Let's get to the good stuff - average USMLE for each program

Really?? 235ish?? That's a lot lower than what I would have guessed. I was told 244 2 years ago for USC/Keck, but I heard it from another student so I am not sure how much I believe it.

That maybe true, and some programs may focus a lot of USMLE score. I come from an ivy league med school, and our match average for ENT (known for the highest step 1 average) was 238 into top programs in the nation. So it makes sense that ortho is slightly lower, but ortho also has heavy emphasis on AOA and research.

Having said that, I know a lot of lower tier med school focus their first 2 year curriculum on acing step 1 whereas school like Harvard and mine have switched over to problem based learning which doesn't prepare you for step 1 at all. Although I do know 5-6 people from our school who got 260+ studying for about 2 weeks for step 1 (crazy!). Anyways, I think that maybe reason why Harvard med has only slightly above average step 1 despite having some of the top medical students in the nation (FYI I don't goto Harvard). Two top med school with reputation of still being malignant are Columbia and Johns Hopkins. Other top schools, have removed the emphasis on grades and ranking in first two years (P/F system, no preparation for step 1), which might actually be hurting us because the students coming out of lower tier schools kick a$$ in step 1.

Interesting eh? Strange how world works.

keep in mind that the "average" score might be affected by the number of residents/year. IF you take 10 guys a year and 9 have 245 and one has 220 then the avg is 242.5. Does that mean that people with 230-235 should not bother applying? No. Plus, a lot of places might have similar averages since there will not be a lot of outliers on the low end since many places use similar scores (225-235) as a initial screen, meaning most people will fall in a narrow range.
Some directors may not think about it this way (mine does), but once you start getting up above 240 or so the actual difference in number of questions you get right between scores goes down. Said another way, the difference in questions correctly answered b/t a 235 and 245 is larger than b/t a 245 and 255. So in the end the higher you go, you really just probably got a couple of questions more right, not some significantly higher PERCENT (not percentile)
Then again I am sure that some look and say "WOW, 250 is a lot better than 245!"

I matched with a mid-230's score. I'll let you know where I matched at on Thursday.

Step I: mid 230's
Step II: not taken yet
AOA: don't have it at my school
Research: minimal and not ortho
LORS: very good but so are everybody elses
OTHER: previous related health-care work


Good Luck to All!!!!!!

Matched with a Step I in the mid-230's and a Step II in the mid-240's.

Currently prepping my profile for Thursday's post-match thread.