step 2?

[zoomzoomzoom]

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Now that everyone has matched, I was wondering if I could solicit a bit of advice? I'm almost done with my third year and want to do derm. I'm planning on taking next year off to do derm research but I'm unsure if I should take step 2 at the end of my third year or try and take it at the end of my 4th year which would be in 2011. Here are my stats:

Med school: average
Pre-clinical grades: almost all honors
Step I: > 240
Clinical grades: all high passes, no honors

If I were to study my butt off and get, say a 250, would that really help me at all? I'm willing to study for it if people think that it'll vastly improve my chances, but if step 2 is meaningless, I'd rather not run the risk of scoring poorly.

Thank you all for your input, it's greatly appreciated by myself and all other hopefully future dermies.

 

[asmallchild]

Step 2 really doesn't help. I would take it late as your Step 1 score will make nearly all the cutoffs anyway.

 

[kralwok]

i did extremely well on step 2, and no programs seemed to care. didn't match. i'd say it doesn't matter that much at most programs if you did well on step 1.
the only thing i'll say is that step 2 was a lot easier in my opinion. if you are good at shelf exams, you will probably do well on step 2. but why put yourself through the stress and risk scoring lower if your step 1 is good?

 

[zoomzoomzoom]

Thank you for confirming my suspicions. Studying for step I was horrible, so I'm happy not to have to fret about step II.