass in psychiatry will hold you back.

 

[FlowRate]

It won't sink you. Helps if you're at a higher tier school with a lower % of Honors given out.

 

[Shikima]

P=MD