How many clerkship Honors are expected/average for interviews at ivory residencies?

[someqsaboutstuff]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Is neuro competitive enough that the highest ranked (top 10) neurology residency programs generally only interview applicants with honors in nearly all rotations? Or does honoring half of rotations put you in contention for highly ranked programs?

This is just a general question to get a feel for how competitive neurology is wrt clerkship grades. I know that programs ranked higher on eg doximity are not necessarily "better". Just trying to understand how honors is perceived by individuals who evaluate applications.

 

[Hank Rearden]

I interview neurology applicants, but caveat that my program would probably not be considered among the top 10. It has become extremely difficult to judge applicants based on clerkship grades, primarily because there is so much heterogeneity between institutions. Many medical schools have done away with honors altogether and switched to pass / fail. Others give honors to > 50% of the the students for each clerkship, causing significant grade inflation. As a result of the current mess I usually just glance over the clerkship grades. If the program does include honors and is not just pass/fail, I would typically want to see that you at least honored neurology. Otherwise I'm looking at the overall report and trying to read the tea leaves to figure out which quartile of your class you graduated in. If you're coming from a weak medical school I would want you to be in the top quartile, but if you're coming from a strong medical school this is less important. What I probably look at most is actually the letters of recommendation. You must have strong letters of recommendation including at least a couple from academic neurologists. One of the best endorsements is if one of your letter writers includes something to the effect of, "this applicant is in the top 5% of students I've worked with...". To me, your track record of publications is also important, as people who have previously published tend to continue to publish. Publications are not a deal breaker, but definitely enhance your application.