USMLE versus MCAT difficulty?

[Raryn]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I think it was 2006 data. Maybe that huge jump happened over just a couple years?

Maybe. I just read through that thread and came across this post which kind of supports that - there was as much rise in average LizzyM score between 2007 and 2009 as there was between 2009 and 2017 (about 1 point both times).

It would not be that difficult to get more data points for the top schools to see the trend, but I can definitely say one thing - the MCAT numbers we're talking about today are not significantly different than what we were talking about on this same forum in 2008-2009. At least not for the top ~25 schools.

I actually have a copy of a spreadsheet that contains all the data from the 2008 MSAR still if you want to look at it. Just the top part (sorted by MCAT score), with school name, overall GPA average, and MCAT average as an example.

Washington U	3.9​	38​
Stanford	3.8​	37​
Northwestern	3.8​	37​
Johns Hopkins	3.9​	37​
Harvard	3.9​	37​
U of Michigan	3.8​	37​
Duke	3.8​	37​
USC	3.7​	35​
UCSD	3.8​	35​
UCSF	3.8​	35​
Yale	3.8​	35​
Emory	3.8​	35​
U of Chicago	3.8​	35​
Dartmouth	3.8​	35​
Columbia	3.8​	35​
Cornell	3.8​	35​
Mt. Sinai	3.8​	35​
NYU	3.8​	35​
Case Western	3.7​	35​
Ohio State	3.8​	35​
U of Pennsylvania	3.8​	35​
U of Pittsburgh	3.8​	35​
Brown	3.8​	35​
Vanderbilt	3.8​	35​
Baylor	3.9​	35​

 

[Lawpy]

Isn't the (non-politically correct) reason so that there's an excuse to keep out terribly awkward people or people that can't hold a conversation in English?

Apparently it has a useful purpose for IMGs... which i don't see why US MDs should care

 

[efle]

Maybe. I just read through that thread and came across this post which kind of supports that - there was as much rise in average LizzyM score between 2007 and 2009 as there was between 2009 and 2017 (about 1 point both times).

It would not be that difficult to get more data points for the top schools to see the trend, but I can definitely say one thing - the MCAT numbers we're talking about today are not significantly different than what we were talking about on this same forum in 2008-2009. At least not for the top ~25 schools.

I actually have a copy of a spreadsheet that contains all the data from the 2008 MSAR still if you want to look at it. Just the top part (sorted by MCAT score), with school name, overall GPA average, and MCAT average as an example.

Washington U	3.9​	38​
Stanford	3.8​	37​
Northwestern	3.8​	37​
Johns Hopkins	3.9​	37​
Harvard	3.9​	37​
U of Michigan	3.8​	37​
Duke	3.8​	37​
USC	3.7​	35​
UCSD	3.8​	35​
UCSF	3.8​	35​
Yale	3.8​	35​
Emory	3.8​	35​
U of Chicago	3.8​	35​
Dartmouth	3.8​	35​
Columbia	3.8​	35​
Cornell	3.8​	35​
Mt. Sinai	3.8​	35​
NYU	3.8​	35​
Case Western	3.7​	35​
Ohio State	3.8​	35​
U of Pennsylvania	3.8​	35​
U of Pittsburgh	3.8​	35​
Brown	3.8​	35​
Vanderbilt	3.8​	35​
Baylor	3.9​	35​

Awesome thanks would be interested to see the sheet, always love looking at new data.

I think we've noticed a real phenomenon that happened over just a couple years. Around the same time, coincidentally, that online ranking like US News took off, and college admissions similarly saw a massive drop in admit rates and climb in scores. Maybe this was all around the time that things shifted to digital common applications? When did the current AMCAS become a thing?

Even the step1 meta has changed shockingly fast. Pathoma, Boards and Beyond, Sketchy, and Anki were all just in the last few years. 4-5 years later and now it's the norm to work through that stuff prior to dedicated if you want to score well.

 

[Raryn]

Awesome thanks would be interested to see the sheet, always love looking at new data.

I think we've noticed a real phenomenon that happened over just a couple years. Around the same time, coincidentally, that online ranking like US News took off, and college admissions similarly saw a massive drop in admit rates and climb in scores. Maybe this was all around the time that things shifted to digital common applications? When did the current AMCAS become a thing?

Even the step1 meta has changed shockingly fast. Pathoma, Boards and Beyond, Sketchy, and Anki were all just in the last few years. 4-5 years later and now it's the norm to work through that stuff prior to dedicated if you want to score well.

I shot you a PM.

AMCAS went digital well before my time - it was a slow transition around the early 2000s, before the MCAT even went computerized (which was 2006).

Step 1 meta has always continued to evolve, but yes, I can say I didn't use any of those particular resources. Anki (and the concept of spaced repetition) existed but wasn't popular yet.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Isn't the (non-politically correct) reason so that there's an excuse to keep out terribly awkward people or people that can't hold a conversation in English?

That's probably the idea, but I don't know if anyone knows if it's actually effective at doing even that. It would definitely be enlightening to see how they grade it, like actually see the process of scoring people.

Even the step1 meta has changed shockingly fast. Pathoma, Boards and Beyond, Sketchy, and Anki were all just in the last few years. 4-5 years later and now it's the norm to work through that stuff prior to dedicated if you want to score well.

According to @Med Ed the rise of online short videos that cover all the material such as Pathoma and BnB is a completely novel concept that has completely taken medical educators by surprise. I'm not convinced that something like Boards and Beyond couldn't completely replace entire school curriculums. I'm on a cardiology rotation right now and literally everything we've done and talked about in the last 2 weeks was covered in BnB minus the various scoring systems like TIMI, CHADSVASC, etc. I can easily see a world one day where the pre-clinical info is given to students in a packaged video system with systematic standardized exams for content, and the schools themselves simply deliver a "pre-rotations clinical skills"/small group clinical integration curriculum designed to fully immerse students into clinical thinking from day 1.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Would life really get easier is a big question though. Imagine trying match derm if EVERYONE could apply instead of just people scoring 240+. People would be doing away rotations left and right to try and secure an advantage somewhere

I see what you're saying, but imagine if I all (LOL) I had to do to match nsg was research, nail my aways, and get good evals. It would be much less stressful and easier to focus on those things if I didn't have to spend the vast majority of my time studying for an exam that will determine my entire future. I'm also going to be participating in the military match, and I go to USUHS which gives me a bit of a leg up on the HPSPers. So I contend that it would make things easier on me.

 

[efle]

That's probably the idea, but I don't know if anyone knows if it's actually effective at doing even that. It would definitely be enlightening to see how they grade it, like actually see the process of scoring people.


According to @Med Ed the rise of online short videos that cover all the material such as Pathoma and BnB is a completely novel concept that has completely taken medical educators by surprise. I'm not convinced that something like Boards and Beyond couldn't completely replace entire school curriculums. I'm on a cardiology rotation right now and literally everything we've done and talked about in the last 2 weeks was covered in BnB minus the various scoring systems like TIMI, CHADSVASC, etc. I can easily see a world one day where the pre-clinical info is given to students in a packaged video system with systematic standardized exams for content, and the schools themselves simply deliver a "pre-rotations clinical skills"/small group clinical integration curriculum designed to fully immerse students into clinical thinking from day 1.

Yeah, I replaced several of my school's units including Cardio with purely B&B and Pathoma. I actually wouldn't mind at all if MD2025 was mostly those kinds of streamed lectures. It's really the incessant flashcarding of clinically useless minutiae that I think is the problem. The resident on my team was bragging about how he crushed Step1 by doing over 50,000 total anki reviews, and meanwhile I have multiple friends who did 200,000-500,000 reviews to score in the 250s. It really is an arms race.

 

[efle]

I see what you're saying, but imagine if I all (LOL) I had to do to match nsg was research, nail my aways, and get good evals. It would be much less stressful and easier to focus on those things if I didn't have to spend the vast majority of my time studying for an exam that will determine my entire future. I'm also going to be participating in the military match, and I go to USUHS which gives me a bit of a leg up on the HPSPers. So I contend that it would make things easier on me.

Huh that's something I know nothing about at all - the military match is totally self contained right, it's all military applicants for all military hospital spots? Do you still need the same kinds of scores to match surgical specialties? Like does a uniformed services grad need a 240+ to reliably land neuro, ortho, ENT?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Huh that's something I know nothing about at all - the military match is totally self contained right, it's all military applicants for all military hospital spots? Do you still need the same kinds of scores to match surgical specialties? Like does a uniformed services grad need a 240+ to reliably land neuro, ortho, ENT?

It's scored on a point system. Grades and steps are converted into a score that gets incorporated with a bunch of other stuff. But yes, your step score does matter. I would have to do some digging to see if I can find out what the average scores are, but from what I have been told from advisors, you do have to have the scores to be competitive.

 

[efle]

It's scored on a point system. Grades and steps are converted into a score that gets incorporated with a bunch of other stuff. But yes, your step score does matter. I would have to do some digging to see if I can find out what the average scores are, but from what I have been told from advisors, you do have to have the scores to be competitive.

Damn, they own your ass for so long after your training, you think they'd at least let you do what you wanted. But I guess they need all kinds of docs

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Damn, they own your ass for so long after your training, you think they'd at least let you do what you wanted. But I guess they need all kinds of docs

They need all kinds of docs, some more than others. There are some weird things that are more competitive in the military when they're pretty non-competitive in the civilian world, but stuff like nsg and derm are competitive anywhere lol. But this isn't really on topic lol.

 

[longhaul3]

Can we please just get rid of Step 2 CS which incidentally is pass/fail?

Like i want to hear a valid argument from anyone on SDN regarding the benefits of keeping Step 2 CS. I saw an insanely idiotic suggestion listed from that meeting attended by medical educators and interest groups to make Step 2 CS a scored exam.

I think it's completely reasonable to ask for a way to ensure that everyone has a set of baseline competencies when alone in a room with a patient, and the fact is that non-US MDs are the ones less likely to have those competencies (at least in English).

I would imagine the idea behind scoring Step 2CS is that the pass rate is so high that it's almost useless—why make people take a grueling (it's pretty awful for those who haven't taken it) exam if they're basically guaranteed to pass? I believe they tried to address this issue sometime in the last few years actually by simply raising the passing threshold, which seems like the worst of all possible solutions. Scoring it would provide at least some more value for the exam as a whole, whether for schools or for PDs or whomever, without the prospect of more people failing and having to retake it. So while it would suck for people going through med school in the future, it may not be as idiotic as you see it prima facie.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I think it's completely reasonable to ask for a way to ensure that everyone has a set of baseline competencies when alone in a room with a patient, and the fact is that non-US MDs are the ones less likely to have those competencies (at least in English).

It’s called 3rd and 4th year. If it’s the non-US MDs you are worried about then make them take it, but there is no use for US students to have to take it.

Scoring it would provide at least some more value for the exam as a whole, whether for schools or for PDs or whomever, without the prospect of more people failing and having to retake it. So while it would suck for people going through med school in the future, it may not be as idiotic as you see it prima facie.

There is zero use for this test other than to make money. Scoring a completely subjective exam is honestly a horrendous idea and no, it wouldn’t bring any value.

 

[longhaul3]

It’s called 3rd and 4th year. If it’s the non-US MDs you are worried about then make them take it, but there is no use for US students to have to take it.

There is zero use for this test other than to make money. Scoring a completely subjective exam is honestly a horrendous idea and no, it wouldn’t bring any value.

All right, that settles it I guess.

But seriously, to your first point, there are a lot of terrible senior med students. 3rd and 4th year alone should be enough to guarantee basic competence, but again, if I'm the one ultimately licensing these people to practice medicine, I think I am within the realm of the reasonable to ask them to demonstrate it. Step 2CS is also a sort of carrot that forces you to pay at least a little bit of attention to your overall clinical skills—I know by the time I took it I was deep in the weeds of my specialty-specific stuff and hadn't touched a stethoscope or an abdomen in ages, let alone run through a workup of secondary amenorrhea.

To your second point, it is not completely subjective. The rest of your post is just saying that you're right and I'm wrong, which is fine, but I'll leave it there.