<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>USMLEs seem a lot more stressful, but I don't know.</p>
<p>What's the question? Which is harder? USMLE's are undoubtedly harder but also tend to have less at stake.</p>
<p>Oh..How would you compare the two? </p>
<p>I have a feeling the USMLEs are a lot more stressful than the MCAT...but the MCAT makes or breaks your med school hopes...</p>
<p>I was curious to see what you guys thought about the two.</p>
<p>Pass rate on USMLE Step1 is approx. 94% for US allopathic medical schools so while there is more material covered on the USMLE, it is much easier to "pass" (whereas on the MCAT there is no passing score since you are trying to score as high as possible). Obviously, if you plan on entering a competitive residency you will have to do more than simply pass the USMLE but if you just want to be a doctor, that's all you have to do.</p>
<p>USMLE is scarier in my opinion, but that may be just because I paid my $470 registration fee and my $1099 bill for Kaplan prep material. The format is different, the timing is different, it really is entirely a test of content (unlike the MCAT which is content based but not really a test of content), and the questions are "A-type" questions in which you are choosing the BEST answer and not necessarily the CORRECT answer (ie you get a clinical scenario and are asked what to do next, and all the options are things that you might want to do eventually, but you have to make the decision about which is most important at that point). All these things lead to a pretty stressful lead up to the exam...</p>
<p>Step 2 CK, at least in my dealings with M4's seems way less stressful, and at least at my school, CS is pretty much a joke (our 3rd year internal medicine OSCE - objective structured clinical exam - is much, much, much harder). </p>
<p>As NCG pointed out, it's all about passing and that's probably most true for steps 2 and 3. Certainly med students are competitive and even though my grades are horrible I'm still hoping to do pretty well on the exam.</p>
<p>Don't forget, too, that only 1/4 of people who take the MCAT ever go on to take USMLE. So it's a more competitive pool.</p>