National average usmle failure rates...?

[Paws]

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Does anyone know the average failure rate for the boards? Our school had a high number fail last year and I was wondering how close that was to the national average - but I have no idea what that is.

 

[Mumpu]

I want to say 5-10% for Step 1.

 

[jennie 21]

In 2003 93% of U.S. allopathic students passed on their first attempt. In 2002 it was 92%. Of allopathic repeaters, 62% passed the second time around. For osteopathic schools in 2003 74% of osteopathic students passed on their first attempt; in 2002 it was 70%. I'm pulling these numbers out of my edition of First Aid. It depends somewhat on the school, some schools have better pass rates than others. Supposedly at my school (NYU) we were told that usually only 1 or 2 students fails each year. Seems low, but that's what we were told.

 

[Paws]

Oh boy, I was hoping it was higher and that we were the average. Our school had about a failure rate in the teens. I wonder about other schools. I just finished first year and am preparing my mind for the boards. I want to do as well as I can and I am not sure why our rate was so high.

 

[jennie 21]

Paws--have they changed up the curriculum at your school a lot lately? Sometimes when the curriculum gets changed the first couple of classes to get the new one seem to suffer.

 

[bnichols0330]

Paws,

my guess (judging by your name & info) for the high failure rate is b/c OUR school overall has a teaching faculty that has no idea what is asked on board exams & is not concerned with figuring it out. progress is being made, but the instruction is not up to par.

Good luck

 

[YouDontKnowJack]

either your school has an especially high number of dumb people, or maybe they relied too much on class material.

this is exactly why i don't give a crap about classes and just go straight for the review books.

if you depend solely on your classes to prepare for step 1.....
I think that's no good.

 

[KingofKats]

My school had a 0% failure rate. The school down the road has close to a 40% rate. It just comes down to how gunnerish and anal the student body is. That test is all about study. Nothing else.

 

[Paws]

Now I feel embarrassed I said this. No names, no locations, this is all anony-mous. Maybe it was just an off year? maybe this class taking them now will rock and we will be pulled back down into the 0% range. Maybe it varies year by year? I hope so. We're all smart enough people. I guess my school isn't really the only one, tho. I was just concerned, tho.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Moving to USMLE Forum...

 

[Back34]

either your school has an especially high number of dumb people, or maybe they relied too much on class material.

this is exactly why i don't give a crap about classes and just go straight for the review books.

if you depend solely on your classes to prepare for step 1.....
I think that's no good.

I'll agree with this post whole - heartedly. I stopped going to class 2 weeks after my first year started and didn't look back. Sure, my preclinical grades suffered somewhat (bottom half of class, but no failures), but not going to class afforded me lots of free time to have a life outside of school and to gear myself up for step I and I wound up with a pretty decent score. A classmate NEVER missed lecture for the first two years, relied too much on class notes for his step I prep, and failed the beast.

 

[thehomez66]

I'll agree with this post whole - heartedly. I stopped going to class 2 weeks after my first year started and didn't look back. Sure, my preclinical grades suffered somewhat (bottom half of class, but no failures), but not going to class afforded me lots of free time to have a life outside of school and to gear myself up for step I and I wound up with a pretty decent score. A classmate NEVER missed lecture for the first two years, relied too much on class notes for his step I prep, and failed the beast.

Is it possible to juggle the two, meaning that you study off of your class notes but then at the same time use the prep books to study the same material? In this case you'll not only study both class and prep material but you'll review both. Or is this just a nearly impossible way to study because the material is far too overwhelming? thanks in advance for the help

 

[hdu]

I believe what happens to you and your collegue, you, but it is very anecdotical.

Do you have any classmate that went to all lectures, had a GPA near 5 and scored 98 % in USMLE? I know that case, but it does not prove anything , except that persons are differents.

I assume that you had time, while skipping lectures, to study statistics and scientific methodology...so you know that a good way of demonstrating this subject would be to design an experiment.

First: the objectives:
a) Lectures are not important regardeless of their quality
or
b) lectures at my university were not important?


Take a sample of students, using the same selection criteria, alleatory divide them in two, make one of the groups to attend lectures in an appropriate environment (a or b, depending of what you want to prove), and give the books to study to the other group, that is not going to be allowed to go to lectures.
At the end, we could compare the results and have a conclussion.
(Of course we could make a better design, it is just what I can figure out in this five minutes that I am using to make my point!)

 

[thehomez66]

can somebody please answer the question i posted above, even though i know that everybody is different i would like to hear your opinions and get a general sense of what people do

 

[jojo14]

That's what I did (or tried to do, I don't know if I was successful in my attempt quite yet). I bought 1st Aid last Aug, and read it/added notes as we did our systems, so by the end, I had a big fat 1st Aid with all my stuff and I had gone through it at least once. I reviewed Biochem (one of my weaker subjects) over spring break. I also bought BRS path and went through that as we went through systems, it was actually my only text for some classes (derm, musculoskeletal). We have a pass/fail system where you have to ace every test to get honors for the whole year, so I just didn't worry about that and tried to get main USMLE concepts out of every section. Generally, I still did well i.e. above the mean on my tests, but if I got a stupid lecturer idiosyncratic question wrong, I didn't care. I bought QBank in Dec, because they had some special, and I started using it then. So yes, I think you can juggle both. I also maintain howere, if you are smart enough to ace your courses, you are smart enough to ace the USMLE! Hope that helps you out.