Schools vs. Residency Options

[drizzt3117]

---

Members do not see this ad.

This begs the question, what explains the differences in the average board scores at different institutions? I know that it is heavily dependent on each individual taking it (naturally) but there are schools that have shown a trend of having high board scores, at least the ones that publish their numbers. How much of it has to do with the curriculum (i.e. teaching to the boards, etc.), do you think? Clearly all I can expect from here is speculation, but it doesn't hurt to hear what you guys think..

I think it's a little bit of everything. Teaching to the boards seems to help, but some schools that score quite well on the boards don't even teach all the classes necessary to take the boards, or don't have a similar style of testing at all. Clearly a lot of the reason that higher ranked schools have higher scores is because they take the cream of the crop of premeds.

 

[flip26]

I think it's a little bit of everything. Teaching to the boards seems to help, but some schools that score quite well on the boards don't even teach all the classes necessary to take the boards, or don't have a similar style of testing at all. Clearly a lot of the reason that higher ranked schools have higher scores is because they take the cream of the crop of premeds.

This explains most of it, for sure. Maybe 100 percent of it.

 

[Law2Doc]

...Clearly a lot of the reason that higher ranked schools have higher scores is because they take the cream of the crop of premeds.

Board scores for different schools are not published and most folks can attest that virtually every school on the interview trail boasts above average (for US allo) board scores -- although this cannot possibly be true everywhere. I suspect a lot of games get played (using retakes for failures etc), and that a lot of places outright lie. But there isn't really evidence out there suggesting that the board scores align similarly to the schools on the US News list. In fact, the couple of schools that have published their actual numbers (in conflict with the tacit agreement to not do so) have been lower ranked schools with very high boards. It would be an assumption not based on any evidence to say the higher ranked schools actually do have higher scores. I would suggest that the smartest people of each school probably make up the top scores on the USMLE and that no med school has as much of a monopoly as premeds would like to think. The range of smarts from the top students at the top schools to the top students at the lowest ranked US allo school isn't that vast. A=A. It's what you do with that once you get into med school that creates the range.