What is the equivalent to H/HP/P in a school that uses A/B/C/D grading with +/-?

[PddppfCl2]

Unfortunately my school recently switched to using ABCD grading WITH +/- during clinical rotations. They used to only do ABCD, recently added the +/- modifiers. 🙄

My question: what grade would be equivalent to honoring a rotation in the eyes of PD's?

I ask because I've gotten a few A-'s on rotations so far... 2 years ago, they would've been straight A's, but now I'm (neurotically) wondering if the minus is essentially downgrading me from H to HP on these rotations b/c of the stupid new grading scale.

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[PddppfCl2]

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[mvenus929]

What are you looking at doing with your life?

 

[PddppfCl2]

What are you looking at doing with your life?

Surgical sub-specialty

 

[mvenus929]

Surgical sub-specialty

And what are your A-s in? Medicine? Family Medicine? Peds? or Surgery?

In all honesty, I don't think A-s are going to kill your application. But the surg subs are harder to get into than other specialties, so it might matter to certain programs when it comes to making the rank list. Your dean's letter supposedly has some way of showing where you are in the class as well, which I think it a little more important. If the clerkship mostly gives out Bs and Cs and you snagged an A-, that's better than if the clerkship mostly gives out As and you got an A-.

 

[PddppfCl2]

And what are your A-s in? Medicine? Family Medicine? Peds? or Surgery?

In all honesty, I don't think A-s are going to kill your application. But the surg subs are harder to get into than other specialties, so it might matter to certain programs when it comes to making the rank list. Your dean's letter supposedly has some way of showing where you are in the class as well, which I think it a little more important. If the clerkship mostly gives out Bs and Cs and you snagged an A-, that's better than if the clerkship mostly gives out As and you got an A-.

They were in psych and family, so not crucial rotations by any means. 65-75% of the class gets some type of B or worse on most rotations. I agree, A-'s aren't deal-breakers and I'm probably being a tad neurotic here.

But I'm still curious about how letter grades measure up to the more common H/HP/P model. People on SDN and other forums speak about clinical grades almost exclusively in terms of H/HP/P, so it's hard to gauge how important (or not) the "-" modifier is.

Is it accurate to approximate that A's are H, B's are HP, and C's are P?

 

[mvenus929]

It's hard to gauge how important grades are in the first place, because we don't have intimate knowledge of the ranking process by programs, and there is so much variation from program to program. What matters a lot to one program might just be another checkbox to another program.

But yes, A=H, B=HP, C=P.