Reality vs. Urban Legend: the 270+

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How many scores over 270 have you verifiably ever heard of? Not your hairdresser's godson's drunkdial's brother's blah blah blah, but an actual person you know who got a 270 or higher. How often does it actually happen? And does the 280 exist or has only Yeti and the Loch Ness monster gotten it....
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At least one person on this forum who I consider a very reliable source got just over a 270 this year.
 
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Brings up a good amendment: not at all saying I don't believe that people get a 270+, just want to get a sense from my esteemed SDN colleagues :) about how often it happens.
 
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If you go to the match outcomes 2005 it looks like: 2 with 270+ in internal medicine (page 31), 1 with 270+ in ortho (page 37), 1 with 270+ in peds (page 43), and 1 with 270+ in rads (page 55). So for fact they do exsist. Also last year a reliable poster scored 270+ and this year a ucla student, go bruins.
 
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jjmack said:
I would give my left (or right) testicle to get a 270+
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give the left one ... it's better this way believe me !

one more thing.... would someone define "reliable" please?
I won't believe any score at all (even if it was 185) unless i see the original score report with that "reliable" person's name printed on the report.
infact the best advice is not to ask anyone about his/her score. Everyone should settle with his/her score and just try to improve one's self in whatever way.
 
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ayanjoe said:
give the left one ... it's better this way believe me !

one more thing.... would someone define "reliable" please?
I won't believe any score at all (even if it was 185) unless i see the original score report with that "reliable" person's name printed on the report.
infact the best advice is not to ask anyone about his/her score. Everyone should settle with his/her score and just try to improve one's self in whatever way.
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Reliable as in published by the AAMC as per Long Dong's reference?
 
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top score in my class was a 270. although it probably takes a lot of luck to hit a score like that. I'm sure if you're hovering in the 260s you'll occasionally hit 270.
 
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i can confirm at least two >270's on step2. i don't know of anyone who topped it on step1. even though it's a big secret i figure they use the same score system for both.
i wonder if there's really any benefit to higher scores once you've broken 260....
 
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Time for a history lesson guys:

Two years ago, 267 was the highest score SDN had ever seen (the veterans can correct me here) and a prolific poster named BigFrank was the proud owner (I believe he's in Radiology land these days). Anyways, a few posters accused him of lying (p53..who himself never revealed his score, despite his caustic attitude and big mouth) so BF posted his actual score report on SDN to prove him wrong. This of course led to more haterade b/c some people thought that only a tool cares enough to upload their actual score report on a internet website.

Then last year, some dude named Nrosigh wowed the SDN audience with his 272, unconfirmed but likely based on his prep, advice and insight about the exam. Funny, but no one ever accused him of lying. I guess things had changed on SDN by then, for the better...

Fast forward to this year, I honestly didn't think I'd see another 272 big hitter on SDN. Regardless, hats off to everyone who reached and surpassed their goal, whether it was a 185 or a 270+. For those who didn't, you will have many more opportunities to prove your worth. No worries...:)
 
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DOCTORSAIB said:
Time for a history lesson guys:

Two years ago, 267 was the highest score SDN had ever seen (the veterans can correct me here) and a prolific poster named BigFrank was the proud owner (I believe he's in Radiology land these days). Anyways, a few posters accused him of lying (p53..who himself never revealed his score, despite his caustic attitude and big mouth) so BF posted his actual score report on SDN to prove him wrong. This of course led to more haterade b/c some people thought that only a tool cares enough to upload their actual score report on a internet website.

Then last year, some dude named Nrosigh wowed the SDN audience with his 272, unconfirmed but likely based on his prep, advice and insight about the exam. Funny, but no one ever accused him of lying. I guess things had changed on SDN by then, for the better...

Fast forward to this year, I honestly didn't think I'd see another 272 big hitter on SDN. Regardless, hats off to everyone who reached and surpassed their goal, whether it was a 185 or a 270+. For those who didn't, you will have many more opportunities to prove your worth. No worries...:)
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I think UCLAStudent takes the title because she only prepped for 6 weeks. The old bigguns prepped for like two years for this exam to score that high. I thought for sure that sweatybrain would be top score though.
 
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Just so we're clear; In this thread, are hearsay the urban legend and anecdotal stories the verifiable evidence?
 
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blz said:
I think UCLAStudent takes the title because she only prepped for 6 weeks.
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Well, 6 weeks of actual boards studying --- but I do think that keeping up with studies during the school year helped a lot. This tends to be underestimated! There's only so much you can get from board review books.
 
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Medikit said:
And this whole time I was under the impression that southern Californians don't say "Hella"
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My roomates in undergrad where from the bay, by the time we graduated they got me saying hella and I got them saying cool deal dude.
 
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For the class that took Step I in 2006 (this year's MS4s) a guy at the University of Toledo got a 272. I've talked to him and he even sent out an e-mail to our whole class giving advice for how to do well. He read so many books and spent so many hours studying it isn't even funny.

Interestingly, a month or two after the scores came back the president of the university (a vascular surgeon by the way) wrote a column in the Toledo Blade mentioning several academic feats in the last year by students/professors at UT. In this list he included this student and also said that it was the highest score that year for Step I in the country. I don't know he would knowingly lie or just assume that this was the highest score, so I think this proves just how rare 270+ scores are.

The highest score I've heard of this year was by a fellow student at Toledo with a 267.
 
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Hallm_7 said:
For the class that took Step I in 2006 (this year's MS4s) a guy at the University of Toledo got a 272. I've talked to him and he even sent out an e-mail to our whole class giving advice for how to do well. He read so many books and spent so many hours studying it isn't even funny.

Interestingly, a month or two after the scores came back the president of the university (a vascular surgeon by the way) wrote a column in the Toledo Blade mentioning several academic feats in the last year by students/professors at UT. In this list he included this student and also said that it was the highest score that year for Step I in the country. I don't know he would knowingly lie or just assume that this was the highest score, so I think this proves just how rare 270+ scores are.

The highest score I've heard of this year was by a fellow student at Toledo with a 267.
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any chance the 267 was by a really big asian guy who wants to do ortho in cali?
 
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Hallm_7 said:
For the class that took Step I in 2006 (this year's MS4s) a guy at the University of Toledo got a 272. I've talked to him and he even sent out an e-mail to our whole class giving advice for how to do well. He read so many books and spent so many hours studying it isn't even funny.

Interestingly, a month or two after the scores came back the president of the university (a vascular surgeon by the way) wrote a column in the Toledo Blade mentioning several academic feats in the last year by students/professors at UT. In this list he included this student and also said that it was the highest score that year for Step I in the country. I don't know he would knowingly lie or just assume that this was the highest score, so I think this proves just how rare 270+ scores are.

The highest score I've heard of this year was by a fellow student at Toledo with a 267.
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sounds like that speech they give to the kids in the caribbean schools about how they have the highest board scorer ever (273).
 
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Sounds like the president of the University of Toledo is full of ****. I saw a 2006 score sheet with my own eyes with a 279/99. People forget that the SDN community is only a small sampling of the med student population... Most students have never heard of SDN and I assure you there are people out there who put up >272 scores... Just food for thought...
 
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flukemcd said:
A guy at Eastern Virginia Medical School got a 271 this year.
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Actually, he's a buddy of mine. Super laid-back guy, you'd never know how brilliant he was. I don't know what he did for the boards, but he's the type of student who learns things well the first time through, which I think is the common denominator amongst most of the high-scorers. Besides the time he spends studying, however, much of his score could probably be attributed to natural ability (i.e., his undergrad GPA and MCAT were both sky-high). Nonetheless, it's the highest score in the history of EVMS, though there were many high-scorers in this year's class (several above 250). From what I hear, the class avg is a 230.
 
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I'm the EVMS student you guys are talking about. My score was actually a 270, not a 271. Contrary to popular belief, I can tie my shoes although I'm still working on walking and chewing gum at the same time. flukemcd, where do you go to school and how do you know my USMLE score? I'm a little weirded out by that.
P.S. Thanks for the kind words Fusion
 
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SaltyDog said:
I'm the EVMS student you guys are talking about. My score was actually a 270, not a 271. Contrary to popular belief, I can tie my shoes although I'm still working on walking and chewing gum at the same time. flukemcd, where do you go to school and how do you know my USMLE score? I'm a little weirded out by that.
P.S. Thanks for the kind words Fusion
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Great work.......it'd be nice if you share with us how you prepared for your boards - Thanks
 
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After a brief review of old posts, it appears that flukemcd is a fellow EVMSer! Fluke, we gotta hook it up, especially now that we are in the same class (I have 'defected' from MD09 to MD10). I hope you're geared up for M2, it's "full-court-press" starting Monday.
 
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King Arthur said:
this really smacks of false humility. if you're really so smart to get a 270 something, there's no need to protect all our feelings by pretending it was luck.
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I was trying to make a joke. :rolleyes: Most people who've read my posts know I worked my butt off for that score.
 
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King Arthur said:
this really smacks of false humility. if you're really so smart to get a 270 something, there's no need to protect all our feelings by pretending it was luck.
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huh?
1. ucla really IS that smart. if you look at her posts over the past few years, she has been nothing less than helpful and encouraging to all of us. if anyone deserved to get that score, it would be uclastudent.

2. what is wrong with what she said? she IS lucky to get that score. AND she worked hard for it. a lot of brains and a little luck are a great combo.

3. congratulations, uclastudent. i don't think anyone else would accuse you of false humility.
 
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It does take humility to realize that even thought you worked your ass off, luck still has it's role to play.

That and look at her avatar! =)
 
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have people ever speculated about the percentage questions correct/score correlation? like what is a 90% equivalent to - or is this someone no one knows
 
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Because I'm the slowest here let me make numbers.

1- UCLA is the best :love:
2- blz I don not see you on step2 forum?
3- I PASS with low grades but have in mind full time work and half English :rolleyes:
4- Actually there are people that are exceptional and they deserver the grades they get.

I saw this in another website:

The usmle is one benchmark for competency but only one and not sufficient. Grades are pretty much meaningless in the basic sci years and don't comment at all on the quality of the education. (see: diploma mills). The usmle can be passed by someone who doesn't have a good education or clinical ability but who has taken a review course to focus on the exam, and it can be failed by an excellent, well trained doc who wasn't in a school preping him for the usmle. I dont think its in any way shape or form sufficient to say someone passed the usmle thus had a good education/training.
 
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GOGETA said:
Because I'm the slowest here let me make numbers.

1- UCLA is the best :love:
2- blz I don not see you on step2 forum?
3- I PASS with low grades but have in mind full time work and half English :rolleyes:
4- Actually there are people that are exceptional and they deserver the grades they get.

I saw this in another website:

The usmle is one benchmark for competency but only one and not sufficient. Grades are pretty much meaningless in the basic sci years and don't comment at all on the quality of the education. (see: diploma mills). The usmle can be passed by someone who doesn't have a good education or clinical ability but who has taken a review course to focus on the exam, and it can be failed by an excellent, well trained doc who wasn't in a school preping him for the usmle. I dont think its in any way shape or form sufficient to say someone passed the usmle thus had a good education/training.
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i have like 2 years before i think about step2 - i wont be there for a while
 
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UCLAstudent said:
I was trying to make a joke. :rolleyes: Most people who've read my posts know I worked my butt off for that score.
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"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Bad luck is what happens when lack of preparation meets a challenge."

-Darrell K. Royal
 
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Typical said:
Great work.......it'd be nice if you share with us how you prepared for your boards - Thanks
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The single biggest thing I did to prepare was really work hard through my first 2 years of med school. As far as studying for the boards directly, I studied for 4 weeks. In that time I read First Aid, and all 4 Kaplan review books. I also did 100% of Qbank and 100% of IV Qbank. I took the NBME form 1 and form 2. All that being said, I really believe that the studying you do specifically for the boards is not that helpful. I really believe that I could have taken Step 1 the day after 2nd year ended and scored within about 10 points ( I took NBME form 1 before I any studying and got a 253, I took form 2 after 2 weeks of studying and it only raised to a 261). As long as you worked hard through your first 2 years, most of that info will be somewhere in your head. With the way Step 1 is written (very integrative, kinda vague, clinical Q's), studying a bunch of minutia for weeks before hand is only so helpful. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating not studying for Step 1, I just think that it has to be mainly a review just to freshen things up in your mind, and maybe really learn some of the stuff you kinda chose not to learn in the first place. I don't recommend studying for longer than 4 weeks as I really think you just start to burn yourself out. I would also suggest not studying at all the day before your test in order to let all that info settle into your mind. Get a very good nights sleep before the test - it's a very long day. Donig well on Step 1 really boils down to 3 things, how hard you have worked, how good you are at taking standarized tests, and a little bit of luck.
 
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SaltyDog said:
The single biggest thing I did to prepare was really work hard through my first 2 years of med school. As far as studying for the boards directly, I studied for 4 weeks. In that time I read First Aid, and all 4 Kaplan review books. I also did 100% of Qbank and 100% of IV Qbank. I took the NBME form 1 and form 2. All that being said, I really believe that the studying you do specifically for the boards is not that helpful. I really believe that I could have taken Step 1 the day after 2nd year ended and scored within about 10 points ( I took NBME form 1 before I any studying and got a 253, I took form 2 after 2 weeks of studying and it only raised to a 261). As long as you worked hard through your first 2 years, most of that info will be somewhere in your head. With the way Step 1 is written (very integrative, kinda vague, clinical Q's), studying a bunch of minutia for weeks before hand is only so helpful. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating not studying for Step 1, I just think that it has to be mainly a review just to freshen things up in your mind, and maybe really learn some of the stuff you kinda chose not to learn in the first place. I don't recommend studying for longer than 4 weeks as I really think you just start to burn yourself out. I would also suggest not studying at all the day before your test in order to let all that info settle into your mind. Get a very good nights sleep before the test - it's a very long day. Donig well on Step 1 really boils down to 3 things, how hard you have worked, how good you are at taking standarized tests, and a little bit of luck.
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Thanks, and good luck in all of your future endeavors
 
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