Where are the non-competitive candidates?

[neo]

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Are there any US grads who finished near the bottom of their class and have barely passing board scores and maybe failed boards once or twice who matched successfully to any IM categorical program? What if you were much better in person than on paper and did well in clinical rotations and got good letters?

What's the strategy here? Just apply to alot of programs? How many would you think is a good number?

Any success stories or lessons you learned that might help a candidate like the one above?

Thanks!

 

[irlandesa]

I'm not sure what you're worried about if your clinical evals and LOR's are good, since those are the main things that will make you competitive in IM. The Step 1 initial failures will only be a big problem at very competitive programs like MGH, BWH, UCSF, JHU, Penn, and quite possibly the academic programs in CA. There are a few schools that will not accept candidates that had to retake the USMLE or COMLEX, Dartmouth is the only one I know of for sure.. If your goal is to get to MGH, I don't know what to tell you, but if you want to match period, the match rate for IM is about 98% from what I hear. If you have a chance, try to do better on Step 2 and apply to a wide range of programs that you might be interested in based on program assets, geography, etc. I don't know a good ballpark figure for how many programs to apply to; I applied to 25 (and consider myself to be a very average applicant) and will soon find out if I overshot or undershot (I posted on this on another thread).

 

[neo]

so if you are a below average US grad and you applied to 30 programs and would be happy to match at some community based program, you shouldn't have too many worries provided you're a normal decent guy without any personality problems?

thanks

 

[somdave2005]

Neo, you can count me in on the list of noncompetitive US grads with just normal "pass" on clinical rotations and low step 1 score...i've gotten interviews at mostly community programs in CA, none from academic programs so far....so if you're alright with community programs, i think you should be ok. The way i think of it is i know i did ****ty in medical school but nobody told me I was supposed to honor my rotations in order to be get in academic programs. Nobody gave me that guidance so i went along thinking "P=MD" (which i know now is a big load of crap). After all this I'm motivated... I'm going to use residency to show what I am really capable of. Good luck.

so if you are a below average US grad and you applied to 30 programs and would be happy to match at some community based program, you shouldn't have too many worries provided you're a normal decent guy without any personality problems?

thanks

 

[irlandesa]

so if you are a below average US grad and you applied to 30 programs and would be happy to match at some community based program, you shouldn't have too many worries provided you're a normal decent guy without any personality problems?

thanks

PRECISELY 😀 Someone on here from an "average" US school and Step 1 score in the 190's got an interview at UTSW, and many programs in IM go unfilled every year (including very highly regarded programs like Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, UVM this year). If your clinical grades are good, and there are no major blemishes other than Step 1 on your record, I'd say you have about as much of a chance as I do (and I've gotten, somewhat to my surprise, some very decent interviews). Try throwing in some "tougher" university and community based programs, you'll be fine!

 

[bof]

i agree that matching into im should not be a problem provided that you are willing to travel. programs do not fill every year and you can always scramble into a spot somewhere for im.

however it is definately not the norm for someone with a scrore of 190 to interview at UTSW. many highly regarded programs do go unfilled each year but that does not make them any less easy to get into. the reason that highly regarded programs go unfilled is that those programs do not always rank all of their interviewies. why they do this is beyond me. i suppose it is analogous to the guy with a score of 265, aoa, and research that only ranked his top 2 programs going unmatched.

PRECISELY 😀 Someone on here from an "average" US school and Step 1 score in the 190's got an interview at UTSW, and many programs in IM go unfilled every year (including very highly regarded programs like Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, UVM this year). If your clinical grades are good, and there are no major blemishes other than Step 1 on your record, I'd say you have about as much of a chance as I do (and I've gotten, somewhat to my surprise, some very decent interviews). Try throwing in some "tougher" university and community based programs, you'll be fine!