Preclinical Grades vs Pass/Fail- need advice from current students

[medschoolwoo]

For current students, preferably also people who have been through third year and beyond:

How important is a pass/fail system vs grades for preclinicals? Does this increase stress come rotations?
If one is interested in a competitive specialty, which is best?

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[esob]

Anecdotally, my school is true P/F for preclinical, meaning that we don't have internal rankings (except for AOA), and we consistently place students in the most competitive residencies every year. We also have consistently high step scores though, so it will be interesting to see if that changes once step becomes P/F.

 

[medschoolwoo]

Anecdotally, my school is true P/F for preclinical, meaning that we don't have internal rankings (except for AOA), and we consistently place students in the most competitive residencies every year. We also have consistently high step scores though, so it will be interesting to see if that changes once step becomes P/F.

are there rankings based on year 3?

 

[mistafab]

P/F preclinical is the bees knees. Our school had students advocate to retain a F/P/HP/H system for the clinical years though - as many felt they wanted the opportunity to excel.

 

[stickgirl390]

Pass fail pass fail pass fail!!! What I would give to stop wasting time on uni-specific minutia and lecture-specific research content.

 

[esob]

are there rankings based on year 3?

Yeah, clinical has honors/high pass/pass

 

[deleted889094]

My school is true P/F with AOA coming from 3rd year grades and other humanitarian type stuff. It's honestly the best. If there's a block that's low-yield you don't have to waste your time on the A, you can just pass and spend your time elsewhere.

 

[Doggeronie]

For current students, preferably also people who have been through third year and beyond:

How important is a pass/fail system vs grades for preclinicals? Does this increase stress come rotations?
If one is interested in a competitive specialty, which is best?

Go pass/fail any day

 

[medschoolwoo]

Does pass/fail put added pressure on third year? a little worried due to the step change and subjective third year grading, that with pass/fail, third year grading (and maybe step 2) is literally all they have to go off of. I certainly understand the appeal of pass/fail, but I am worried that come third year, it may hurt you. Has anyone found this to be true?

 

[slowthai]

Does pass/fail put added pressure on third year? a little worried due to the step change and subjective third year grading, that with pass/fail, third year grading (and maybe step 2) is literally all they have to go off of. I certainly understand the appeal of pass/fail, but I am worried that come third year, it may hurt you. Has anyone found this to be true?

They don't give a crap about preclinical grades. The only preclinical stuff they care about is step and junior AOA.

As far as the p/f change, the only thing that will change is step 2 replacing step 1 as the culling metric. AOA, research, clinical grades, letters of rec, and away rotations (if you do them) will still be important, of course.