USMLE Official 2020 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Thesimplelifeofamyloid said:
I don't think the NBME cares about this. There's are simple ways to alleviate many of these issues. The problem is everyone is pointing fingers at one another to get things done.


Seems like we're making large generalizations here, but okay.
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I love how high step = better doctor is never a contested statement in these chats, yet it's a sweeping generalization to state the fact that your favorite clinical mentors who graduated 10-15+ years ago did not have a high step.
 
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efle said:
I love how high step = better doctor is never a contested statement in these chats, yet it's a sweeping generalization to state the fact that your favorite clinical mentors who graduated 10-15+ years ago did not have a high step.
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I don't want to rehash this argument. We could make the same argument with the MCAT. 15-20 years ago, scores were a lot lower too, but no one is running around saying that should be pass/fail. Did doing better on the MCAT suddenly make better physicians? n fact, what about all those people that now stuck studying for the exam with no end in site. We should make it pass/fail for them.
 
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All my classmates that want P/F either are barely passing, behind af or want FM at our home program. Nothing wrong with FM at home but just because these people are pro P/F doesnt mean everyone else whos been going ham for a year should have to suffer too. We dont all go to HMS or JHU. I couldnt be more strongly against P/F
 
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efle said:
I love how high step = better doctor is never a contested statement in these chats, yet it's a sweeping generalization to state the fact that your favorite clinical mentors who graduated 10-15+ years ago did not have a high step.
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1. a lot of them still had respectable scores by our standards. You still had to score respectably for the competitive specialties/programs. Pretending all the surgeons that graduated 15 years ago were 195 scorers isn’t a true argument.

2. They did not have P/F grading schemas. Class grades and rank played a much bigger role in the past.

Pretending academic indicators weren’t important 15+ years ago simply isn’t true. It’s not a good argument. Academic merit has always played a role in residency selection, unless you want to go way way back to when it was rampant with even more nepotism and who-you-knowism than now.
 
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GoCards05 said:
So Prometric has apparently confirmed that you can still be cancelled at any point up until a week before your test date. Looking forward to being a nervous wreck from now until June 15th.
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8b4.gif
 
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This might be politically incorrect to say but at some point we have to perform. We are going to be doctors and stress is part of the job. This whole situation is far from ideal but at some point we (our generation as a whole) has to stop using outside circumstances as an excuse for why we can't or shouldn't be expected to perform.
 
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GoCards05 said:
So Prometric has apparently confirmed that you can still be cancelled at any point up until a week before your test date. Looking forward to being a nervous wreck from now until June 15th.
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But WHY this makes no sense I don't understand ahhhhh
 
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I'm not sure I understand why some obvious solutions (at least to me, but I'm an IMG and don't really understand how things work in the USA) aren't being employed. If prometric centers can function at 50% capacity (due to social distancing), can't they just use med school auditoriums etc for the USMLE and have someone from the prometric center present to ensure no "irregular" behavior occurs?

I'm also aware that many schools have their step 1 in M3, so why not just preemptively reschedule step 6 months or so in the future, which should also leave ample time to ensure med schools can adequately proctor the exam to help out.

An immediate switch to P/F doesn't make much sense to me, because my understanding is that the P/F system is to be introduced to encourage medical students to focus less on step 1 and more on research, volunteer work, EC activities etc. The people due to take the exam have done none of that, and an immediate P/F won't change that. The advantages of both a 2-year-delayed P/F and the current step-1-centric method will be lost, leaving behind a largely homogenous pool of passed medical students with little EC activities to speak of.

I also don't believe there's any need to study 10 hours/day to maintain your level of prep. 2-4 hours/day is sufficient during this time of uncertainty, and once you do get a date, a dedicated period of 2 weeks should be enough.
 
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maieutic said:
I'm not sure I understand why some obvious solutions (at least to me, but I'm an IMG and don't really understand how things work in the USA) aren't being employed. If prometric centers can function at 50% capacity (due to social distancing), can't they just use med school auditoriums etc for the USMLE and have someone from the prometric center present to ensure no "irregular" behavior occurs?
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Security at Prometric involves a lot more than someone standing there to watch you. It's metal detectors, pocket searches/patdowns every time in or out, regular sweeps of bathrooms and other areas that items could be hidden, cameras that watch you while you're in the booth testing, etc. It's very different than the security for school-administered shelves.

maieutic said:
I'm also aware that many schools have their step 1 in M3, so why not just preemptively reschedule step 6 months or so in the future, which should also leave ample time to ensure med schools can adequately proctor the exam to help out.
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1) There are also current MS3s about to apply who haven't been able to write Step 1 yet
2) There is a huge scheduling crunch to get everyone their core clerkships by graduation. Blocking out 8 weeks down the road is not guaranteed.

maieutic said:
An immediate switch to P/F doesn't make much sense to me, because my understanding is that the P/F system is to be introduced to encourage medical students to focus less on step 1 and more on research, volunteer work, EC activities etc. The people due to take the exam have done none of that, and an immediate P/F won't change that. The advantages of both a 2-year-delayed P/F and the current step-1-centric method will be lost, leaving behind a largely homogenous pool of passed medical students with little EC activities to speak of.
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The idea of moving up P/F is so that people can chillax about their date cancellations. If all you need to do is Pass it at any time in the next 18 months, there's no longer any demand for immediate test dates or long prep periods. It can become like Step 2 CK where you do 10 days of review and knock it out.

maieutic said:
I also don't believe there's any need to study 10 hours/day to maintain your level of prep. 2-4 hours/day is sufficient during this time of uncertainty, and once you do get a date, a dedicated period of 2 weeks should be enough.
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People banking on a 250+ are gonna need more than a 2 week period of dedicated
 
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efle said:
I'll stop derailing the thread until some actual news breaks 😉
I do empathize, may the odds be ever in y'alls favor
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The way you said this makes me think you know something we don't. The paranoia has definitely gotten to me lol
 
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Chelsea FC said:
Seeing reports that Covid is affecting Minorities and low socioeconomic class people at a much higher rate. One could make the argument that this affects med students who are already at a disadvantage while in school.
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Just about everything bad more affects those less set up to deal with adversity. I agree it's worth reporting in order to make people aware of the underlying issue (never waste a good crisis, but in this case for a reasonable cause) but it's not new news.
 
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efle said:
The idea of moving up P/F is so that people can chillax about their date cancellations
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Imagine if I posted this on the premed board asking for med schools to do this same thing for the MCAT. People would be in flames. Either way you have to take the thing, so making it P/F doesn't do anything to change the demand.
 
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efle said:
Are there confirmed Step 1 cancels in the mix, or is it all Step 2 CK and COMLEX so far?
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It's hard to say. I know there are DO students in r/step1 as well, but it does seem like many of the cancellations were Step 1 and not just COMLEX

Edit: I'm both curious and anxious that I haven't heard on reddit or from anyone in my class say they've gotten 2 emails. Statistically should be a probability right?
 
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iforget2 said:
It's hard to say. I know there are DO students in r/step1 as well, but it does seem like many of the cancellations were Step 1 and not just COMLEX
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I think the reason it seems like there's a lot more COMLEX is because all DO schools (as far as I know) operate on a 2 year preclinical so all Level 1 exams occur in the summer whereas MD schools have curriculums of varying length so Step is more spread out throughout the year. A larger proportion of COMLEX exams are getting cancelled since they're all scheduled right around the same time but Step 1 exams have and are getting cancelled as well.
 
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Just a heads up to you all who didn't get a Prometric email and still have a date listed as scheduled on your NBME account, that doesn't necessarily mean you still have an appointment. According to Reddit, some people have called to confirm their date who didn't receive a Prometric email and were told it was cancelled. Because you know this wasn't already stressful enough.
 
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GoCards05 said:
Just a heads up to you all who didn't get a Prometric email and still have a date listed as scheduled on your NBME account, that doesn't necessarily mean you still have an appointment. According to Reddit, some people have called to confirm their date who didn't receive a Prometric email and were told it was cancelled. Because you know this wasn't already stressful enough.
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Are... are these the end times?
 
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Recently read a Reddit post from someone who just got off the phone with Prometric. They said there are 15,000 cancellations in May alone and emails will continue going out through Thursday.

Thesimplelifeofamyloid said:
Imagine if I posted this on the premed board asking for med schools to do this same thing for the MCAT. People would be in flames. Either way you have to take the thing, so making it P/F doesn't do anything to change the demand.
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I've outlined several times in this thread how Pass/Fail would alleviate the immediate throughput issues. I have no idea why you're so obsessed with the MCAT analogy since it's a fundamentally different exam from the ground up. But yes, if AAMC were looking at potentially cancelling 50% of MCAT dates in the coming months, I would absolutely expect them to look at all available options to keep the playing field even for those who got to test and those who didn't, such as recommending that schools waive it for the year. Forcing thousands of people into a gap year because their test center cancels on them in the next couple months would also warrant drastic measures in my book.
 
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efle said:
Recently read a Reddit post from someone who just got off the phone with Prometric. They said there are 15,000 cancellations in May alone and emails will continue going out through Thursday.


I've outlined several times in this thread how Pass/Fail would alleviate the immediate throughput issues. I have no idea why you're so obsessed with the MCAT analogy since it's a fundamentally different exam from the ground up. But yes, if AAMC were looking at potentially cancelling 50% of MCAT dates in the coming months, I would absolutely expect them to look at all available options to keep the playing field even for those who got to test and those who didn't, such as recommending that schools waive it for the year. Forcing thousands of people into a gap year because their test center cancels on them in the next couple months would also warrant drastic measures in my book.
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They did. All MCAT exams through May 21st have been canceled globally.
 
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Thesimplelifeofamyloid said:
They did. All MCAT exams through May 21st have been canceled globally.
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There you go. If it extends deeper into June and July, so that nobody for 1/3rd of the year can get a score, they would have to take a lesson from Wake Forest and treat standardized scores as an optional component of apps for a year.

Similarly, with all the undergrad courses switching to P/F, where's the outrage? Shouldn't students be up in arms that they can't show off their academic capabilities any more? How will they show schools they're in the top of the top with Pass grades and no MCAT? The answer is: "we'll figure it out in adcom meetings," not to try and force grading to continue even when it can't be done fairly.
 
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GoCards05 said:
Just a heads up to you all who didn't get a Prometric email and still have a date listed as scheduled on your NBME account, that doesn't necessarily mean you still have an appointment. According to Reddit, some people have called to confirm their date who didn't receive a Prometric email and were told it was cancelled. Because you know this wasn't already stressful enough.
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What the hell? So we're supposed to call them to check, or we will get an email at some point??
 
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efle said:
There you go. If it extends deeper into June and July, so that nobody for 1/3rd of the year can get a score, they would have to take a lesson from Wake Forest and treat standardized scores as an optional component of apps for a year.

Similarly, with all the undergrad courses switching to P/F, where's the outrage? Shouldn't students be up in arms that they can't show off their academic capabilities any more? How will they show schools they're in the top of the top with Pass grades and no MCAT? The answer is: "we'll figure it out in adcom meetings," not to try and force grading to continue even when it can't be done fairly.
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Most undergrad classes give you the option to take it as P/F or continue with grades. They don't force anyone to take it as P/F
 
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GoCards05 said:
Just a heads up to you all who didn't get a Prometric email and still have a date listed as scheduled on your NBME account, that doesn't necessarily mean you still have an appointment. According to Reddit, some people have called to confirm their date who didn't receive a Prometric email and were told it was cancelled. Because you know this wasn't already stressful enough.
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Did you just call your local prometric center? I'm going to give them a call if I can.
 
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CyrusHabs7695 said:
our school is giving us 6 weeks dedicated at the end of February to take it, so I guess its not a huge deal. still just wanted to get it over with though
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That is nice. No way my school does this but I would be more okay with having my test cancelled if they did.
GoCards05 said:
The faculty at our school and other med schools in our state have told us to call NBME and NBOME sometime this week to confirm our dates.
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I can't. Handle. This.
 
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Also, when is NBOME going to extend our COMLEX eligibility windows the way NBME did weeks ago....cause some people won't even be able to reschedule???
 
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From someone who spoke to USMLE/NBME: "Prometric should be done sending out cancellation emails for the foreseeable future by Thursday. They are only canceling May exams at this time according to her (but obviously prometric doesn’t communicate well so who knows if this is true). She said they are cancelling 15,000 exams in the month of May"

Except for the fact that clearly people are being cancelled in June, so I trust nothing lol. No one knows anything
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
That is nice. No way my school does this but I would be more okay with having my test cancelled if they did.

I can't. Handle. This.
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My class just got another wave of cancellations. And one person called NBOME and they confirmed he was cancelled even though he never got an email.
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
From someone who spoke to USMLE/NBME: "Prometric should be done sending out cancellation emails for the foreseeable future by Thursday. They are only canceling May exams at this time according to her (but obviously prometric doesn’t communicate well so who knows if this is true). She said they are cancelling 15,000 exams in the month of May"

Except for the fact that clearly people are being cancelled in June, so I trust nothing lol. No one knows anything
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This isn't true, homeboy got axed from my June date.
 
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Thesimplelifeofamyloid said:
Most undergrad classes give you the option to take it as P/F or continue with grades. They don't force anyone to take it as P/F
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Many are forced P/F and heads up, if you weren't aware, it may also be in the imminent future for many med students clerkship grades. I understand you dislike the idea of drastic responses to drastic upsets in the normal order, but pretending this cycle will resemble anything like the usual is insane imho.

Time will tell
 
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Survived the 2nd wave apparently. But someone in my class said they didn't get a second wave email despite already calling NBME and confirming their exam was canceled.
 
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