What difference does it make if a school is P/F vs. graded if residency programs supposedly don't care either way?

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COMMANDER CLOWN

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I see people saying that graded preclinical classes is a negative for them when deciding which school to pick, but why does it matter if residency programs don't put emphasis on preclinical grades? Or do residency programs suddenly start to care about preclinical grades when there's an actual GPA or quartile they can use? Getting mixed signals.

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Having grades changes the atmosphere of the program. Our pre-clinicals are P/F and it just makes everything very chill. When you have a lot of generally type-A people put together and there is a hierarchy of grades, people are inclined to compete, and that can make things less collaborative and more stressful.
 
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It doesn't make a difference; it's purely psychological. We're hardwired to care about grades even if they have zero impact on our ability to match into what we want.

There's also the fact that a ton of med students still think grades matter, so they pass that along to applying premeds.
 
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So all of the threads about "Why X school vs Y school" where they list P/F as a pro are all just misguided?
 
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Having grades changes the atmosphere of the program. Our pre-clinicals are P/F and it just makes everything very chill. When you have a lot of generally type-A people put together and there is a hierarchy of grades, people are inclined to compete, and that can make things less collaborative and more stressful.

School dependent. We have H/P/F and it is still very chill and super collaborative.
 
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School dependent. We have H/P/F and it is still very chill and super collaborative.

I really think this is more a function of the students themselves than whether it's p/f or not. These same schools with p/f still have AOA (for the most part), so you're still going to have that gunner behavior regardless.
 
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I really think this is more a function of the students themselves than whether it's p/f or not. These same schools with p/f still have AOA (for the most part), so you're still going to have that gunner behavior regardless.

Yeah that’s my point. We have h/p/f and AOA and at least in preclerkship the gunner behavior is very mild (just trying to show off in small groups and talking over people) and limited to a few people. So by school dependent I really meant student body dependent.
 
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Yeah that’s my point. We have h/p/f and AOA and at least in preclerkship the gunner behavior is very mild (just trying to show off in small groups and talking over people) and limited to a few people. So by school dependent I really meant student body dependent.

Yes, I was trying to articulate that same point. I agree with you completely. Sorry if it looked otherwise. Broca's is fried rn.
 
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My school switched to pass fail at the end of my M1 cause of Covid and decided to keep it permanent. As someone who has been through both I can say pass fail takes so much stress away, it’s all psychological since we are still raked (even though it’s by quartile now) but still just way better
 
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My school switched to pass fail at the end of my M1 cause of Covid and decided to keep it permanent. As someone who has been through both I can say pass fail takes so much stress away, it’s all psychological since we are still raked (even though it’s by quartile now) but still just way better

But that's my point, why do you feel more relaxed when effectively nothing has changed? Either way, residency programs weren't going to care about your preclinical grades anyways, so nothing in your situation has really changed.
 
But that's my point, why do you feel more relaxed when effectively nothing has changed? Either way, residency programs weren't going to care about your preclinical grades anyways, so nothing in your situation has really changed.

When it's possible to get an H versus a P, some people are going to feel internal pressure to go for the H.
 
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So it's purely self-validation?

I think it's just a psychological thing some people have. If the possibility to get an A or an H or whatever is there, they feel like they have to or they aren't doing their best. *shrug* I understand it. Not having to worry about that at all, would remove that internal pressure.
 
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I see people saying that graded preclinical classes is a negative for them when deciding which school to pick, but why does it matter if residency programs don't put emphasis on preclinical grades? Or do residency programs suddenly start to care about preclinical grades when there's an actual GPA or quartile they can use? Getting mixed signals.
Less stressful on the students, which is a good thing.

Program Directors may care about class rank, but not about pre-clinical grades.

But that's my point, why do you feel more relaxed when effectively nothing has changed? Either way, residency programs weren't going to care about your preclinical grades anyways, so nothing in your situation has really changed.

Do NOT underestimate the psychological damage done to pre-meds and medical students by Tiger Parents. These are students who measure thier self-worth by their grades.
 
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But that's my point, why do you feel more relaxed when effectively nothing has changed? Either way, residency programs weren't going to care about your preclinical grades anyways, so nothing in your situation has really changed.
It is completely psychological, I don’t have to worry about seeing an A, B, C on my transcript, and I don’t have to worry about seeing my GPA. At my school the class average gpa before we went pass fail was like a 2.9, so for a bunch of med students who were all top of there class in undergrad it really sucked to see this. It just takes a toll over time getting 65-75% on every exam when you used to get 90+ in undergrad. I don’t score as high as I did on tests in first year (based on the class average) but that’s because I focus more on board studying now vs class exams where our professors test on the most pointless details.
 
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My school, like several others - is P/F with no ranking, no AOA determination, no real consequences for scoring poorly. I still aim to score in the mid 80's, but not fighting for 'Honors' in preclinic has afforded me time for research, leadership roles, and allowed me to live my life.

A lot of this ties back into what school you go to, how it is ranked, how they generally match, and how competitive you hope to be. But from my experience talking to friends at other schools and serving on educational panels where we discuss other school's grading systems

Graded = most stressed, still better than all undergrads, still can be collegial, but students feel a lot of pressure
P/F but used for AOA = less stressed out, but every single MS1 thinks they're getting AOA so can feel gunner for first months
True P/F = most collegial and laid back

YMMV, but all else being equal I'd take a P/F preclinical curriculum over graded as it gives you more time to build up other parts of your profile and develop your professional interests.
 
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my school has letter grades and my god is it terrible, competition is real and it definitely puts more emphasis on if you have a bad day vs if you get 100, 1/10 would not suggest letter grades
 
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In my opinion it matters more if you’re going for something Uber-competitive or not, and whether your school ends up ranking you on your MSPE. If your school is just pass fail then sure you won’t be as stressed those first two years, but if you get ranked at the end then it still matters because the people who want or need that high class rank are still gonna bust their asses for it Doubly so if you’re going for derm or anything related to surgery.

And preclinical grades might not matter when applying to residency but depending on what your school’s tests look like, then there may or may not be a correlation between your preclinical grades and Step 1/ Level 1 (soon to be irrelevant because of switch to P/F). For example my schools exams are written in-house but the material is board-relevant across the board so there’s a direct correlation between preclinical grades and board scores, which I can attest to because I did a year of med-Ed research. I had access to the raw data and it held up. Same applies to if your school uses NBME exams. But there are apparently plenty of schools out there where they test on PhD minutiae so the correlation might not exist so it’s school-dependent.

In the next few years the residency selection process is gonna be even more of a mess cause a majority of schools are transitioning to pass/fail, as well as Step 1 and Level 1. So Step 2, extracurriculars, and school reputation are gonna be the major selling point of applications.
 
A vast majority of students are in a very tight bell curve. The outstanding students usually shine in other ways whilst the duds remain obvious duds. I used to think that grades and scores mattered as to the quality of the candidate, but having done interviews for over a decade (coupled with personal observations of good test takers having difficulty finding their way out of a paper bag) I’m less convinced.

Failing is still bad though.
 
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Personally before med school I was always very "must get 100% anything less is practically an F" so having P/f preclinical has taken a ton of pressure off. When a 75 is the same grade as a 100%, I feel more like I can have a life and not kill myself trying to absorb all the bull**** minutia that gets tested on even though it's really not that high yield. Is still kinda nice to get a test score back and see a 95%? Yeah, but when it's functionally the same as a 71 then I don't really care that much tbh. Plus at my school we're quartile ranked but rank only gets reported to residencies if you're in the top quartile. So I'm still gonna try but also I'm not super worried about being the best lol
 
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We are P/F. Looking at the ranges and means of our scores it's tight. 80 to 90 usually. So even if I scored an 85 for example I am under the mean for some exams.

P/F enables me to not worry about small details. I can pack in for the day an hour early if I wanted to. Getting a 70, 80, 90, 100 is the same thing so why bother?
 
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Seriously though, what’s the difference between graded vs. p/f but still counts towards your class rank?
 
My school is 100% pass/fail preclinical. Clinical are graded and AOA is determined from this and not pre-clinically. I have to say that I can’t imagine doing it any other way. Medical school is already stressful enough so adding competition to it is so unnecessary. Since we are all type-A people we all strive to do the best we can anyway so regardless of it being pass/fail we all still want to get 90s on quizzes and exams, the difference is that I don’t lose sleep if I get a 75. It’s also great because it allows you to customize your studies. I rely heavily on anki and outside resources using those as my primary study methods. I realized I get a lot more out of those than from professor lectures and with a pass/fail curriculum you can do this.
 
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I wish my school was P/F and/or at least gave consistent messaging.
 
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