<p>To ace the Step 1 isn’t difficult at all if you prepare for it. A school can teach to the exam and achieve average scores that are exceptionally high. I don’t have any evidence that a school has done so. Speaking from personal experiences, you can get a 96+ percentile on the Step 1 with the right preparation and you don’t have to be gifted. Actually, you canndo that with all the USMLE steps. With that in mind, I advise that you don’t choose a medical school because of their average Step 1 score. However, choose a school with a very high passing rate, close to 100%, for the Step 1. You want to make sure that the school’s minimum standards lead to passing the exam. From there, the right preparation determines your score.</p>
<p>Yes, D. mentioned that lectures definitely do not teach to the exam. There are known weaker aspects in every program. She (and everybody else), knew what was a weaker material at her SOM and she just worked harder on this. You can afford it if you have sufficient time for preparation and her SOM program allow for that.</p>
<p>so what you’re saying frugal doc is that 96% of medical students are not doing the right preparation if the right preparation makes it easy to score better than 96% of students? I wish I had this advice before I took step 1.</p>
<p>^it is not what I read.
To me the comment “the right preparation determines your score.” does NOT mean the same as “the right preparation makes it EASY to score better than 96% of students”.
I also believe based on D’s experience that “the right preparation determines your score.” She have said numerous times that her plan has worked for her. Was it easy? Hardly, unless you believe that studying 14 hours every day for 7.5 weeks (few scheduled breaks) is easy. D. said that it was exceptionally hard, but sticking to her personal plan (which was different from others) has worked for her very well.</p>
<p>Yes, the overwhelming majority of students use the wrong methods for their USMLE exams. Other than my first semester, I never studied more than 6 hours per day. I studied even less the night before my exams. However, I incorporated USMLE studying throughout every day I during my first two years. Also, I never took a day off. Thus, I never fell behind and never had to cram. I take that back, I had 6 weeks off to study for the USMLE 1 and I took 4.5 weeks off FROM studying. I walked out of that exam knowing a good 95% of the material cold!</p>
<p>I turned around and showed several of my friends in the class behind me how to do it and they were in the 90th percentile including one at 97th+ percentile. Trust me, it is all in the preparation and that starts your first semester. You have to make sure you are using your USMLE review books while you are taking the courses during the semesters. Plus in my time we had a book called First Aid USMLE Step 1. I used that book during my classes, added notes, and completed retired USMLE questions during my semester courses. By the time I took the boards, I had read that book a good 25+ times over just during the semesters. I knew that book in reverse LOL. It may have meant studying my USMLE material 15 - 30 minutes each day as a supplement to the class I was taking. But multiply that out over 2 years and you see how it adds up.</p>
<p>I hope you see the method and realize that the preparation resulted in the score. I see folks cramming the several weeks before the exam. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The gifted students did well with that. I never wanted to be the smartest, there are way too many smart kids in med school. I wanted to be the best prepared.</p>
<p>@frugaldoctor,
</p>
<p>I totally agree with this. The method you describe is not just for the USMLE exams, it works for all standardized testing. I used a very similar technique to score in the 99.5+ percentile on the MCAT. The problem is, to do things this way requires a level of discipline that few are willing to follow. </p>
<p>Be careful frugaldoctor, when I previously suggested this method for MCAT prep, I was viciously attacked by the “common wisdom” police. In some circles what you are suggesting is considered heresy. :D</p>
<p>Plumazul, let me congratulate you for your wisdom. You are absolutely correct about the persecution one may receive for unconventional methods. My medical school microbiology teacher vehemently preached against using my method. He stood up in front of a class of 400 students (med, dental, pharm) and asked them not to do what I was doing. I scored the highest on all of his exams, blew the curve, and scored 99th percentile in every USMLE step 1 section except the behavioral sciences. I seriously was very nervous about writing about this method on cc knowing the wratg I received in med school. But glad to know it worked for the MCAT too because I have advised my daughter to use that method for her future MCAT. So, she has her MCAT review books for her relevant high school courses and will use them in college too.</p>
<p>^These methods show again, that everybody is very different. D. said that taking few days opf break during prep. for Step 1 was absolutely crucial for her and that was the reason for her to have 7.5 weeks period vs. 6 weeks period for others. And, yes, she was happy that she schduled Research rotation right after exam, that was a great break, she is looking forward to have thesecond half of her Research rotaion in a fall, which will be another break between “regular” rotations. She is doing very well with her research, but not all depends on her, everybody knows that.
MCAT prep. was not comparable at all to Step 1 prep. in D’s case, not close, not in any aspect, MCAT is just so much easier, but whenever it is harder, D. tends to do better, and she did better on Step 1.</p>
<p>Completely agree, MCAT prep was much less volume. But the right prep made the USMLE easy. I took all those weeks off because I had been preparing for 2 years. It just wasn’t necessary to spend 6 weeks studying. I only needed less than 4 hours per day over 1.5 weeks to review. If I prepared in the manner that many of my colleagues, I would have used all 6 weeks and really put in a good 8 -12 hours per day minimum! I continued my method for step 2, 3, specialty board and recertification. Same results and no cramming required.</p>
<p>Frugaldoctor, I do not know to what extent DS used something similar to your method (he lived thousands miles away so we did not know the details.) Long time before the STEP-1, he did say he took the notes while he was studying these STEP-1 study materials, and said he would use these notes in the weeks leading to the STEP-1 test. But he had been worried about this test still, and ended up getting only 1-2 hours of sleep the night before the test. (He still scored 90th+ percentile luckily.) He told us he only spent 9 hours in most of the study weeks, and occasionally 10 hours in the study weeks.</p>
<p>After he had received his score, he said his score might be good for Radiology (it does not mean he will pursue that specialty though.)</p>
<p>I notice there are many test takers who are not from US med schools. As a whole, they may be “weaker” on STEP-1 but are there still many outliers for IMG, etc., who score very high on this test? I heard the stake is higher for them so they may be willing to out in more study hours.</p>
<p>^D. had to work hard to stay calm, she knows her sensitivity. When I asked how come she was so calm, she said she took special care, including staying away from some people. I am glad that she is working on her emotional side, it is sooo diffrent for girls (D. vs. S, GrandD. vs GrandS, the story is exactly the same)</p>
<p>You misunderstood me. I never said what is or isn’t the right prep, but I have to agree with Miami on this.</p>
<p>There are students who will never score in the top 5% no matter well they prepare. There are students who will score in the top 5% no matter how poorly they prepare, there are students who could score in the top 5% who will fail to because of poor study skills, and there are students who scored in the top 5% because they prepared well.</p>
<p>I remember your discussions plu. I always said I thought your time could be better spent elsewhere, not that the method doesn’t work. You are 100% right that your method is most difficult because of the discipline required. My point is that your 99.5th percentile MCAT really won’t get you any further than my 97th percentile and then the golden, $64,000 question is whether the extra time spent studying pays off in comparison to the fact that instead of studying I was a D1 athlete and fraternity president. If you’re capable of doing it all (which you might be) then more power to you, but it’s that, more so than your score itself, that’s going to make you successful. In med school, extracurriculars definitely matter much much less and indeed your MCAT method and frugaldoctor’s method are used by a much larger percentage of med students than frugaldoc is giving credit to - therefore I still disagree with frugaldoctor’s statement (especially since it’s paradoxical) that hoards of students would waltz into the top 5% if they studied properly.</p>
<p>The last time I looked at the IMG numbers was years ago and the numbers were not very good for IMGs throughout the distribution of scores. I have known IMGs who have scored well on the exam well within the 90th percentile. Those were very few and far between. All of them transferred to American schools for clinicals. The big downside for those who didn’t was the first fact that certain specialties will not consider an IMG no matter what.</p>
<p>MiamiDap, it was a great idea that your d worked on her emotions. The Joint Commission required their hospitals to Institute Disruptive Physician policies. This has been successful at reigning in the most malignant and abusive physicians. However, physicians with minor disagreements are getting in trouble due to the inappropriate use of these policies. Physicians have been fired, suspended and sent to anger management courses due to petty matters. Some of the punishments lead to permanent reports in their physicians credentialing or national database files. That’s not good at all because it may prevent them from being hired or given hospital privileges! So whatever she can do now to appropriately handle the stress will2npay dividends later.</p>
<p>Re: Stay away from some people (in order to stay calm before a big test.)</p>
<p>In college, it is much easier to do. It is hard to do in med school. The relative small class (only 100 students) and staying with each other well too long every day mean that the students know each other liely very well. If there are too many students at your med school (I refer to the top private med schools or some public ones like UTSW here) who are very much motivated in getting into competitive specialties, the chance you can totally avoid these students who study, say 13-14 hours a day is quite high.
In this sense, no matter how you spin it, the “atmosphere” at a med school is to some extent defined by how many percentage of the students at that school who are aspired to be specialists, esp., competitive ones.</p>
<p>This reminds me that the author who wrote the Jurasic Park fiction book claimed that the atmosphere at HMS is horrible (likely due to these students’ past experience and the higher percentage of students heading to competitive fields.) If what he said is true, you could imagine other private ones that are only a notch lower in the difficulty to get in would be much different.</p>
<p>I keep forgetting to type “not” in my posts on my tiny keyboard on my smart phone…sorry about it.</p>
<p>I found the following which is from a blog maintained by some person in a committee of a residency program at Stanford. probably slightly old info as he still refers to the discontinued 2 digits scores. I suspect his percentile info is too old also. So treat it as a snapshot of data which was a few years old.</p>
<p>Here it is:</p>
<p>I worry that people that should know better fall in the trap of incorrectly thinking the 2-digit score is a percentile. The reason we have this 2-digit score is to meet requirements by state medical licensing authorities that the passing score be reported as 75. As a result, a 185 to pass in the exam corresponds to a 2-digit score of 75. The 2-digit score is derived such that a 75 always corresponds to the minimum passing score. Nationally, about 8% of students get below a 185 (75). The recommended minimum passing level for each USMLE Step examination is reviewed periodically and may be adjusted at any time.</p>
<p>I use the following guidelines to roughly translate the 3-digit score into a national percentile. A 3-digit score of 200 equals a 2-digit score of 82 which is 20th percentile nationally. Many of the competitive residencies use this as a minimum cutoff score for interview invites.</p>
<p>50th percentile score = 217 for 3-digit score and 90 for 2-digit
75th percentile score = 232 (97)
81st percentile score = 237 (99)
90th percentile score = 246 (99)
95th percentile score = 255 (99)
98th percentile score = 264 (99)</p>
<p>As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the USMLE score is just one piece of the overall picture. The selection committee looks at grades (especially in the 3rd yr clinical core rotations), class rank if provided, medical school attended, commitment to the specialty of anesthesia (a very subjective assessment, but for example we would rather not hear that a person is switching to anesthesia from another specialty because anesthesia is easier or less demanding), research experience and potential for a future academic career, communication skills, compassion & humanism, and an other category that might include: exceptional achievements, their personal statement, or brilliant letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>Studies have found that applicants that do well on the USMLE are more likely to score highly on the in-training written exams. Adequate knowledge is necessary for overall satisfactory performance during anesthesia residency. One of our expectations is that all Stanford graduates will pass both the ABA written and oral exam to achieve board certification. This is particulary important now as most hospitals now require board certification to obtain clinical privileges. We are committed to helping residents achieve their highest professional potential.
thank you,</p>
<p>When I attended medical school, the percentiles and 3 digit scores also varied year to year. One year, a 249 might be 99th percentile but may be several percentiles less another year. I never found the 2 digit score relevant at all. I have had a residency director at a competitive program tell me that they only reviewed applications from students with a minimum USMLE score. I believe it was in the high 230s for the competitive specialty and program. I suspect this is still going on. Also, I suspect that no matter the prestige of the SOM, competition is still fierce.</p>
<p>That blog is out of date. Passing has raised to 188 I believe and the 2 digit score was also completely rescaled because as you can see, 99 represented everyone in the top 20%. My 2 digit score according to what you posted would be 99 but it was actually 87.</p>