What raw shelf score does your school require in order to receive honors?

[Ypo.]

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[vtucci]

We need 70th percentile in most clerkships to be eligible for honors (not guaranteed of course-evals play a major role).

Percentile is not the same as the raw score and that varies by shelf exam. 70th percentile can be 90/100 on the psych shelf or 80/100 on peds etc. We usually get a Z score and if a shelf exam is a certain percentage of our overall grade the Z score is used to come up with a numerical grade.

 

[Ypo.]

We need 70th percentile in most clerkships to be eligible for honors (not guaranteed of course-evals play a major role).

Percentile is not the same as the raw score and that varies by shelf exam. 70th percentile can be 90/100 on the psych shelf or 80/100 on peds etc. We usually get a Z score and if a shelf exam is a certain percentage of our overall grade the Z score is used to come up with a numerical grade.

Do they come up with that percentile from a national pool, or just from your medical school?

Our school doesn't do that; we just use the raw score.

 

[lankysudanese]

the required raw score differs between the clerkships. medicine requires 80. peds requires a score higher than 65th percentile (which comes to raw score around 77-78). no specific raw scores are required for honors in surgery, neuro, psych, ob/gyn - it is just that the raw score counts for 20% of your final grade (so u still need to perform well).

...just goes to show how much of a c**pshoot medical education is, in general.

note: our peds clerkship directors once eluded to the fact that the same raw score can be obtained between 2 students at different medical schools, who performed at different levels on the exam. they would, however, have different percentiles.

 

[bmcgilligan]

Raw scores don't matter at our school. We have to have 75th percentile or higher and excellent evals.

 

[joe6102]

We have to get an 85 on the medicine shelf (plus excellent evals), which would be about the 88th percentile overall. Other rotations are much more vague about it. The problem is if you take Medicine in the first quarter, an 85 would be like 92nd percentile, which is a ridiculous score.

 

[Sean2tall]

Our school doesn't explicitly say, to my knowledge, but I can say that I have gotten Honors with a score in the 70's (Although they don't show us the actual score report - do people see that?). I think generally the Shelf accounts for some percentage (30%?) of the overall grade and evaluations the rest.

 

[Ypo.]

Man. At our school it's always the test that is the main hurdle to honors. You have to get above average evaluations and basically meet all the requirements of the clerkship. On some of our rotations we also have an oral exam that you need to honor. But if you don't get above an 85 (raw) on the shelf, you can't honor no matter how well you did in the rest of the clerkship.

 

[The Buff]

At my school the test is usually just a percentage of our overall grade, so you don't necessarily have to do super-well on it to honors. Although some clerkships require a nominal grade, like a raw of 50 to be eligible for honors. But still, I know a girl who got a 45 on a shelf and still made honors (even though it was against the clerkship's supposed "shelf must be above 50 to honors" rule)

 

[lord_jeebus]

It ends up being around 90th national percentile. 85 raw score is sometimes but not always enough.

 

[vtucci]

Do they come up with that percentile from a national pool, or just from your medical school?

Our school doesn't do that; we just use the raw score.

The percentile is based on national statistics and the Z score based on our med school.

 

[OrnotMajestic]

Depends on the rotation. For medicine, needed a 75 raw score. In OB/GYN, needed an 85 raw score + 92% or higher overall on the rotation. Peds requires a raw score of 80 + a certain score on the oral exam. Which sucks, because we have some students who get horrid evals, everyone hates them, they suck at any form of patient contact...but they study, get a 98 on the shelf, and honor the rotation. I know, c'est la vie, but I believe I should get at least SOME compensation for having to put up with their numb-nut clinical skills and lazy attitudes.