Vacation/elective as first rotation in 3rd year for extra month of studying?

[LaCasta]

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It's time for our second year class to rank our list for 3rd year rotation tracks, and I was wondering if there were any opinions out there as to ranking a track with the vacation month first in order to get an extra month to study?

I would think this would be desireable, but I haven't heard of many pople doing this, so any comments are appreciated.

 

[gravitywave]

are you certain your school doesn't impose a deadline for taking the exam that falls prior to the start of the 3rd year

mine does, plus it is typically a requirement at a lot of places to pass before you are allowed to start third year

 

[LaCasta]

At my school we have until January of 2013 to take Step 1.

Everyone takes it in June though before our rotations start in July. We will find out next week which rotation track we get, and if I get vacation/elective as my first rotation I would definitely be tempted to take the vacation over an elective and use it for extra study time.

 

[turkeyjerky]

How much time do they give you w/o the extra time? IMHO, 4-5 weeks is ideal and you'll burn out if you try to study any longer.

 

[LaCasta]

How much time do they give you w/o the extra time? IMHO, 4-5 weeks is ideal and you'll burn out if you try to study any longer.

We will get around 5 weeks. That's what a lot of people have told me too.

I guess another thing to consider is if you take a vacation month as an M3 you will get one less vacation month as an M4, but I was thinking if it helps to get a better step 1 score it might be worth it.

 

[LaCasta]

So I have till 12 pm tomorrow to submit my ranked list.

I am leaning heavily towards putting the vacation month at the top of my list for extra studying time; the down side is that I will not be able to do the big 3 till the end of 3rd year with surgery being the last rotation. Any other opinions would be appreciated.

 

[gravitywave]

having surgery last could make MS4 electives messy if you think you might want to do something surgical. otherwise go for it, i guess. doing all of third year straight through with no vacation sounds tough though.