Hi everyone,
First off thanks for reading this because I really need some advice and this forum worked well for me in the past so I figured I'd give it another shot. Some background - I'm a third year medical student in an MD program at a respected (but not top tier) state medical school. I came to medical school from a previous career, do not have any research background or publications and recently got my step 1 score back. Unsurprisingly I did not do well - a 208 :/ The facts are that I may have studied a solid 2 1/2 weeks for the exam and I needed more time. That coupled with the fact that both of my parents were sick during my second year, made the fact that I made it through at all quite miraculous in my book. I wanted to take a further Leave of Absence but financially it just wasn't possible.
That said, I get this is a numbers game. My transcript in medical school is pretty average (my school has a Pass, High Pass, and Honors) system and I'm probably in the lower half after second year's consistent passing grades. What I'd like to know-and what I know has been discussed in other forums but none that I could find recently-is whether I can rebound from this type of low score? I really do not have a sense of how large a difference there is between my score and say a 220 or 200. I was not even able to get through 1/2 of UWorld with everything that I had going on personally.
As far as my professional goals go, I am not trying to do anything terribly competitive and to be honest still haven't quite narrowed down what I want to do. To give you an idea my list currently includes IM, psychiatry, and pathology. I'd like to get into the best program I can and know it's useless to rely on excuses or to bemoan the fact that scores matter. What I want to know is where do I need to set my goal for Step 2 CK? If I was able to pull out a 260 could that make a big difference in matching to better IM programs? I have scored in the 99% on previous exams and know that I can do it with the right strategy and study materials (barring any further acts of God such as what happened this past year). Thanks again for reading and your advice in advance.
First off thanks for reading this because I really need some advice and this forum worked well for me in the past so I figured I'd give it another shot. Some background - I'm a third year medical student in an MD program at a respected (but not top tier) state medical school. I came to medical school from a previous career, do not have any research background or publications and recently got my step 1 score back. Unsurprisingly I did not do well - a 208 :/ The facts are that I may have studied a solid 2 1/2 weeks for the exam and I needed more time. That coupled with the fact that both of my parents were sick during my second year, made the fact that I made it through at all quite miraculous in my book. I wanted to take a further Leave of Absence but financially it just wasn't possible.
That said, I get this is a numbers game. My transcript in medical school is pretty average (my school has a Pass, High Pass, and Honors) system and I'm probably in the lower half after second year's consistent passing grades. What I'd like to know-and what I know has been discussed in other forums but none that I could find recently-is whether I can rebound from this type of low score? I really do not have a sense of how large a difference there is between my score and say a 220 or 200. I was not even able to get through 1/2 of UWorld with everything that I had going on personally.
As far as my professional goals go, I am not trying to do anything terribly competitive and to be honest still haven't quite narrowed down what I want to do. To give you an idea my list currently includes IM, psychiatry, and pathology. I'd like to get into the best program I can and know it's useless to rely on excuses or to bemoan the fact that scores matter. What I want to know is where do I need to set my goal for Step 2 CK? If I was able to pull out a 260 could that make a big difference in matching to better IM programs? I have scored in the 99% on previous exams and know that I can do it with the right strategy and study materials (barring any further acts of God such as what happened this past year). Thanks again for reading and your advice in advance.