Programs with highest board scores

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Anyone know where to find statistics on schools that produce the highest board scores? Been struggling to find a comprehensive resource besides going to each school's website. Thanks!
 
RVU is one of the best. I believe they require all students to take the USMLE in addition to the COMLEX. They tailor their curriculum specifically to the boards. ...Which is something all DO schools should do.

PS) Not a lot of transparency exists in this regard. You can find first time COMLEX pass rates by looking through the school's various web pages, but not all DO schools provide this info.


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georgia_boy1 said:
Anyone know where to find statistics on schools that produce the highest board scores? Been struggling to find a comprehensive resource besides going to each school's website. Thanks!
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One doesn't exist, and asking for rankings for schools (in any matter) won't get you much more than a heated debate on here.

Search through SDN, there are plenty of threads about a theoretical DO school ranking system.
 
It is literally impossible to find this info if you don't get it from a current student, the schools are pretty quiet about it and don't have to post it the same way they are with pass rates.

However, having talked with current students at these places it sounds like the top 3 highest board score average schools are TCOM, RVU, and KCU and that they kind of swap every year with who has the top spot.
 
Even MD schools don't release this data. Any info on it is essentially word of mouth from students
 
I would caution you on solely relying on board scores. These are individual by the students taking the boards. Specifically, their motivation or interest. This may not be as much a factor of the school. It would be just one small measure of the school. One should probably look at the totality of the circumstance (i.e. the whole package). In my class we had people that excelled on boards and others that did not. It was more of a factor of the student motivation and opportunity to study.


Thanks.


Wook
 
This is like a flawed scientific study... while there may be a correlation between board score and subsequent specialty/location, you need to look at ACTUAL match lists. Your desired endpoint is a CAREER, not a COMLEX/USMLE transcript.
 
MaximusD said:
This is like a flawed scientific study... while there may be a correlation between board score and subsequent specialty/location, you need to look at ACTUAL match lists. Your desired endpoint is a CAREER, not a COMLEX/USMLE transcript.
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Match lists are also a bad endpoint, because that is also determined by the student effort rather than the school. Also, how would you even know where to begin with them as a pre-medical student? LECOM and AZCOM each had a student match into MGH for anesthesia, but would anyone go to these schools when they have acceptance to KCU or DMU?

The only endpoint worth noting no matter the school is attrition, even with those who willing drop out.
 
IslandStyle808 said:
Match lists are also a bad endpoint, because that is also determined by the student effort rather than the school. Also, how would you even know where to begin with them as a pre-medical student? LECOM and AZCOM each had a student match into MGH for anesthesia, but would anyone go to these schools when they have acceptance to KCU or DMU?

The only endpoint worth noting no matter the school is attrition, even with those who willing drop out.
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No they aren't. I would say that ONE matchlist is a poor indicator, not multiple.

You might not be able to see it yet, but scores are only a small component of what goes into the process of securing a residency.
 
MaximusD said:
No they aren't. I would say that ONE matchlist is a poor indicator, not multiple.

You might not be able to see it yet, but scores are only a small component of what goes into the process of securing a residency.
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I agree with you on the point of board scores. However, the match list cannot be used either. The largest reason being that a pre-medical student has no idea how to interpret one. Program qualities can change and a lot of it is word of mouth. Yet there are students who come from schools that are not highly regarded and yet they match extremely well. What students should be looking for is what schools give the greatest opportunities for success: ex. mandatory vs. non-mandatory attendance, school in a big city, rotations with residencies, rotations with many flexible electives, schools with a large alumni base. Unfortunately these are also more subjective points than objective, in the end this is why SDN exists.
 
How could match lists mean nothing? They represent the ceiling of what people from that program achieve on an annual basis. Just bc someone matches Ophtho at Hopkins doesn't mean that it can be reliably reproduced, but it does indicate that there is a precedent for someone being positively received from that school at the target institution. If it happens recurrently where applicants are matching to major programs in subspecialties, it indicates that the program may have a good reputation. At an interview for an MD anesthesia program, I specifically recall being complimented on PCOM. Seriously.
 
I'm a faculty member and I have no idea how to interpret a match list either! They're like studying tea leaves. The only people who can have a say on the matter are the specialist in each field. Just an an example, a surgeon will have a good idea as to what places have good surgical residency program, but be clueless about Derm programs. We have been warned multiple times by the wise residents and attendings on SDN that even Ivy League med schools have some poor residencies!

In the very, very near future, COCA will require DO schools to post Level I pass rates and median scores. Can't remember if Level II is in the mix or not.






IslandStyle808 said:
I agree with you on the point of board scores. However, the match list cannot be used either. The largest reason being that a pre-medical student has no idea how to interpret one. Program qualities can change and a lot of it is word of mouth. Yet there are students who come from schools that are not highly regarded and yet they match extremely well. What students should be looking for is what schools give the greatest opportunities for success: ex. mandatory vs. non-mandatory attendance, school in a big city, rotations with residencies, rotations with many flexible electives, schools with a large alumni base. Unfortunately these are also more subjective points than objective, in the end this is why SDN exists.
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Goro said:
I'm a faculty member and I have no idea how to interpret a match list either! They're like studying tea leaves. The only people who can have a say on the matter are the specialist in each field. Just an an example, a surgeon will have a good idea as to what places have good surgical residency program, but be clueless about Derm programs. We have been warned multiple times by the wise residents and attendings on SDN that even Ivy League med schools have some poor residencies!

In the very, very near future, COCA will require DO schools to post Level I pass rates and median scores. Can't remember if Level II is in the mix or not.
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"A faculty member" is rather nonspecific.

So it takes some cross referencing... you're telling me if an applicant is interested in, I don't know, General Surgery, they're not capable of googling/SDN searching which are the strong programs and then comparing that list of "strong" programs to a school's match list?

Give me a break. I won't perpetuate this dogma.
 
MaximusD said:
Great contribution.
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How on earth does a program that is represented commonly on one schools match lists have anything to do with the quality of that program? It doesn't, it's that simple. It is usually a place that the students from that school have been known to go to before, or it is in the same geographical location and so gets a lot of apps from that school every year.
 
RogerDOC said:
Ultimately I think it match lists are somewhere in between useful and useless. Depending on what info you are mining. Consistent matches whether local or not do count for something. One match one time at a high ranked place? No.
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Agreed!

Also, I hope it didn't seem like I was suggesting that it should be the lone criteria. I am just suggesting it is important to review.
 
Because residencies and match lists are a totally individual thing based on preference. I agree you can look at general trends over a number of years but you should never pick a school based on their match list. KCOM matched someone to Mayo (Rochester) for ortho, should I all of a sudden go to KCOM if I want to do ortho? No. A good example is LECOM-B, they have absolutely garbage rotations and are a fairly crappy school but they have a good match list every year because their PBL is conducive to board studying.
 
MaximusD said:
"A faculty member" is rather nonspecific.

So it takes some cross referencing... you're telling me if an applicant is interested in, I don't know, General Surgery, they're not capable of googling/SDN searching which are the strong programs and then comparing that list of "strong" programs to a school's match list?

Give me a break. I won't perpetuate this dogma.
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I've done this in the past, but unfortunately the lists residents and attendings have made are now archaic (> 3 years old). You don't know if this information hold true today. You don't know if these programs are also riding off of their former glory when certain teaching attendings have left their program. There are a lot of variable to consider when ranking programs. Also, when you try to make a sub-thread to get this information, you'd piss of quite a few people rather easily.
 
I guess my point in creating this thread is to get a general sense as to how to pick DO schools. I want to go to the best school that I can but it seems as though there isn't a solid measure of determining that. Residency seems to be the biggest factor in determining your career so getting into a school that gives you the best chance at a great residency is important. I know a lot of it is on the student but the consideration of how well the school teaches and produces doctors should be a main player.


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georgia_boy1 said:
I guess my point in creating this thread is to get a general sense as to how to pick DO schools. I want to go to the best school that I can but it seems as though there isn't a solid measure of determining that. Residency seems to be the biggest factor in determining your career so getting into a school that gives you the best chance at a great residency is important. I know a lot of it is on the student but the consideration of how well the school teaches and produces doctors should be a main player.


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How to pick DO schools
If you have average scores or decent scores
Go to AACOMAS
When adding schools(if you have the money or fee waiver), click add all
Pay money
Submit all Primaries and secondaries
Wait for responses.
 
My cgpa is 3.72 and sgpa is 3.6 for aacomas. Is this average? I don't have an mcat yet.


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georgia_boy1 said:
My cgpa is 3.72 and sgpa is 3.6 for aacomas. Is this average? I don't have an mcat yet.


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Depending on the MCAT you most likely don't need to apply to DO schools unless you have some you really like. Anything above 508 and I would give MD a broad application. Anything below that and then apply to a broad mix of MD and DO.
 
Well my aacomas gpa is higher than my amcas gpa (3.45). I was a kinesiology major so some of my major courses count towards my sgpa.


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MaximusD said:
How could match lists mean nothing? They represent the ceiling of what people from that program achieve on an annual basis. Just bc someone matches Ophtho at Hopkins doesn't mean that it can be reliably reproduced, but it does indicate that there is a precedent for someone being positively received from that school at the target institution. If it happens recurrently where applicants are matching to major programs in subspecialties, it indicates that the program may have a good reputation. At an interview for an MD anesthesia program, I specifically recall being complimented on PCOM. Seriously.
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MSUCOM sent 2 students to ACGME Anesthesia at U of Michigan. Ayyoo.







Dat DO is death time
 
MaximusD said:
Residency is the goal of medical school. How can you judge a school without viewing which residencies are represented? It is unfathomable.
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I'm a DO student and I actually agree with this. Unfortunately too many pre-med DOs want to be told "match lists don't mean anything, board score averages don't mean anything, getting into the residency you want is all about you, etc. etc." but the reality is that the school you attend DOES play a LARGE role in getting you to your "next step," which is residency. Although I do not think looking at match lists every year is useful, looking at an aggregate of the past 2-4 years can tell you if graduates match out of region in noncompetitive and competitive specialties, military match representation, etc. Getting into a categorical surgery or radiology is really hard and it is dependent on the student to work very hard but looking at aggregate match lists CAN tell you, in my opinion, if the school has created a "favorable environment" and giving students the opportunities/resources to place students in these competitive residencies.
 
If you want to get into an ACGME residency in a specific geographical are, pick the DO school around there because the program will be more familiar with the students. Otherwise pick the school with halfway decent clinical rotations and is cheapest. Unlike the MD world where you can compare Harvard vs. new york medical college, a DO is a DO. The rest doesn't matter and highly depends on the effort you put in.


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KCU - 552 COMLEX 1 average first time test takers with 2 failures.
226 USMLE Step 1 with approx 60% of the class having taken it. 1-2 failures I think.

They made us take 1 practice Kaplan exam just to get a score. We didn't have to take any COMSAEs to take Level 1.

Class of 2018

I'm sure class of 2019 will do slightly better than us.

Read more: http://president.kcumb.edu/2016/09/kcu-class-of-2018-crushes-comlex-1.html
 
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tux4 said:
If you want to get into an ACGME residency in a specific geographical are, pick the DO school around there because the program will be more familiar with the students. Otherwise pick the school with halfway decent clinical rotations and is cheapest. Unlike the MD world where you can compare Harvard vs. new york medical college, a DO is a DO. The rest doesn't matter and highly depends on the effort you put in.


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Not completely accurate. There are programs that only consider students from certain DO programs. I know my family member, either current or recently removed faculty member at an MD university program, only considers DOs from the original 5 and the state schools when looking at residency apps.
 
ChiTownBHawks said:
I always lol when pre meds try to argue with attendings and residents about things they know 0 about, in this case match lists. Seems like a lost cause @MaximusD
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He's stating pre-med should be able to interpret a match list. This has been hounded by both residents and attendings that unless you talk with PDs of a certain speciality you cannot gain a true understanding of how good a match is. I've seen tons of pre-meds & med students shut down by residents and attendings for doing such an act.
 
IslandStyle808 said:
He's stating pre-med should be able to interpret a match list. This has been hounded by both residents and attendings that unless you talk with PDs of a certain speciality you cannot gain a true understanding of how good a match is. I've seen tons of pre-meds & med students shut down by residents and attendings for doing such an act.
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I hear you, man. And I'm not necessarily disagreeing but the facts of the matter are this concerning my comment: between those two only homeboy maximus the gladiator has been through medical school, served as an attending in the Air Force, and is now on the tail end of residency. That gives him clout. The one who hasn't even started medical school has no clout on the subject.

It's really as black and white as that. Whether his idea of how to pick a school is practical is another story but the idea propagated on here that "it doesn't matter what DO school you attend" doesn't reflect reality in some situations.
 
ChiTownBHawks said:
It's really as black and white as that. Whether his idea of how to pick a school is practical is another story but the idea propagated on here that "it doesn't matter what DO school you attend" doesn't reflect reality in some situations.
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First, being the only attending/resident on here that tells you to pick a school by match list does not give him "clout." Second, he is wrong because almost every single DO school has the same match list: a handful of AOA gen surg, a handful of AOA ortho, maybe a few other surgical subs, a handful of OB, more EM and Gas, a lot of FM, lots of Community IM, a few university level IM, with a decent amount of community peds with a few university level mixed in. And then there are the one or two super matches. A match list is largely just the desires of the student body. Go pick any DO school at random and look up their match list and you will start to see the same names and types of places on every one. The only match lists that tend to be noticeably different are the brand new ones who just matched their first class or two, after a while they are all the same.

I don't need to have been through medical school and residency yet to know what actual residents and attendings have told me, and when to recognize the outlier. Your school matters exceptionally little to programs outside of the immediate geographical area. The schools that have an "impressive" match list (which on SDN just means the number of competitive specialties) tend to accept the types of students who will pursue these types of places. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the student population and their desires are different at RVU/KCU than say SOMA or WCU.

You cannot judge a match list unless you have specific knowledge from someone in that field on the programs that were matched, this is knowledge outside the scope of 99% of pre-meds. Otherwise it's just a fun way to pass the time.
 
ChiTownBHawks said:
I hear you, man. And I'm not necessarily disagreeing but the facts of the matter are this concerning my comment: between those two only homeboy maximus the gladiator has been through medical school, served as an attending in the Air Force, and is now on the tail end of residency. That gives him clout. The one who hasn't even started medical school has no clout on the subject.

It's really as black and white as that. Whether his idea of how to pick a school is practical is another story but the idea propagated on here that "it doesn't matter what DO school you attend" doesn't reflect reality in some situations.
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I totally agree with the whole it does matter what school you attend. There are much better factors to look for in a school than match lists. I've read posts by many attendings and residents, and the majority have stated time and time again you won't know how to rank programs unless you talk with the PDs or attendings who are in the know. Pre-meds don't have that inside knowledge. I don't base this on one attending or one residents, this is based on dozen of them. I've been trashed for even trying to interpret a match list once before. And just like you said those same guys also have been through the process, and they are the majority.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
You cannot judge a match list unless you have specific knowledge from someone in that field on the programs that were matched, this is knowledge outside the scope of 99% of pre-meds. .
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Your mentors who explained this process did well.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
First, being the only attending/resident on here that tells you to pick a school by match list does not give him "clout." Second, he is wrong because almost every single DO school has the same match list: a handful of AOA gen surg, a handful of AOA ortho, maybe a few other surgical subs, a handful of OB, more EM and Gas, a lot of FM, lots of Community IM, a few university level IM, with a decent amount of community peds with a few university level mixed in. And then there are the one or two super matches. A match list is largely just the desires of the student body. Go pick any DO school at random and look up their match list and you will start to see the same names and types of places on every one. The only match lists that tend to be noticeably different are the brand new ones who just matched their first class or two, after a while they are all the same.

I don't need to have been through medical school and residency yet to know what actual residents and attendings have told me, and when to recognize the outlier. Your school matters exceptionally little to programs outside of the immediate geographical area. The schools that have an "impressive" match list (which on SDN just means the number of competitive specialties) tend to accept the types of students who will pursue these types of places. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the student population and their desires are different at RVU/KCU than say SOMA or WCU.

You cannot judge a match list unless you have specific knowledge from someone in that field on the programs that were matched, this is knowledge outside the scope of 99% of pre-meds. Otherwise it's just a fun way to pass the time.
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You and @IslandStyle808 are focusing on the match list crap and I'm focusing on if it matters where you attend school at. We aren't even talking about the same topics.
 
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ChiTownBHawks said:
You and @IslandStyle808 are focusing on the match list crap and I'm focusing on if it matters where you attend school at. We aren't even talking about the same topics.
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We understand, but you also referenced @MaximusD, whose first post was about match lists as a large factor in picking a school. We are making sure pre-medical students know that they are not yet at that stage to know how to use it. It can lead to even picking the wrong school for the wrong reasons. I totally agree with you on this point of where you go matter, but just want to make sure pre-meds know you cannot look at match lists because you could be using them wrong.
 
I feel like we talk about the same stuff over and over. It's been like 7 years of this for me, hah.

Back in my day, I think lecom-b and RVU had some of the highest board scores (no official data; just hearsay), but I wouldn't want to attend either school because their rotations, at least at the time, were not that great. Maybe things have changed at those schools in the meantime.

When I was selecting a DO school, I really only considered schools with affiliated residencies in specialities I was interested in. I'd suggest looking at http://opportunities.osteopathic.org and look for ACGME approved residencies in fields you might consider. It might be helpful.

I personally think match lists matter. DO schools are filled with all kinds of students. Some have good stats and others are lucky to be in med school. So when looking at a DO match list I don't expect 100% placement into decent ACGME residencies. However, I'd imagine that at least 30% of DO students (pulled this number out of my ass) should be able to compete with USMD students, so as long as some (~20%) students are going to university based programs each year I think the school is probably fine.

By the way, boards are totally up to you. Practice questions are key to high scores. Do as many questions as you can and READ the explanations.
 
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