Yes. Do well on your away rotations. Board scores are certainly good enough if you score Honors in your General Surgery rotation. Get some research under your belt and you should be fine.

I always get a kick out of these "chances" posts. I often wonder what the motive is. There are countless other such posts with multiple replies to each on this site. Type in "chances" in a search, and you can review all the opinions given by mostly well meaning folks most of whom do not now nor ever will sit on an admission panel for any orthopaedic program. There is some good advice there in the midst of a heavy load of crap and opinion.

The other option is to sit down with the program director, chairman, other orthopod at your school and ask what your chances are and where you need to improve. You can also do this at many away rotations believe it or not. The advantages to this approach include face time with some people you should be getting to know, advice from people who might actually be able to help you do something about potential weaknesses, advice from people who actually sit on the admission panel and interview potential residents and therefore know what is important to get in and what is not, advice from people who actually got into ortho (rather than, as is often the case on this site, people who are applying just like you). Believe it or not, most people on this site don't actually know what it takes to get into ortho even if they got in themselves no matter how interesting or reasonable their responses sound (again, do the search for some entertainment). I include myself in that bunch. However, you have people available to you who do know what it takes and what your chances are and who can help you be a better applicant. If you really want to do ortho start talking to those people. Good luck.

I'd say the vast majority of med students are anal; even if they're laid back, they are still organized and motivated. The people who find forums like this or SDN are just those who are so neurotic they take it a step further. I include myself in that group - during the time I was waiting to get into med school I found SDN a comfort. Once in med school I used SDN, and later Orthogate to help answer some questions about potential career choices.

What forums provide is a since of camradre. I don't think anyone fails to match ortho and then goes "what the heck - everyone on Orthogate said my chances were excellent". We know who reads these posts and who responds, and we're smart enough to not place too much weight on it. Sometimes, we just need someone to pat us on the back for our 255 on Step 1 and say, "yeah, that score is good enough".

I made a 246 on Step 1, a 249 on Step 2, and was senior AOA at a med school with no ortho program and that few people have heard of. I had one ortho project but excellent letters of rec from some great orthopods I worked with. I applied to 51 programs, was offered interviews at 14, attended 12 and matched at my number 3 (which happened to be my favorite program - #1 and 2 were simply closer to home). That's my story - yours will be different, but keep the posts coming...they encourage other people.

So people post scores that are obviously great so someone will tell them good job? Hopefully the need for affirmation doesn't become apparent during the interview.

Yeah, I guess that's the danger of getting too worked up over your scores - whether they're good or bad. Sub-I's and interviews are obviously a different (and arguably much more important) component of one's overall application than a single test score - being a decent person who works hard, doesn't complain, and is generally cool to be on call with are all things that both residents and PDs are looking for.

I was simply making the observation that sometimes we look for affirmation of our accomplishments - and you'd be surprised at how easy it is to doubt an "obviously" good score. Think about it - at your school did the people who made average or below average ever go around talking about their scores? No - it was the people who did well. You might have been pumped about your 240...until the guy who made a 260 was bragging.