How much time for USMLE at your school?

[bkflaneur]

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There's been a lot of curriculum reorganization at my school, and students are trying to initiate a conversation with the administration about the amount of time available to study for the USMLE Step I. So I'm curious to know how much time people have at other schools.

Does anyone know where I could find information on what the national average is? We currently finish second year in early March and have 4 weeks for study/vacation before starting 3rd year in early April. I'm sure some students do perfectly well with 3 weeks of study/1 week of break. But I think there are plenty who would benefit from another 1-2 weeks of studying. If anyone knows of a source for national averages or something that correlates study time to performance, that would be a big help. Thanks!

 

[DoctorFunk]

My school gets about 5-6 weeks between finals and starting 3rd year. From what I understand, most students put in 3-4 weeks and use the rest to take time off. Step 1 averages here have been right around the national average over the last few years.

 

[deleted77919]

We get six weeks. The standard routine seems to be 4 weeks study and 2 weeks vacation.

Edit: We say our Step I avg is 228, but I heard that type of thing at nearly every school I interviewed and have yet to hear anyone say their school does 1sd below the mean . . . therefore I find these self reported numbers to be silly.

 

[jocg27]

My school gets about 5-6 weeks between finals and starting 3rd year. From what I understand, most students put in 3-4 weeks and use the rest to take time off. Step 1 averages here have been right around the national average over the last few years.

That's how my school is set up too...

It's funny, when I applied to medical school it seemed as though every school did above average on the boards! Now it seems to turn out that most schools in fact do average on the boards.

 

[WhoisJohnGalt]

We get six weeks. The standard routine seems to be 4 weeks study and 2 weeks vacation.

Ditto here. And our step 1 scores are right around average as well 🙂

 

[swtiepie711]

If I'm not mistaken, UCLA gets 9 weeks for prep & vacation....

 

[Tired]

. . . before starting 3rd year in early April.

Why do you start the year so early? What do you do from April to the following July? Weird.

 

[bkflaneur]

Why do you start the year so early? What do you do from April to the following July? Weird.

The two main reasons I've heard are: 1) have new med students start rotations when residents are a little more experienced as opposed to having new med students start clerkships at the same time as new residents in july and 2) have more time for required and elective clerkships before you need to schedule/choose a sub-internship for 4th year.

I think they're good reasons, and I'm sure I'll appreciate them more when I get to the clinical years. But trying to cram the classroom material into less time isn't fun, and I think a little more time for study/vacation between MS2 and MS3 would be helpful.

 

[mikedc813]

We get 6 weeks. 4 weeks is more than enough. I didn't think it would be when I was told to only take 3-4 weeks, but by that time you're so burned out from studying that delaying the test any more really starts to hurt you since you end up forgetting things. And our average is always a little above the national.

 

[Bubchik]

We do not get any official time off, but we schedule our rotations ourselves, so everybody take as much (or little) time as they want. And also b/c we are not required to take Step 1 before mid third year most students do a rotation or 2 before taking the boards. The average is 233-235 for the previous year according to the dean. From what I heard most students take 4 to 6 weeks to study and then a few weeks of travel.

 

[Bubb Rubb]

we get 4 weeks. if you want, however, you can take your elective/break block (6 weeks) at the beginning of 3rd year, and push step 1 back into that block.

 

[Medikit]

6 weeks at Wake Forest, more if you can't pass the NBME exams.

 

[bigdan]

Stony Brook in NY:

Last second year exam is May 14th, third year starts July 2nd. For some yet-to-be-explained reason, we must take the exam before June 25th.

So we get "that many" weeks....whatever it works out to...

dc

 

[Dr. Weebs]

We only get 2.5 weeks + 1 week of vacation. We are not allowed to dip into that 1 week of vacation. It is required. I'm just starting 2nd year, and I'm wondering how our school scores so well with so little time to prepare.

 

[Critical Mass]

Ditto here. And our step 1 scores are right around average as well 🙂

I thought that all schools had above average USMLE scores, otherwise 90% of their students wouldn't get their "first" choice of residency? 😀