Taking step 1 on December of M2 year?

[Qwerty122]

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Might be a silly question, but couldn't find anything online about it.

Is it possible to take step 1 on December 2021 before step 1 changes to a p/f system on January 2022? Yeah, this will force me to study topics that would've been covered at a later date in my curriculum, and force me to maybe even start studying soon. But it might be good for residency purposes, considering everyone else in the class of 2024 will have a "pass" only for their step 1 on their ERAS app. Or should students just accept taking step 1 as p/f and focus on step 2 ck instead?

 

[ciestar]

You’d have to be approved by your school to do this.

 

[M&L]

So the problem With that is that a lot of schools (at least all that I know) require you to pass cbse or something like that prior to sitting for actual step 1. Those cbse exams are administered during spring semester .

 

[Ho0v-man]

Your school isn’t going to let you take a career deciding exam when you have 4-5 months more curriculum to cover.

 

[Qwerty122]

Your school isn’t going to let you take a career deciding exam when you have 4-5 months more curriculum to cover.

Technically, only one month though as final system ends in Feb and that's when dedicated starts. But yes I get your point on the possible hesitance from the school.

 

[Redpancreas]

Might be a silly question, but couldn't find anything online about it.

Is it possible to take step 1 on December 2021 before step 1 changes to a p/f system on January 2022? Yeah, this will force me to study topics that would've been covered at a later date in my curriculum, and force me to maybe even start studying soon. But it might be good for residency purposes, considering everyone else in the class of 2024 will have a "pass" only for their step 1 on their ERAS app. Or should students just accept taking step 1 as p/f and focus on step 2 ck instead?

Bad idea. Your graduating class will all have a pass for Step 1. Yes...there will be some off cycle peeps and mostly foreign grads with a Step 1 but no one will expect a Step 1 and you won't be rewarded for a high score compared to your peers. Focus on Step 2 CK. The minute Step 1 becomes P/F, programs will be forced to stop caring about numerical step 1 scores. You have until then to cash in your Step 1 to residency programs.

Devil's advocate is some PDs have this belief that past performance on any standardized tests is indicative of future board scores. I did ACT/SAT/MCAT tutoring/classroom teaching for a reputable company and thoughtlessly listed it on ERAS and nearly every PD I interviewed with asked about it and seemed to think it was the most impressive EC I had despite a lot of other interesting stuff...tip to premeds out there, embellish your MCAT/ACT tutoring experience. List how you scored in the 90th+ percentile in all subsections or whatever the prep company required. PDs eat that up for some reason. Coming back to Step 1, I really don't think you're served for taking it early. There's no need to put the effort into it not to mention what happens if you score average or below especially given you're going to have less study time and your school probably will not have covered all the material yet.