P/F in Clerkships?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
F

flabbergabber

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2013
Messages
37
Reaction score
12
Hi folks, looking for wisdom/experience from ya'lls

How does going to a school that has a P/F grading scheme for all four years impact how residency PD's view your application? I can't imagine having P/F grading for clerkships helping your application at all.

Thanks in advance!
Members don't see this ad.
 
You're right, it can't help. IMO P/F is not a good thing for this exact reason. Plenty of programs use a point system when evaluating your app, and when they get to the section that says "clerkship grades" you likely get a 5/10. If you had actual grades you could only do better (or exactly the same, if you received all Ps).

Having said that, since there isn't much you can do about it, it doesn't make sense to worry about it. Focus on doing well on Step 1/2 and try to get AOA.
 
if we're talking about yale I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Do you mean strictly P/F or H/P/F or H/HP/P/F? All of the others are essentially equivalent to letter grades, and are used by most "pass/fail" schools.

Not all programs evaluate your application in the same way with points etc. When your MSPE and transcripts go out to programs, they come with a detailed explanation of the grading system and the grading scheme -- a school that doesn't offer honors would make it very clear on this packet, and I cannot imagine it would be hurting applicants. At this point in your education, schools (for the most part) have a vested interest in maximizing your success to maximize their own, and they would not continue to use a grading system that was hurting their students.
 
Plecopotamus said:
Do you mean strictly P/F or H/P/F or H/HP/P/F? All of the others are essentially equivalent to letter grades, and are used by most "pass/fail" schools.

Not all programs evaluate your application in the same way with points etc. When your MSPE and transcripts go out to programs, they come with a detailed explanation of the grading system and the grading scheme -- a school that doesn't offer honors would make it very clear on this packet, and I cannot imagine it would be hurting applicants.
Click to expand...
Correct. However, do you really believe that said grading scheme is read and fully understood by reviewers who go through hundreds of applications per year? The MSPE also contains a histogram detailing the number of students who received each grade for each clerkship. In theory this would explain a discrepancy in number of "H" grades between two applicants who performed equally, but attended schools with different grading policies. In practice, I doubt most reviewers look at it.

Plecopotamus said:
At this point in your education, schools (for the most part) have a vested interest in maximizing your success to maximize their own, and they would not continue to use a grading system that was hurting their students.
Click to expand...
Very much disagree, as they can and do. Strategies for "maximizing success" are highly variable depending on your targeted specialty
 
Although to be perfectly honest, it's not like having a grading scale in clerkships is that helpful anyway. imho. Usually most schools which have an 'objective' score have some sort of a mix of shelf score, evaluations, plus minus standardized patient exams, plus minus administrative stuff. Everybody gets the administrative stuff. The S/P exams are usually not that different between each student, and evals are COMPLETELY subjective, as I'm sure everyone here will attest to. So basically, the only thing that you can control is your shelf score, and that only counts 20-40% of your score, depending on your school.
 
..sorry to intrude as a non-med student, but which school has all four years P/F?
 
jeghaber said:
..sorry to intrude as a non-med student, but which school has all four years P/F?
Click to expand...

I think Yale is the only school with 4 years P/F... I think. Stanford used to, but supposedly some bad apples passed through the system, so they started to grade their clinical years.
 
JJMrK said:
Don't they have extra "letters of good-job" or whatever that count for AOA?
Click to expand...
I think it could, but more important to AOA is your rotation comments. At least last go around, shelf scores weren't viewed or considered for AOA. Just your rotation comments. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to have the LOD's, but PD's tend to ignore it from what I've been told by a few. Our process is almost farcically opaque. It is changing such that F/P/HP/H, or some analogous version is coming back for MS3 and 4 for just that reason in the near future.
 
jeghaber said:
..sorry to intrude as a non-med student, but which school has all four years P/F?
Click to expand...
CCLCM. No shelf exams, no honors/high pass for any of the four years of med school, no class rank, no AOA.

To answer the OP's question, it makes your USMLE scores more important, and probably also things like your LORs, research, the prestige of your institution, etc. But even if you don't come with an official rank, PDs will still figure out their own way to rank you.
 
Isn't Sinai P/F for the first two years too? I am not sure of their clerkships or shelf exams though...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

L
P/F Clerkship Debate
Replies
23
Views
2K
ChordaEpiphany
C
D
All High Passes on clerkships
Replies
6
Views
992
mistafab
mistafab
skeptastic
Pre-clerkship period length, Step 2 timing, and specialty choice in the Step 1 P/F era
Replies
20
Views
1K
Redpancreas
Redpancreas
L
What schools are moving towards PF clerkships?
Replies
7
Views
1K
deleted1139416
D
D
3rd year clerkships order?
Replies
22
Views
2K
Freshley Snipes
F
Top