How to politely tell people you don't want to share your score?

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golfman

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Our class is very competitive. Every time I'm at school studying, somebody comes up and always wants to know my UW scores, NBME exam scores, etc...

I know that wouldn't bother some people, but I seem to be pretty competitive myself, and I either feel bad if I'm doing better than them, or I get pissed off and start to resent the person if they are doing better than me. (Mature responses, I know).

I don't mind sharing things on an anonymous forum, and it really doesn't bother me when you guys do way better than me. But for some reason when a close friend kicks my trash, or does way worse than me, it bothers me. (Yeah, I probably have some weird issues going on, but that is not the point of this thread).

What is a polite way to tell somebody you don't want to share your score? If somebody asked you, "What did you get on your last NMBE?", and you didn't want to share, you would respond by saying............

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I tend to avoid the issue as much as possible. I think you can tactfully say:

"The last NMBE I took went pretty well, I am above the minimum I wanted to score" (regardless if you are or aren't)

That "kind of" answered their question and gives them the hint that you are not so willing to share
 
I tend to avoid the issue as much as possible. I think you can tactfully say:

"The last NMBE I took went pretty well, I am above the minimum I wanted to score" (regardless if you are or aren't)

That "kind of" answered their question and gives them the hint that you are not so willing to share

That's a great way to phrase it. Usually most people would understand that.

But last week, someone asked me about an NBME, and I said "I did okay, I'm happy with it". Then said person said "Well what did you get?"

Then I told him. And then he told me his score, which crushed mine. And then I wondered how someone so smart could be so dumb as to not be able to take a hint. :laugh:
 
That's a great way to phrase it. Usually most people would understand that.

But last week, someone asked me about an NBME, and I said "I did okay, I'm happy with it". Then said person said "Well what did you get?"

Then I told him. And then he told me his score, which crushed mine. And then I wondered how someone so smart could be so dumb as to not be able to take a hint. :laugh:

I think he got your hint, he just didn't care.
 
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I'm pretty direct about it. Even if someone did the biggest favor in the world for me, I will never tell them my scores! I never divulge my grades, good or bad. However, once a patient asked me my MCAT score... and I didn't know how to say no to a patient 🙁.
 
as we all know, if you tell one person in your med school class you've told everyone. with that in mind i advise a misinformation campaign. i've started giving different answers to different people. just randomly pick a number from your head and give it to them. make these numbers vary WIDELY. some people think i bombed my last nbme and rolled a 215. other people think i rocked it out and scored a 250. eventually someone will have to call me out on it, but when that happens i'm confident that i won't look like the bigger douche.
 
hopefully your friends come across this thread

I'm sure they have. Although I don't if many from my school are on here. I haven't heard anyone mention SDN at my school. Although I'm sure they are lurking on here as well.
 
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