So the reality is that Allopathic domestic schools are considered above DO training, and DO training is considered above the majority, but not all IMG students. It is a hard, but a reality. There is a wide variety of IMG quality, but this only means good and bad with a wider range of quality. These generalizations are more driven by applicants than by programs. Applicants research us and have mostly formed their opinions of us based on where our trainees come from.
Coming from a DO program with poor scores makes you low middle. If you have reasonable USMLE scores, the COMLEX becomes ignored. If you don't get into a domestic allopathic school, USMLE is the best way to prove yourself competitive. Now that step one is pass fail, step two will be even more important. I don't like it, but now that you can apply to programs with a mouse click, these generalizations become exaggerated because our number of applicants have quadrupled and we don't know who are truly interested in us.
If we are more concrete about poorly validated score based and school based measures, we apologize and don't like it either but have little choice. We are making heroic efforts to be more holistic in our ability to see beyond numbers and schools and get an idea of who is truly impressive, but this also proves to be difficult to do with an ERAS application. If you have a compelling story, use the personal statement and back it up with the list of activities.
Best of luck everyone.
