Importance of Honors 3rd Year

[.hematoma.]

Hi there!

To keep it brief, I wanted to know how critical honoring 3rd year rotations are for matching to ophthalmology. I know that AOA can help, but putting that aside, is the number of honors important? My school tends to shaft students for honors (about 10, maybe 15% get honors and you have to hit a certain percentile on the shelves + hit a certain percentage on evals).

This is assuming that the rest of my application is decent. I have a 250 step 1, have 6 non-ophthalmology publications/submitted for publication, 2 ophtho case reports in progress/submitted, and am involved in 5-6 ophthalmology ongoing projects (maybe half will lead to publication or a presentation? Not sure). To be honest, I'm really interested in the research I'm doing but I feel like I'm torn between publishing and honoring my rotations. I've honored my Neurology clerkship so far but not my outpatient medicine or surgery rotations.

Looking for some honest advice!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[salami bahama]

They are definitely important. But, so is having a well-rounded application. For you, it seems like you have done impressively well and have checked off the boxes (so to say) of a solid step 1 score and having research with great academic production. It's hard to know how much an extra publication would rank in a committee's eyes vs. honoring a couple more rotations, but it seems like you have done some nice research, so go now and get the best grades you can during third year to really round off your application. Just know that the average applicant applying into ophthalmology is a stellar medical student, and everyone does amazing things, so you gotta shoot for honoring every rotation (especially medicine and surgery). Can you match without honoring most rotations? Of course, but I don't think I would over do it with research activities when you have already done a lot and let your third year grades slip.