I’m still wondering if I should sign up for it now. I’ve heard it’s been booked past December at this point.
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the official COMAT shelf thread
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Oof is all I have to say. I know a lot of my classmates have not signed up
I took Level 2 CE 12 weeks before Step 2 CK lol
For the psych and surgery comats, was comquest enough or should I do uworld instead?
Haven't taken surgery yet but I only did UWorld and Anki for psych and got a 115.
I'm scheduled in July and don't know if it's even going to happen honestly lol. Our school normally makes us do an SP thing before we're allowed to take PE and there's been zero talk about it this year sooo...
Haven't done psych but did only UWorld and Anki for surgery and it was my highest score so far (120+).
Our school is making us do it even the PE is dropped as a graduation requirement
I do 30 Uworld questions a day, split into two 15 Q blocks
first block, I got an 80%. Hell yeah brother
Second block? a 53%. lol
first block, I got an 80%. Hell yeah brother
Second block? a 53%. lol
I wish our school would just tell us something either way lol. It's like they forget they have students after M2.
Facts, but they have been good with getting me the paperwork I need for always
What did you need? That's on my to do list for this weekend lol
Edit: I keep looking at the VSAS site but the electives I want to apply to aren't open yet so I don't get where you're supposed to see or upload info?
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ive been going to their websites, emailing the programs, or going off what The majority of programs want.
so far it seems they all want our schools evaluate form, proof of malpractice insurance, new AAMC vaccination filled out, you gotta fill out the transcript release form on e value, and then your score reports for comlex and step.
some want a personal statement, but that’s been few and far between.
id recommend reaching out to your Top choices for the summer to see when they open up so you can be first in line. Seems like the data on VSAS is outdated.
id also make sure you’re allowed to go for the first blocks. Most of my programs I’m doing always at don’t allow visiting students till October or later.
you can upload all these documents to vsas, and then you just push them to the programs when it’s time to apply
Hmm ok, I may just email my coordinator and ask her to send me the standard things she's aware of. Thank you!
No problem fam
Well I spent some time looking at VSAS and program websites and now I'm stressed out. They all say apply through VSAS but the VSAS info is so outdated for a bunch of them, listing application dates for 2019 etc. Also, we have to use vacation time to bridge any gaps between rotations and these all have different start/stop dates so it's going to be like piecing together a mess of a puzzle.
I contacted one of my top programs and they have no idea what they’re doing for this next season. We might have to wait till feb/March to get a better idea.
The feels when your school schedules your OMM COMAT and some online OSCE module crap in the only month you actually care about honoring....rip
The OMM COMAT was freaking awful. Most people in my class are convinced they failed it and it was by far the hardest one I've taken so far.
I honestly thought the IM COMAT was pretty fair though, I just did UWorld and Anki and honored it. I didn't finish the IM section of UWorld beforehand either so just get through as much of that as you can and you should be golden.
Thanks for the reassurance, I think I'm just psyching myself out because I want to do well so it's messing with my confidence.
It be like that sometimes (this is my lowest block score thus far on UWorld rip)
Can anyone who has taken the IM comat comment on how much biostats there is?
It was ~11 months ago, but I don’t remember any. (Unfortunately)
I don't think I had any on mine.
Hey Sunshinefl, a bit off topic, but do you remember what was Level 2 CE like in terms of question stem length and difficulty? Am I right to approximate it as somewhere in between UW and Comquest in difficulty (with UW been a bit harder and comquest a bit easier than real thing) and in terms of length of question stems - in general a bit shorter stems than UW? Thank you.
Does Level 2 CE feel like a longer IM COMAT? I'm hoping questions should be a bit broader, not as in depth as some COMATs?
I have to take it soon (I'm going off-schedule) and I'm a bit worried, my comquest average is 70% (random, timed 44 per block) but comquest questions seem easy for some reason. UW average is 60%. UW is definitely harder for me, I'm doing random, timed 40 per block. At this point I just want to pass. My shelf exams were all over the place from 90 to 113, but mostly about 100.
Length: Some questions are book length, some were a short paragraph. They balanced out.
Difficulty: yes I felt in between UW and Comquest.
Vagueness: I felt just as unclear about Level 2 questions and Step 2 questions (on the real deals of both).
No. I hate COMATs. It was definitely more broad than IM COMAT. Maybe closer to a long FM COMAT, but even broader and with more reasonable timing. Ever since they changed the questions/block from 50 to 44 on Level 2, that was literally life changing for me. I always run out of time on COMATs. I felt comfortable with the timing on Level 2, never rushed.
UWorld was way harder to me. My COMATs were 94-112. Just looked back at my comquest Level 2 CE q-bank. I only did ~300 questions (apparently not doing enough questions is a thing for me). I ended with 74% correct and a predicted score of 626. I received a 599 on the real thing.
Just wanted to say in general. Very proud of you friend. Sending you the best of vibes as match day approaches and you finish this stage of your life!
oh my gosh! Thank you so much! I honestly really appreciate that <3
80% yesterday, 56% today. The struggle is real.
insert "Ya'll getting 80s?" meme here
So..... how's my SDN gang feeling about the aways announcement
I’m cool with it, if they/residencies actually enforce it. Then again, you don’t really NEED aways for radiology.
What announcement? I missed it 😳
The link's in the MD forums. Basically recommending a limit of 1 away rotation per applicant, not to begin before August 1st.
Yeah I haven't fully decided how I feel yet. On the one hand I'm a high-stat applicant applying IM, which generally doesn't weigh aways heavily. On the other, I really wanted to demonstrate my geographic interest in community programs through my aways. Then, I'm also nervous my school won't change their graduation requirement of having us do 3 sub-Is, and since we don't have a home program those need to be aways. Lastly, when I was worried about the quality of my M3 rotations everyone always said not to worry because I could make up for it with aways in M4. Now I'm worried I'm going to look like an idiot come intern year as I only truly worked with residents on one rotation. Also, wanted to get some solid LORs from sub-Is.
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I just read the whole proposal. As an EM applicant, this displeases me.
Hospitals are already scheduling aways for 4th year. I've been in contact with several that have said they are planning on doing always, and I had one open up for application that I've almost finished yesterday
I refuse to be upset until anything happens. I know several students at my school who did always this year despite the pandemic ranging on. With more and more of the vaccine being given out, this seems incredibly premature.
I hate them.
The only hospital I want told me directly that they’re not sure and more info would likely come out in March. Damn.
100% agree. Also I think it's kind of silly to still be carrying the belief that travel matters. When this first started? Sure. But it's everywhere now. Me going from MO to GA or whatever isn't going to do anything. Just my opinion.
Same. Ive had contact with multiple residencies who said they were doing them
Honestly this broke me. I had a very specific goal for residency. I'll probably have to change desired specialties if this happens. I doubt I'll be competitive enough for med-peds without letters from Sub-Is and a good performance, and even if I can apply my chance of matching where I wanted to is probably so low.
I want to cry. My partner and I had a plan, we were finally going to be in the same place together
I want to cry. My partner and I had a plan, we were finally going to be in the same place together
There’s a chance you can still get your letters and make it work. Prioritize the specific place you want to go if you were gonna do an audition there. But you may fall under the “more aways if no home programs/required by school” and will be able to do other sub-Is.
I dont think its finalized yet. Seems like itll be revisited in April. Just stay the course for now
We just can’t get any wins.
I am thinking we may be able to do more since we don't have a home program like @sunshinefl mentioned. It's not ideal but try and stay positive for now. Remember that a lot of other applicants will be in the same boat as you if we all can't do multiple aways.
CS cancelled forever. Holy SH** I cannot keep up with this rollercoaster going on.
lol you know NBOME is still gunna make us take PE
Maybe DOs are the quality students now. We take more boards than MDs, clearly we are more regulated and educated. /s
You guys I’m pulling an all nighter for the IM comat right now. Taking it in four hours. 🤣
My preceptor murdered me all month. I wrote a good 6-7 notes every day because he didn’t round unti the afternoon and I had four patients every day... meaning if I wasn’t 100% sure if someone was staying or going, I better write both a progress note and a discharge summary for that patient before rounds so all I had to do was update one and delete the other if I wanted to get home at a decent hour. The upside is my time management is godly IMO - I can write notes pretty dang fast now. I also feel really solid on bread and butter DM, HTN, chest pain, CAD, thyroid, lipids, COPD, asthma, etc. The downside is I did NO anki, NO uworld, and I started my night tonight with 230 IM comquest questions left. So all the unicorn/unusual disease questions are killing me right now because I didn’t deal with them much.
He said I was great and he’s planning on giving me a “stellar” eval. I’m interpreting that as I have the potential to honor this rotation if I do well on the COMAT, but I have to break 111 to get honors at my school. If you guys have any good thoughts to spare, I have 140 comquest questions left and I’m predicted at a 107 rn LMFAO.
My preceptor murdered me all month. I wrote a good 6-7 notes every day because he didn’t round unti the afternoon and I had four patients every day... meaning if I wasn’t 100% sure if someone was staying or going, I better write both a progress note and a discharge summary for that patient before rounds so all I had to do was update one and delete the other if I wanted to get home at a decent hour. The upside is my time management is godly IMO - I can write notes pretty dang fast now. I also feel really solid on bread and butter DM, HTN, chest pain, CAD, thyroid, lipids, COPD, asthma, etc. The downside is I did NO anki, NO uworld, and I started my night tonight with 230 IM comquest questions left. So all the unicorn/unusual disease questions are killing me right now because I didn’t deal with them much.
He said I was great and he’s planning on giving me a “stellar” eval. I’m interpreting that as I have the potential to honor this rotation if I do well on the COMAT, but I have to break 111 to get honors at my school. If you guys have any good thoughts to spare, I have 140 comquest questions left and I’m predicted at a 107 rn LMFAO.
Good luck to you!!! ✨
I understand about the unicorn stuff. I felt like I really dove into my patients during clerkships and got pretty good at the common stuff, and then tried to do some questions to supplement for the things I wasn't seeing.
I really meant to do more questions, but I definitely didn’t do any during the week, and then I spent most of my weekends decompressing so it just didn’t happen. I maybe did 20 questions total on the weekends... which is how I got to this all nighter today. I really suck at time management in my personal life.
