How Important Are Grades??

[kingsfan]

Some people keep mentioning "good grades" for rad-onch. Do you mean first and second year grades or third and fourth year grades? Only 20% that match are AOA. So what is the real story with grades? Board scores and research seem to take precedence.

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[radoncmonkey]

First and second year grades mean very little. Many schools don't even give first year grades anymore. Junior AOA is nice but not necessary. Step I is important and pretty much trumps all your preclinical grades.

As for third year, try to do well, and if you don't do as well as you like try to gets Honors in your rad onc rotation and your 4th year subI (take them early) to make up for it.

If you are thinking about the field early in your med school career my advice to you would be to start doing research and start making connections in your home department. This is as important as anything else.

 

[stephew]

basic sci grades dont count half as much as clinical. clinical are key. not doing well raises a big questionmark.

 

[kingsfan]

thanks,

any other takes??

 

[Gfunk6]

Board scores and research seem to take precedence.

This pretty much says it with one caveat . . . clinical grades. As stephew wrote not only are your grades in 3rd/4th year important, but the narrative comments people write about you could raise potential "red flags." For example, if someone writes that "[med student] is not a team player" or "[med student] is not reliable," then that's a potential problem.

Medicine/Surgery clerkship grades are particularly important.

 

[stephew]

radonc kinda counts too. any mediocre rotations could have a negative impact.

 

[XRTmonster]

My school is strictly P/F and the only grades anyone sees are what get released with the Dean's letter which only includes the usual core clerkships in 3rd year. Rad onc rotation grades are not included in so much as all one willl know is if I passed or not.

I'm probably just being paranoid but just wondering if this could be something that could hurt me? I'm sure when programs go through the hundreds of applications some may not be careful enough to read the fine print on the transcript that says this and assume I have a "special fondness" for "pass" grades or something.

 

[Reaganite]

I know exactly what you are feeling. Transcripts at my school only report pass/fail. Any honors grade is only included on the dean's letter. Also, my school only reports 4th year grades as pass/fail. Since many schools are already interviewing, they are obviously basing decisions on what is currently available. I wouldn't get too worried. I just finished ERAS about a week ago (I know I'm late; I was waiting for a manuscript to be submitted), and I have already received interview offers, including some very competitive transitional years that supposedly screen based on number of 3rd year honors grades. These initial interviews are probably based on boards, pubs, and recs. Actually, now that I remember, I got an email saying that the initial batch of interviews would be based on these materials and that additional interviews would be granted after dean's letters go out.

 

[Reaganite]

double post

 

[radonc]

even though schools have p/f or high pass/p/f or other variants of a non-letter based grading system, almost every school still uses class rank as a method of evaluating a student against his peers so it almost makes it a moot point.

programs just need to look at a handy graph that is inevitably part of the deans letter, to eval a students performance against other people in their class for every class/rotation that they perform.

 

[radoncmonkey]

many schools have stopped ranking students, especially at top 20 pograms. grades are important but I wouldn't freak out if you were not AOA but at a school with a good reputation

 

[XRTmonster]

yeah, my school doesn't rank nor are there any special 'graphs' on the dean's letter. They explicitly state on it in fact that the grades are measures of competency and are not used to compare one student to another.

 

[radoncmonkey]

I think grades are overrated in general. Sure bad grades are bad but you can still match at a top program with only "good" grades if you are strong elsewhere and have great LORs stating that you will be a great resident. Grades are definetly more important in a field like derm.

 

[Reaganite]

Hey, I need some clarification: are there two radoncmonkeys? If so, are you the radoncmonkey with interviews at Penn and Loyola? or is that a different radoncmonkey?
I think some of what you say is probably true, and if you're the guy with interviews, then I'd say you have at least some reason for thinking the way you do. Grades and board scores do not appear to be as important in this specialty as in some of the other really competitive specialties. If you look at some of the posts from last year, guys with 220s on step 1 were matching at top 10 programs, while guys in the 250s were matching at middle tier. Obviously, step 1 isn't everything, but that would never happen in derm, plastics, and a few others.

 

[nod]

radoncmonkey is a public user name that someone created so people who do not want to create an account (or are afraid of being tracked) can still post. i think it was created by "the original radonc monkey".

everyone loves a monkey.

 

[Reaganite]

Thanks. This radoncmonkey was confusing the heck out of me. One minute, I'd see this great post; next minute something ridiculous. Back and forth, back and forth. I was going crazy!