Listing Honors in Rotations as a Medical School Award

[Disinence2]

Hello,

At my school, receiving an Honors in a rotation is not a university recognized grade, and is view more as an award that is reflected in the Deans Letter. My transcripts will read "Pass" for all my 3rd year clerkship's, however I think I may get more interviews earlier on if programs do not have to wait until November to see what clerkship's I honored.

I was considering listing this during the Medical School Award section, but I would hate for the discrepancy between this and my transcripts to make me appear dishonest.

Do any other schools have grading like this? Would you recommend listing it in this section or just waiting until November (which is also when AOA status is released)

Thanks!

Also, one other question. When listing undergraduate education is this a complete list of every college we have ever attended? Do I need to track down info from community college's I received duel-enrollment credit from in highschool?

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[Quink]

Hello,

At my school, receiving an Honors in a rotation is not a university recognized grade, and is view more as an award that is reflected in the Deans Letter. My transcripts will read "Pass" for all my 3rd year clerkship's, however I think I may get more interviews earlier on if programs do not have to wait until November to see what clerkship's I honored.

I was considering listing this during the Medical School Award section, but I would hate for the discrepancy between this and my transcripts to make me appear dishonest.

Do any other schools have grading like this? Would you recommend listing it in this section or just waiting until November (which is also when AOA status is released)

Thanks!

Also, one other question. When listing undergraduate education is this a complete list of every college we have ever attended? Do I need to track down info from community college's I received duel-enrollment credit from in highschool?

YES, you should list the honors awarded. You can add a note that your school does not post honors on the transcript. It will be on your Dean's letter as well, but many interviews will be offered long before that letter comes out.

 

[DOCplucinski]

YES, you should list the honors awarded. You can add a note that your school does not post honors on the transcript. It will be on your Dean's letter as well, but many interviews will be offered long before that letter comes out.

my school, instead of using the honor system, is a little archaic and use the classic A, B, C, D....A being the highest grade and would be viewed as honor anywhere else

can i place these clinical grades as "Honor" and should i make a note that my school uses A, B, C system or will it just be assumed that A = Honor

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Hello,

At my school, receiving an Honors in a rotation is not a university recognized grade, and is view more as an award that is reflected in the Deans Letter. My transcripts will read "Pass" for all my 3rd year clerkship's, however I think I may get more interviews earlier on if programs do not have to wait until November to see what clerkship's I honored.

I was considering listing this during the Medical School Award section, but I would hate for the discrepancy between this and my transcripts to make me appear dishonest.

Do any other schools have grading like this? Would you recommend listing it in this section or just waiting until November (which is also when AOA status is released)

Thanks!

Also, one other question. When listing undergraduate education is this a complete list of every college we have ever attended? Do I need to track down info from community college's I received duel-enrollment credit from in highschool?

As for listing honors, it's up to you. My personal bias is not to do so. Programs that are competitive enough to care are likely to care about your AOA also, which won't be available until Nov, and are likely to wait for MSPE's. PD's are usually aware of what schools do, and will know that your school has an "unofficial" honors system. And, are such programs going to take your word for it? Still, the downside of listing it is relatively small.

my school, instead of using the honor system, is a little archaic and use the classic A, B, C, D....A being the highest grade and would be viewed as honor anywhere else

can i place these clinical grades as "Honor" and should i make a note that my school uses A, B, C system or will it just be assumed that A = Honor

No, we will know that an A is the top grade, especially because the transcript will come with a description saying so. Some programs have an H - A - B - C - F system, so it's not always obvious that A is a top grade. Harvard is a classic in this way -- they have "High Honors" followed by "Honors" followed by "High pass" if I remember correctly. Needless to say, "Honors" isn't all it's cracked up to be!

 

[burdickfhs]

Hi there. I just realized today that my school's transcripts do not list the Honors designation for medical school grades. I also did not list my clerkship honors in the Awards Section.
I applying to super competitive programs for Internal Medicine and I am afraid I will get screened out prematurely with the lack of Honors on my transcript (even though I honored every clerkship).

I am now thinking about emailing some programs to explain that I actually have Honors but they are not listed in order to increase my chances of them holding onto my application. I would appreciate anyone's opinion on this.

I think I am just worried because I am coming from a middle-tier state school and I want all the gold stars I can get.

Thanks a ton!

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Super competitive programs will likely wait for your MSPE, where your honors will be listed. Plus, we will have seen apps from your school before and know that honors are not on the transcript. Usually the transcript says this right on it anyway. You are worried about nothing.

If you get a rejection from a program before MSPE's are released, then consider calling to ask them to re-review your application -- or better yet have your dean of students (or your advisor) call for you.

 

[Neuro or Derm]

No, we will know that an A is the top grade, especially because the transcript will come with a description saying so. Some programs have an H - A - B - C - F system, so it's not always obvious that A is a top grade. Harvard is a classic in this way -- they have "High Honors" followed by "Honors" followed by "High pass" if I remember correctly. Needless to say, "Honors" isn't all it's cracked up to be!

What if your transcript has still not been uploaded yet? Is it then appropriate/acceptable to list relevant honor/A grades in the medical school honors/awards section, or will they still review your application without the transcript and just refer to it when it arrives? I just don't want them to disregard my application because there is no transcript, because I had all A's in clinical grades.

thanks!

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Programs will likely wait for your transcript to process your application, regardless of what you include in the "honors" section. So I would not list your grades there.

 

[Narrative]

Thought I'd rather post a related question here than clog up the main screen with another question.

I understand and agree with the abovementioned statements from aProgDirector. However, at my school the 'transcript' is only populated at the end of the year when it is known whether you 'pass' or 'fail' the year. As such, the fact that my honored rotations aren't listed as such is the least of my worries: I have a bunch of '*** - Final mark to follow in November' type things listed for all my final year rotations.

Obviously I don't want to list the rotations that I've completed as 'awards', but is there a place for including an explanatory letter, from my school, with the transcript mentioning (a) why it looks as if I haven't done much and (b) what my marks for those rotations were?

Or should I just deal with not having any of my final year rotation marks on the transcript?

Thanks

 

[gutonc]

Thought I'd rather post a related question here than clog up the main screen with another question.

I understand and agree with the abovementioned statements from aProgDirector. However, at my school the 'transcript' is only populated at the end of the year when it is known whether you 'pass' or 'fail' the year. As such, the fact that my honored rotations aren't listed as such is the least of my worries: I have a bunch of '*** - Final mark to follow in November' type things listed for all my final year rotations.

Obviously I don't want to list the rotations that I've completed as 'awards', but is there a place for including an explanatory letter, from my school, with the transcript mentioning (a) why it looks as if I haven't done much and (b) what my marks for those rotations were?

Or should I just deal with not having any of my final year rotation marks on the transcript?

Thanks

1. Nobody cares what you get in your 4th year rotations. Everybody gets honors anyway (with the exception of Sub-I's).

2. Unless your school newly instituted this program this year, it is likely that PDs have seen transcripts from your school before and know what's going on there.

3. Your MSPE will likely mention this issue as well as your performance in relevant 4th year rotations so it's not going to really be a problem.

 

[Dirt]

Some programs have an H - A - B - C - F system, so it's not always obvious that A is a top grade. Harvard is a classic in this way -- they have "High Honors" followed by "Honors" followed by "High pass" if I remember correctly. Needless to say, "Honors" isn't all it's cracked up to be!

Oh Harvard and their grade inflation...

 

[the alchemist]

What if your transcript has still not been uploaded yet? Is it then appropriate/acceptable to list relevant honor/A grades in the medical school honors/awards section, or will they still review your application without the transcript and just refer to it when it arrives? I just don't want them to disregard my application because there is no transcript, because I had all A's in clinical grades.

thanks!

it all shows up in your mspe - they actually make programs include all these graphs which will show how you did on your rotations and in comparison to your peers. some programs even wait til the mspe (dean's letter) is uploaded to eras (nov 1) to make interview invites (so you're all in the same boat w/ these schools unless your dean's letter is late for some reason) while others just look at your application materials (after sept 1) since some programs do interview in oct. either way, unless you're from the 1st graduating class from your school, programs will have dealt with your school before and know the timeline/grading system, etc so i wouldn't stress. they'll also look at your board scores anyways to corroborate the grades...at least your step 1 if step 2 scores aren't in yet.

here's what the mspe includes:
https://www.aamc.org/download/139542/data/mspe.pdf

 

[Shoushu]

Also, one other question. When listing undergraduate education is this a complete list of every college we have ever attended? Do I need to track down info from community college's I received duel-enrollment credit from in highschool?

I have the same Q, is this necessary? Will PDs have FBI/CIA abilities to know you did duel-enrollement at a CC in high school, but omitted it on your application? ah ha, they think "dishonest!", but it was honest omission on your part or PITA for you to hunt down your community college. Btw, do programs want all my undergrad transcripts?

What about other uni classes you took during summer breaks, as visiting student? Or night classes? What if someone forgot them.

 

[gutonc]

I have the same Q, is this necessary? Will PDs have FBI/CIA abilities to know you did duel-enrollement at a CC in high school, but omitted it on your application? ah ha, they think "dishonest!", but it was honest omission on your part or PITA for you to hunt down your community college. Btw, do programs want all my undergrad transcripts?

What about other uni classes you took during summer breaks, as visiting student? Or night classes? What if someone forgot them.

If the credit you got from that was used as credit towards your degree, then yes, you should include that experience.

No, nobody cares about your college transcripts.

 

[medsend]

So how would I go about listing this...I received honors on a rotation (A), but my shelf grade brought me down to a B (near honors/high pass)...my mspe has it listed that I honored the rotation, but my transcript shows that I made a B.

Do I put honors in the award section or do I just leave this alone? Very confused...

 

[Prop]

Another question.

I'm an IMG who did 2 months of electives in the US. I know I received Honors for one of the rotations - my med school never received the evaluation for the other rotation. However, since I arranged these rotations on my own, I didn't receive any credits from my med school, and the grades aren't mentioned on my transcript. I convinced the Dean to write me a MSPE where the Honor grade is mentioned, but the MSPE isn't like the standard US letter, but quite close.

Should I mention the Honors on the awards section, eventhough we don't use grades for our clinical rotations, and the grade isn't mentioned on my transcript?

Thanks.

 

[gutonc]

Do I put honors in the award section or do I just leave this alone? Very confused...

No...unless you're also going to put your 3rd grad "Student of the Month" award on there. The awards section is not for class/clerkship grades, it's for stuff above and beyond what everyone else gets.

Also...you didn't get honors in that clerkship, period. Knowing that your MSPE says you did and not correcting it by contacting your dean falls (IMHO) under the (admittedly very broad) rubric of academic dishonesty.

 

[medsend]

No...unless you're also going to put your 3rd grad "Student of the Month" award on there. The awards section is not for class/clerkship grades, it's for stuff above and beyond what everyone else gets.

Also...you didn't get honors in that clerkship, period. Knowing that your MSPE says you did and not correcting it by contacting your dean falls (IMHO) under the (admittedly very broad) rubric of academic dishonesty.

well it says in the deans letter that "person x received near honors on their clinical evaluation" specifically - which is true, but the grade we get on our transcript is a composite of our shelf + clinical evaluation and our school weighs the shelf very highly - more so than many other schools to hinder grade inflation

 

[turkeyjerky]

well it says in the deans letter that "person x received near honors on their clinical evaluation" specifically - which is true, but the grade we get on our transcript is a composite of our shelf + clinical evaluation and our school weighs the shelf very highly - more so than many other schools to hinder grade inflation

Sounds like you got near honors/high pass to me; I wouldn't interpret that as saying you received honors.

 

[2012mdc]

well it says in the deans letter that "person x received near honors on their clinical evaluation" specifically - which is true, but the grade we get on our transcript is a composite of our shelf + clinical evaluation and our school weighs the shelf very highly - more so than many other schools to hinder grade inflation

regardless of your grade in the clerkship you don't need to do anything.

The dean's letter and the transcript are enough.

There isn't anything special about how your school is doing it. My school is the same way, people get great clinical evals which make it into the dean's letter but don't do well enough on the shelf and their transcript lists a B. It's not a unique situation so don't worry about it clarifying it.

 

[americanpie]

I am currently doing MD/MBA dual degree program. Is it safe to mention or not to mention that I am pursuing MBA degree since I heard the rumor that PDs don't really like or care much about MBA with MD degree? Thank you.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I am currently doing MD/MBA dual degree program. Is it safe to mention or not to mention that I am pursuing MBA degree since I heard the rumor that PDs don't really like or care much about MBA with MD degree? Thank you.

Most PD's will see this as a plus. You don't list it as an "award", it's listed with your other educational history.

 

[Buzz Me]

I am currently doing MD/MBA dual degree program. Is it safe to mention or not to mention that I am pursuing MBA degree since I heard the rumor that PDs don't really like or care much about MBA with MD degree? Thank you.

It's either neutral or a slight plus. It's NOT a negative.

 

[americanpie]

Thank you all for relying my question. I found you guys are really helpful so I just have another question. I passed step 1 with VERY low score (197/80) (family issues at that time), way below the cut-off score for several competitive residencies, ie: Orthopaedics Surgery, Radiology, ENT... However, I did pretty well on the step 2 CK (251/99). So my question is do I still have a shot for Ortho or Rads with those scores? Step 1: 197/80 Step 2 CK: 251/99 Straight As in 3rd yr core rotations A in Ortho. Surg with good LOR. Thank you.

 

[gutonc]

Thank you all for relying my question. I found you guys are really helpful so I just have another question. I passed step 1 with VERY low score (197/80) (family issues at that time), way below the cut-off score for several competitive residencies, ie: Orthopaedics Surgery, Radiology, ENT... However, I did pretty well on the step 2 CK (251/99). So my question is do I still have a shot for Ortho or Rads with those scores? Step 1: 197/80 Step 2 CK: 251/99 Straight As in 3rd yr core rotations A in Ortho. Surg with good LOR. Thank you.

Congrats on the significant bump you got in your scores. Your Step 1 is going to be a massive impediment to a competitive specialty simply because, in spite of the rest of your CV looking strong, PDs have so many applications to deal with that they will often (and by often I mean pretty much every single time) simply set a Step 1 score cutoff and not bother with any apps that don't meet it.

I've relayed this example elsewhere, but this year, the Gen Surg program at my hospital got ~140 applications per available categorical spot. They set their initial screening criteria as US MD, Step 1 - 240+ and AOA and still got about 20% more applicants than they traditionally interview.

So, moral of the story is that it's going to be an uphill (but not impossible) battle for you and what you need to do, right now, is get the Ortho PD (if that's what you want to do) on your side and get him to be honest with you and also go to bat for you. Finally, you need to spend pretty much every 4th year rotation doing ortho away rotations (even if you don't get credit for it at your school). It was pretty standard for the folks going into ortho at my school to do 3-4 aways even though they would only get credit for 1-2 of them (the rest of that used up their vacation time), even the AOA kids.

 

[Buzz Me]

Thank you all for relying my question. I found you guys are really helpful so I just have another question. I passed step 1 with VERY low score (197/80) (family issues at that time), way below the cut-off score for several competitive residencies, ie: Orthopaedics Surgery, Radiology, ENT... However, I did pretty well on the step 2 CK (251/99).

Though you made a significant improvement on your Step 2 CK score, I'm afraid that as an IMG you will be screened out of many programs based on your Step 1 score alone. There are just too many other IMGs who have stellar scores on both Steps competing for those tough programs.

 

[americanpie]

Though you made a significant improvement on your Step 2 CK score, I'm afraid that as an IMG you will be screened out of many programs based on your Step 1 score alone. There are just too many other IMGs who have stellar scores on both Steps competing for those tough programs.

I am a US Medical Student

 

[gutonc]

Though you made a significant improvement on your Step 2 CK score, I'm afraid that as an IMG you will be screened out of many programs based on your Step 1 score alone. There are just too many other IMGs who have stellar scores on both Steps competing for those tough programs.

Looking at americanpie's other posts, it appears that he's a DO, not an IMG. But the point stands nevertheless.

EDIT: Looks like he posted while I was typing this.

 

[Buzz Me]

I am a US Medical Student

Sorry, made an assumption based on your posts. My bad!

The point remains, though, that unfortunately you may be screened out of many competitive programs due to your low Step 1 score (more than one standard deviation below the mean).

 

[americanpie]

I understand. Thank you.

 

[americanpie]

So any surgical specialty: gen Surg, anesthesiology..would consider my score? I respect all primary care specialties but they are just not suitable for me. Thank you.

 

[gutonc]

So any surgical specialty: gen Surg, anesthesiology..would consider my score? I respect all primary care specialties but they are just not suitable for me. Thank you.

My advice stands for any specialty that is even moderately competitive (or any moderately competitive program in a less competitive specialty). Whatever you decide to do, you need to get a faculty (preferably PD) advisor on your side who will go to bat for you. Since you're a DO, you really need to consider the AOA match.

 

[Buzz Me]

So any surgical specialty: gen Surg, anesthesiology..would consider my score?

Are you asking about other surgical subspecialties? 😕