<p>Honestly, don’t remember…that was almost 5 years ago and I repressed a significant portion of the experience.</p>
<p>Of note…realized an error in the last sentence of post #19</p>
<p>Should read:
If you’re really trying make the best use of your time, I’d advise AGAINST choosing a school based on getting more than 8 weeks to prepare.</p>
<p>In other words there are a lot of other reasons to choose one school over another and I wouldn’t use Step 1 study time as one of them.</p>
<p>this may be a dumb question, but where do you find out which residency program is best for which type of specialty?</p>
<p>That is precicely the problem. Unlike medical schools, residency programs have been blessed with being ignored by USNWR. There is no “official” ranking list, in part because it is much more subjective depending on which program director you speak with and also because things such as location tend to weigh much more heavily than in medical school and undergraduate decisions (lots of married couples, etc).</p>
<p>"Hence, it becomes true that a good percentage (maybe 1/2) of your med school class will do residency in the immediate area of the med school. "
-That would be so ideal, it would be dream come true. Still wasy too early to think about it for my MS1.
In regard to grading, I really like my D’s school approach. It is p/f, but they are given percentage grade also. It is nice to know if you are fine or your studying needs to be adjusted based on this great feedback. I also have to mention that D. has never discussed her academic stand/grades in her life, not in HS, not in college. It has been unspoken rule. It has negative social implications. So, in her case p/f or grading really does not mean anything in social terms, it means great deal as a feedback.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure most if not all p/f schools still tell you what score you got on the test. The only thing that’s p/f about it is that residency programs will only see P regardless of where you fell in the passing range, and in the case of TRUE p/f programs, those numbers you get on the tests won’t be used to rank the class or hand out awards in any way that could impact your recommendation letter for residencies.</p>
<p>I would not advice to choose Med. School based on either grading in first 2 years or p/f. This is the least that anybody should worry about, IMO.</p>
<p>I personally would, but that is just my experience and opinion based on seeing students at non-true p/f schools and also the dental school here at my school.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, while I would say it’s not the only thing one should consider and it’s maybe not important enough to warrant going to a school that one dislikes for other reasons, I (based on my and my friends’ experiences) just like mmcdowe, would advise that one seriously considers the differences between a P/F and a graded school and which environment one would rather be in when choosing what school to go to.</p>
<p>^Interesting, now I wonder what system is used at another school that D. considered at the end. She never mentioned grading system when she was choosing, it was hard decision to make, she has changed her mind couple times, but definitely did not consider grading system. On the other hand, if both of them are p/f then it was the reason for not menionning it.</p>
<p>If you name the school one of us may know, I’m familiar with a number of schools.</p>
<p>Feinberg…</p>