Top Radiology Programs - How Important are Clinical Grades?

[lacrossegirl420]

Very strong academics + research, school pedigree is good (T10). Rec letters should be good.
How important are clinical grades for top 5 rads programs? Will obviously do my best to get as many H’s as possible, but I am aware my academics will probably be stronger than my clinical performance.
Do the very top rads programs want all H’s, or is a mixture of H’s / HP’s / maybe even the occasional P okay?

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[ChordaEpiphany]

The math says you'll be okay. There are probably ~60-80 spots in those top 5 or so programs, and they heavily favor T20 schools (80%+ from T20s). In those T20 schools, there are maybe 4-5 applicants to DR or IR each, so maybe 80-100 applicants competing for 50-60 spots, but a lot of those applicants will value something other the T5 status, so maybe they'll opt for their home program or some other T20.

Match lists reveal very few T20 students falling below the T20 in rads and tons at T5 programs. Statistics point to a lot of T20 students having subpar applications. I think one of those spots has your name on it if your priority is pedigree.

 

[AzBasRad]

Very strong academics + research, school pedigree is good (T10). Rec letters should be good.
How important are clinical grades for top 5 rads programs? Will obviously do my best to get as many H’s as possible, but I am aware my academics will probably be stronger than my clinical performance.
Do the very top rads programs want all H’s, or is a mixture of H’s / HP’s / maybe even the occasional P okay?

I went to a low tier state school and had one P and one HP (rest H's) in clinical clerkships, and matched into a top 10 program. Thus, not all H's are strictly necessary and occasional P is likely fine.

 

[AnonymousDoctorGuyPerson]

Very strong academics + research, school pedigree is good (T10). Rec letters should be good.
How important are clinical grades for top 5 rads programs? Will obviously do my best to get as many H’s as possible, but I am aware my academics will probably be stronger than my clinical performance.
Do the very top rads programs want all H’s, or is a mixture of H’s / HP’s / maybe even the occasional P okay?

Out of curiosity, why do you want to go to a top 5 rads program? Genuinely asking. Is your interest academic radiology / rads research?

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Competitive programs require a competitive app. Class rank I believe will outweigh H's IMO. PDs at top programs have drawers full of star applicants. Boards are probably the main thing to get noticed. School pedigree helps, LORs, esp if from current faculty or faculty known to the institution. Not sure the competitiveness of Rads at this time. It waxes and wanes like anesthesia. I suspect with the increasing number of applicants overall in the match, it will be competetive.

 

[lacrossegirl420]

Why is a HP considered so awful lol? From what I’ve heard from classmates, the difference between H and HP basically comes down to subjective opinions/who one is paired with most of the time. It would make much more sense for stuff like Step 2, LOR’s, research to carry much more weight

 

[AnonymousDoctorGuyPerson]

Why is a HP considered so awful lol? From what I’ve heard from classmates, the difference between H and HP basically comes down to subjective opinions/who one is paired with most of the time. It would make much more sense for stuff like Step 2, LOR’s, research to carry much more weight

Honestly, it depends on the school. They get these statistics in the MSPE usually.

Does 20% of the class usually Honor or just 1%? If it's the former, not honoring will be perceived worse than the latter.

At the end of the day, class rank / percentile is what's going to matter.


As an example, at my institution, you only need about 55th percentile on the Shelf to honor that component and it's extremely difficult to not honor the clinical eval component so there's a relatively decent chunk of folks who honor, and almost the rest get an HP.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Don’t think past radiology match stats will be very useful as it’s become a lot more competitive recently

 

[lacrossegirl420]

@voxveritatisetlucis I don’t think so, tbh it seems people say every specialty has become more competitively recently (except maybe path), which isn’t possible. Don’t think competitiveness has changed much