step 2 dilemma

[Legion560]

Hi guys,

I am really pulling my hair out trying to determine my 4th year schedule and step 2. Im in favor of taking it early, like 4 weeks after 3rd year ends. Couple problems with this though: My last rotation is OB/GYN (wish it were medicine), and I havent been doing particularly stellar on the shelf exams. Im hovering around low 70's for each. Id like to improve over my step 1 by a couple of points, but Im questioning my performance on the shelf exams. Do you guys think I should wait and take it later, or go for it after 3rd year?
The flip side is that waiting to take the test around nov/dec will be more painful in terms of reviewing etc.
Any opinions are greatly appreciated.

Legion.

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[dlung]

I think you'll be fine taking it at either time. I would argue that SHELF exams are not predictive of your performance on Step II. My SHELF percentiles ranged from <10% to >90%... and I ended up doing a bit better on my Step II than Step I.

If you were to take it in the winter, I'd just schedule it in Nov rather than Dec so you won't be worrying about it while interviewing...

 

[Legion560]

I think you'll be fine taking it at either time. I would argue that SHELF exams are not predictive of your performance on Step II. My SHELF percentiles ranged from <10% to >90%... and I ended up doing a bit better on my Step II than Step I.

If you were to take it in the winter, I'd just schedule it in Nov rather than Dec so you won't be worrying about it while interviewing...

Yeah, thats what I was thinking. If I did push it off, Id take it maybe october/november. Im one of those people that tends to forget stuff as the year goes on, so it would make sense for me personally to take step 2 as early as possible. But again I was worried about my shelf performance biting me in the arse.
I guess the true title of my post should have been "do shelf test scores correlate with step 2". After doing a search of archived posts, it seems like it does not.

Thanks for the response.

Legion.