How competitive are the California obgyn residency programs?

[caliga16]

I see some programs have the screening score cut offs. And I am sure places like UCSF, UCLA, Stanford are extremely competitive. But what about the rest of the programs in California? How important are Step1 scores? Can excellent Step2 scores compensate for a subpar step1 score?

Anyone know which schools that autoscreen?

Can you get into a CA obgyn residency without any publications/ research?

And how up to date is ACOG information? Such as average Step1 scores?

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[anonperson]

If you are dead set on CA programs and the information is not on their website or FREIDA, you could always email them.

Based on personal experience, I had a sub 200 Step 1 and a >240 on Step 2 and only got interviews from USC and Santa Clara Valley for residency even after applying to all of the CA programs. I had other issues with my application so take it for what its worth. I'm a fellow now in CA at a well known academic program and participated in interviewing medical students for residency. In general, the average scores I was seeing were >230 on Step 1.

As a rule of thumb, if you bomb Step 1. Take Step 2 and do better on it. It won't make up for Step 1 but it will lessen the blow somewhat.

Regarding research etc. Yes, you can match without research/pubs. Programs care about clinical grades, Step 1, and LOR. OB GYN program directors as a whole don't really care about research and it isn't thought of that highly. I had a first author paper and it really didn't do much for me during residency interviews.

 

[JK336]

The ACOG information are not up to date at all. If this upcoming interview cycle is anything like this past years, California will be extremely competitive (not just in Obgyn). The key factors to getting CA interviews are to a) have some ties to the state (grew up there, went to undergrad there, or lived there for some time) and b) have at least 230+ step 1 and higher step 2. It was really brutal this year and speaking with many California resident ms4's, it was tough even for them. If you are out of state, and have no strong ties to the state, i strongly recommend doing an away to get your application noticed. UCSF sent out automatic rejections to several AOA students that were simply out of state.

 

[Girouder]

I applied last year.

My step 1 was low 220s, step 2 low 240s. I only HP Ob/Gyn in 3rd year. Mostly HP the entire year with a couple of honors here and there. No pubs, but 1 poster presentation. I ended up getting interviews at a lot of the Cali community programs, but not the big academic ones. I also grew up in Cali so that also helped. All in all, I ended up interviewing at Kaiser LA and Oakland and received an interview but had to pass on Kaiser Santa Clara. I also interviewed at SCVMC, white memorial, and UCLA-Harbor. So, for being a pretty average applicant, I was able to get a decent number of interviews there. Just wanted to give hope to other people out there! Good luck guys!

 

[OBThrows]

Applied Last Year

Step 1&2 240s, AOA, Honored SubI, HP OB/Gyn, Pass Surgery(School doesn't grade inflate, only top 15% get Honors or HP, but sure this hurt my app), well respected Midwest school, PhD so lots of publications and presentations, did Undergrad in California.

Applied to UCLA, UCSD, UCSF, Cal-Irvine, Cal Davis. Got wait listed at UCSF and rejected at the others. Worked out fine as I had no real interest in any of them but was surprised at how competitive OBGYN was last year.