question about dean's letter

[ktat72]

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i will not be applying till next year but i had a question about the dean's letter. I go to an accelerated medical program right out of school. each year we have this promotion requirement and it is also in effect when we hit the medical school years. I am a fifth year of the six years. for my promotion from my third to my fourth year and my fourth to my fifth years I have promoted nonroutinely because my grade point average was 2.9 something (we need a 3.0 to promote routinely each year) - got a couple Cs in medical school classes in my year 3 (MS 1) that tarnished my grade point average. i worked harder in my MS 2 (year 4) year an earned Bs in my classes but that bad year 3 keeps on making me promote nonroutinely and it will be impossible to make up for this since the year 3 (MS 1) classes had more credits than other classes and now my clinicals are pass/fail type of classes.

I was told by my school that this nonroutine promotion would not look negative in my dean's letter but that a routine promotion would look really good in it - had that my first two years of the program. How serious of an impact would this have if the only reason I was nonroutinely promoted was this GPA requirement - since I know many of the programs I am looking at take the dean's letter into serious consideration? All my other evaluations are so far really strong.

 

[Kalel]

Your preclinical years will get 1-3 sentences in your dean's letter if your dean is using a MSPE (medical school performance evaluation) format (which is standard at most schools). It will probably say something along the lines of how you struggled at first but were later able to overcome your difficulties. The rest of your dean's letter will be those third year evaluations, cut and paste, word for word. This will make up the bulk of your deans letter (2-3 pages). If your clinical grades are strong and USMLE 1 ok, then I wouldn't worry about it too much. It shouldn't have too much bearing on where you are able to match for residency.

 

[ktat72]

my step 1 was a 219. i have not been able to honor in anything yet, but some of the evaluations i have received have been really strong - especially on the internal medicine rotation in my MS 2 year and the two required family medicine rotations. my surgery rotation had one nice comment and that was it (the attending in charge is a vascular surgeon and very busy with his practice). i have looked at my OB/GYN evals and they just filled out all satisfactories without a single resident bothering to put down any written comments.

BTW the specialty i am interested in is none in the above paragraph.