<p>Do most students take Step 1 in the spring of MS2?</p>
<p>I heard many MS2's paid so much attention to the preparation of STEP 1 that too many of them skip too many clinical related related classes or activities during MS2. The school called some "emergency" meeting; the purpose is to persuade the students that the STEP-1 score is really not more important than the preparation of the clinical training during MS2. It is as if too much emphasis on STEP-1 interferes with the actual learning in a proper way.</p>
<p>What class consumes most of your study time in MS1? I heard this highly depends on each individual school. For some, it may be anatomy; for others, it may be biochem, or physiology. </p>
<p>This is just a rumor though. I do not know if there is any truth in this.</p>
<p>At D1’s school, student take Step 1 in very early March of the second year. The school also gives the students 6 whole weeks off to prep for it. And offers everyone a Kaplan prep class. </p>
<p>Most med students take it in the May/June after the second year of medical school, before the start of 3rd year. There are a few med schools with an abbreviated 2nd year (and therefore 3rd year starts earlier). For the students in those schools, I imagine Step 1 will be taken earlier.</p>
<p>I don’t see how students can skip out of the clinically oriented classes to prep for Step 1. Participation in classes like communication, physical exam skills, preceptorship, etc. was mandatory at my school. The only classes you could skip were the science lectures. In addition, you don’t have to start prepping during 2nd year (although many students do). I personally didn’t start studying for Step 1 until after 2nd year had ended. Then I studied hard for 5 weeks and took it before the start of 3rd year. </p>
<p>Don’t let anyone tell you that your Step 1 score won’t matter. It will matter and along with your 3rd year grades, it will be the top 2 most important criteria in your residency application, particularly if you’re applying for competitive specialties. It is not a thing to be taken lightly.</p>
<p>What many of the abbreviated pre-clinical curriculum schools (such as mine) do is have students take the step 1 AFTER clinical year. They give us 10 weeks of for vacation and studying, which is what I am faced with now.</p>
<p>I also heard that for this kind of test, it does not help much if you start to study it too early. You won’t remember much of it if starting study too early. What matters more is how intense you study it shortly (e.g… a couple of months) before the test.</p>
<p>Talking about vacation: Several MS1’s found a good deal for vacationing somewhere during winter break. DS decided not to join the trip, because he thought it would still cost almost the same as the cost of one semester of meal plan.</p>
<p>Different people have different methods of studying. It really depends on the person. I do think it’s premature to start studying during the M1 year (which is what a few in my class did). But, whether you start in the second half of the M2 year or after the M2 year is a matter of preference. From what I’ve seen, for the best specialties (except the uber competitive ones like derm and plastics), there are diminishing returns after a score of 250-255, meaning a 270 is not likely to get you more interviews than a 255. A 250 is better than a 240 though and so on.</p>
<p>According to DS, for preclinical years, although it is easy to just pass at a P/NP school, it requires a lot of efforts if you really want to learn it well. Many students share the feeling that they do not study enough even after they have spent a lot of time on it.</p>
<p>I do feel he seems to spend more time on studying now than when he was a premed. But he seems to be more willing to put time into it, even though there is no grade in the preclinical years.</p>
<p>It is likely by accident that their class has much fewer female students (aren’t the female students “better” in area of biology/premed these days except for that single standardized test?), extremely few Hispanics (much fewer than African Americans), and also much fewer non-Jewish white students. This kind of “accident” could never happen in the undergraduate admission cycle. (I heard the previous class is not like this.) I jokingly said he finally had a chance to go to a California school even though his school is very far from it.</p>