Advice please-away rotations

Have you thought about taking a research year - this will help with many things including:

1) Having mentors at the place you do the year/getting a strong letter out of it
2) Bolstering research to your application (most research years result in 5-10 publications)
3) giving you time to take Step 2 (to make sure you crush it)
4) giving you time to decide on aways since you are a little late in the game.

Your situation is probably the ideal situation for this.

As far as away rotations go, I would consider several different factors (as it looks like you already have).

1) Location - What part of the country do you see yourself living? There is still some debate about whether or not doing an away somewhere "opens up a region". Personally, I don't think it does unless you get a killer letter from someone well-known in that region. But doing well on an away is a great way to get your foot in the door at an individual program and make up for a lower Step 1 in that program's eyes. I had a PD tell me that performing well on an away means much more to them than a lower Step 1 (and I think this is the feeling at most programs).

2) Competitiveness/Prestige of the program - Do all you can to find out if places have cutoffs for Step 1 scores (difficult to do, but FREIDA at least has a lot of programs' average Step 1 Scores). Without a ton of research and a sub-ortho Step 1, the chances of you matching at a Top "Prestige" program aren't good. So choose wisely on the programs you do an away at. A couple mid-tier (smaller University programs or lesser-known community programs) may be best for you. There are a ton of great programs out there, not just the top 20-30 you see thrown around on here a bunch.

3) Female-friendly programs - look at which programs have female residents, and if you want, reach out to them (if you can get a hold of their contact info). I have a fellow female classmate who did this and found it to be very helpful when choosing her aways.

Like bladerunner said, you could consider a research year to get some connections/more time to Study for step 2, etc. There is no doubt this would be a benefit to you. However, if taking an extra year sounds awful, I think pressing your luck isn't too far-fetched (but I would definitely have a Plan B nonetheless). Crush Step 2, do as much research as you can in the next year, honor the rest of your clerkships, and most importantly GET STRONG LETTERS. If you have 3 or 4 great letters from people who have connections and are willing to go to bat for you, this could make or break you when the time comes.

Hope that helps!

Both these answers were extremely helpful-thank you both. I really, really appreciate the advice. Appreciate you guys!

The only other thing I would add is to do your aways where you could see yourself living happily. The prestige and all that is BS. I got interviews at places with "prestige" and noticed that I was surrounded by a bunch of people who hated each other. Obviously that's not everywhere, but just saying. Consider your happiness. Decide on aways at places you would love to be and go from there. I met a bunch of people with your score and research and matched at their number 1 program after doing an away there.