- Joined
- Jan 16, 2017
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 21
I failed CS, retook and passed it, and had a great match. Back when I found out I had failed, I scoured the internet for information about what to do, and I only really found one post that was relevant to my situation. I'm sharing my story in case others find themselves in similar circumstances, in the hope that such individuals will not have to spend as much time freaking out as I did.
I am at an allopathic US med school, middle of the road in terms of competitiveness. I have average scores and extensive leadership, community service and research experience. I applied to internal medicine. I took CS at the beginning of October -- i.e., after I had already submitted my residency applications. I found out that I had failed in mid-December. I actually got the email right after one of my interviews.
I was distraught and confused, and I immediately signed up for the next available test date, which was in early January. I spoke to my advisor, who in turn consulted with numerours program directors and associate program directors for advice about whether I should let my programs know, when and how.
All parties felt it was both ethical and in my best interest to NOT disclose the failing score to schools unless they specifically asked for it. I decided to go this route, hoping that I would receive a passing score from my retake before anyone asked, and with the plan to have letters of support from my advisor, my dean, and the clinical simulation team at my school to send along with my response.
Next, I sought about trying to get an earlier test date. The reporting period for January was after the due date for rank lists, so I wanted to get an earlier test date to hopefully get me a passing score before the rank list due date. I found an extension for firefox that you can set up to monitor a website for changes, and I set it up to monitor the NBME CS scheduling page. I wish I had discovered this sooner, because I was able to get a date for December within 12 hours of setting it up. I ended up having to pay like an extra $400 or something to change the test date. I retook the exam, and I actually got a passing score released to me on the first day of the reporting window, which I believe was January 31st.
I only had two programs ask me for my CS score(s), and they happened to be the bottom two programs on my rank list. One was a community program that I considered to be of low quality. The other was a fairly prestigious academic program that I really liked, but it was in a geographical area that I was not interested in. Pretty random. Anyhow, they both contacted me right around the time I got my passing score. I was initially going to just release the scores to them. But then I learned that in ERAS you can't release scores to individual programs -- I would have had to disclose to ALL my programs! No way was I going to do that. I simply replied to the programs saying that I did not want to release the scores on ERAS for that reason, and I attached both score reports to the emails. I got one-liner "thank you!" responses from them. I have no idea what effect that had on my rank-ability with those programs, but I didn't really care since they were at the bottom of my list.
Other things:
- I failed the "communication and interpersonal skills" portion of the exam. I think it was because I ran out of time in two or three of the stations, but I'll never know for certain. The next time I took it my CIS score was at the far right of the chart. I definitely did not study enough for the first attempt. I didn't realize that the summary portion at the end of the encounter was so important. The second time around I cut my physical exams short in order to make time to summarize when I knew time was running out.
- I opted to take the exam at a different test site than my first attempt, as I had heard rumors that certain sites graded harder (no idea if that's really true).
- I know of one other classmate who also had to retake CS, and their original and second attempts fell on almost the exact same dates as mine. This person had only one program contact them requesting a CS score, and they actually released it on ERAS, so all their programs could have seen it prior to rank lists being due. They matched into a high rank in one of the most competitive specialties.
I am at an allopathic US med school, middle of the road in terms of competitiveness. I have average scores and extensive leadership, community service and research experience. I applied to internal medicine. I took CS at the beginning of October -- i.e., after I had already submitted my residency applications. I found out that I had failed in mid-December. I actually got the email right after one of my interviews.
I was distraught and confused, and I immediately signed up for the next available test date, which was in early January. I spoke to my advisor, who in turn consulted with numerours program directors and associate program directors for advice about whether I should let my programs know, when and how.
All parties felt it was both ethical and in my best interest to NOT disclose the failing score to schools unless they specifically asked for it. I decided to go this route, hoping that I would receive a passing score from my retake before anyone asked, and with the plan to have letters of support from my advisor, my dean, and the clinical simulation team at my school to send along with my response.
Next, I sought about trying to get an earlier test date. The reporting period for January was after the due date for rank lists, so I wanted to get an earlier test date to hopefully get me a passing score before the rank list due date. I found an extension for firefox that you can set up to monitor a website for changes, and I set it up to monitor the NBME CS scheduling page. I wish I had discovered this sooner, because I was able to get a date for December within 12 hours of setting it up. I ended up having to pay like an extra $400 or something to change the test date. I retook the exam, and I actually got a passing score released to me on the first day of the reporting window, which I believe was January 31st.
I only had two programs ask me for my CS score(s), and they happened to be the bottom two programs on my rank list. One was a community program that I considered to be of low quality. The other was a fairly prestigious academic program that I really liked, but it was in a geographical area that I was not interested in. Pretty random. Anyhow, they both contacted me right around the time I got my passing score. I was initially going to just release the scores to them. But then I learned that in ERAS you can't release scores to individual programs -- I would have had to disclose to ALL my programs! No way was I going to do that. I simply replied to the programs saying that I did not want to release the scores on ERAS for that reason, and I attached both score reports to the emails. I got one-liner "thank you!" responses from them. I have no idea what effect that had on my rank-ability with those programs, but I didn't really care since they were at the bottom of my list.
Other things:
- I failed the "communication and interpersonal skills" portion of the exam. I think it was because I ran out of time in two or three of the stations, but I'll never know for certain. The next time I took it my CIS score was at the far right of the chart. I definitely did not study enough for the first attempt. I didn't realize that the summary portion at the end of the encounter was so important. The second time around I cut my physical exams short in order to make time to summarize when I knew time was running out.
- I opted to take the exam at a different test site than my first attempt, as I had heard rumors that certain sites graded harder (no idea if that's really true).
- I know of one other classmate who also had to retake CS, and their original and second attempts fell on almost the exact same dates as mine. This person had only one program contact them requesting a CS score, and they actually released it on ERAS, so all their programs could have seen it prior to rank lists being due. They matched into a high rank in one of the most competitive specialties.
