1. I don't buy that PD's perceive 270+ scores in a negative light. After a certain threshold it's your interview skills that make all the difference anyway. I'm not shooting for the stars to land in the clouds, I'm trying to land in the stars. It does seem absurd but there have been at least two other people on SDN that have posted 275+ experiences and a sibling who scored in the 270's. It's also important to note that goals scores are completely arbitrary numbers we make up whereas your actual score is a function of your effort. Goal scores convey how much effort you are willing to put in, and I'm willing to put in a lot.
2. I'm socially adept enough to realize not to do that in real life. I never talk about my grades. I think it's tacky and bad form, almost like asking someone how much money they make. In terms of people making fun of me, I have enough self worth to not give a ****.
3. This is a point that many people like to make here on sdn and I think it's completely off base. It's never too early to start studying and if you haven't started studying you are already behind. Covering and maturing a deck like zanki, that has 27000+ cards, is pretty much impossible if you start with 6 months left. The idea of waiting for this institutionalized, cookie cutter form of education we call medical school to teach you something before you decide to learn it yourself is also pretty absurd. I trust myself and dr. Sattar to teach me something more than some old man with a 10 year old powerpoint. Also, let's be real: it starts with going to lectures, to watching from home, to reading the slides at home while you study by yourself.
I'm sure you'll have some anecdotal response on how you did really well on step without as much effort, etc but I feel like that's not representative of a lot of the really high scores that we have seen in the past, with a lot of this spanning over 18 months.
