Step 1 Cut off - Need your info

UCLA - 230
UC Davis - 205 (rotated)
Loma Linda -205
San Francisco/St. Mary's program - 230
Stanford-205
Yale-205
University of Florida - Jacksonville - 230, 205 (rotated)
University of Illinois - 228
Southern Illinois University - 228
University of Kansas - 228
UMKC- 230
University of New Mexico - 230
University of Oklahoma - 230
Oregon Health Sciences - 230
Brown - 228
West Virginia - 228
HSS - 215 (from the PD)

While the last post above may be a little hard to swallow I can back Da Gooch up on that HSS number...my friend is currently a resident there and he/she scored a 211 on Step 1-no joke...and they did not rotate! However, the person was a golden child otherwise-15+ pubs (took a year off to do a presitgious research fellowship), a couple of their studies won multiple national awards at conferences, they were an awesome college athlete, and held multiple leadership positions and volunteered at various places during medical school. Just shows, if you throw up a brick on test day, you are not necessarily screwed!

Whats really funny is my friend almost didnt even turn in an application to HSS because they thought they had absolutely no shot and figured they'd save the money!

Ha! Yeah, the only reason I threw that up there was because it seemed ludicrous. But that's straight from Williams, so who am I to disagree?

This thread really only perpetuates the psuedo-myth that step 1 is they key to matching at a program. I think it will best serve the interests of everyone if it's brought up again after the match. I know the numbers at a few of the programs are lower than stated on here - however, I don't think people are going to be as willing to share their board scores and give up anonymity at this point in the process.

Stewie and others - I appreciate your responses. I accept that this thread is not going anywhere in terms of useful information for future applicants. However, I am also extremely disappointed at what I interpret to be a group of applicants that, on the whole, is simply buying into old myths.

What is our frickin problem with Step 1 scores? Why treat them as if they are a judgment from St. Peter at the pearly gates. Sure, they are predictive of how one does on the next standardized exam, not how good of a clinician they will be, not how good of a person they will be, and absolutely certainly not how good they will be at nailing a femur!

Overall, it is my opinion that we as a group need to take the lead in shaping the culture of medicine, or just orthopedics for now, where we stop making these invalid judgments all the time. Why not debunk the myths now, why wait? I am not understanding how objective (as possible in this context) information can perpetuate a myth. It either supports it or it doesn't.

That said, I can certainly sympathize with wanting to remain anonymous. Your posts could be all or part of your information, your friends information, or that information received from a program director. I just hope that your desires to remain anonymous aren't due to wanting to hide an "unworthy" score on some standardized examination. If that is the case, then we, as the next generation of orthopedists, are completely failing in creating a healthy atmosphere in which to learn and practice. But then again, that seems to be a big part of why so many people who would have been excellent educators have left the ivory towers for decades on end.

Duke - 205
U of Michigan - 205
MUSC - 205
Wake - 205
UCLA - 230
UC Davis - 205 (rotated)
Loma Linda -205
San Francisco/St. Mary's program - 230
Stanford-205
Yale-205
University of Florida - Jacksonville - 230, 205 (rotated)
University of Illinois - 228
Southern Illinois University - 228
University of Kansas - 228
UMKC- 230
University of New Mexico - 230
University of Oklahoma - 230
Oregon Health Sciences - 205
Brown - 228
West Virginia - 205
HSS - 215 (from the PD)

I agree we as a group probably put too much emphasis on board scores. If you look at the study put out by the NRMP last summer (which I think I memorized by this point) you see that people did match with a broad range of scores. Not only that but even with lower scores i.e. 200-210, more people matched into ortho than not.

I think that just reinforces the point that programs look at more than just how good a day you had between 2nd and third year. Now obviosuly if you scored high you are in a much better position, but if you did not so well, you aren't f@%#ed.

MD007-- it is true that board scores or clinical grades or reputation of medical school etc are not accurate measures of how good of an orthopaedist one can be, but when schools receive hundreds of applications, what other information is there that can differentiate one candidate from another? They have to make judgement somehow... I suppose if I have to make a gripe about the process, it would not be with how programs choose applicants, but rather the testing format and grading process themselves because they create the measures by which we are chosen. The boards for instance...is there such a huge difference by someone who gets 225 from someone who gets 232? or 232 from 245? Sure, someone who gets 260 probably has something more to offer in that category than a 225. AOA or not AOA -- it varies from school to school. Percentage of honors vs. not honors varies at each school, and even how the clinical years are graded varies as well. Having the hoops to jump through are not the problem, even if they are sometimes not great indicators of future performance, but making sure the hoops are designed well is more important.

in other words, board scores, grades, personal statement, and whatever else are not necessarily good for predicting who will become a great orthopaedist....they are simply ways (or hoops, if you will) of differentiating the candidates from one another in terms of studying ability, "game-day" performance, being a nice guy, and willingness to do the little things even if they don't seem to matter.

If you didn't mean to hijack the thread or start a heated debate, why did you even state your original post. Basically, you said friends told you to explore ortho, and you were interested because you were a cheerleader and you heard some programs favor female applications. You even mention that MAYBE you will do an elective...If you were a hard working die hard bleed ortho from day 1, wouldn't you be a little ticked off to have someone come on a board and say that? Seriously, as a third year medical student you should have learned how to communicate effectively with patients, colleagues, residents and attendings...that post obviously shows that you don't. There are people in medical school (and I have met them) that really don't have a solid reason for going into ortho other than its so competitive, and I want to go after a competitive spot, or some other half arse reason like that. Your post seems to reiterrate similar sentiments.

As for the whole board score argument, I talked to my PD before the 4th year. He told me that 210 is more of a common point than 220 or even 230. He says some of the competitive programs may use higher scores, but that alot of the PDs he knows use 210...thats just for what its worth.

Going on further with board scores, ladies and genlteman, this is the game we play. Its a numbers game, and with 200-300 applications, they can't read them all, they need something to quickly sort them. Thats all, once you get passed that and get your foot in the door...ITS MUCH MORE THAN BOARD SCORES...but you have to get your foot in the door. For those MS3s or younger reading this, if you don't have those scores, or feel you may not be competitive, DON'T BACK DOWN, if ortho is truly what you want, go for it, I know that I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I didn't at least give it the ole college try. There are other ways to get interviews, i.e. away rotations, that don't require the 230+ board scores...at the end of the day, no matter how many interviews you have, it only takes 1, ala the NFL draft, to take a chance on you and let you in....

As for switching from family med to ortho in 4th year...hmmm, thats a head scratcher. Yeah, I do have a little bit of a problem with that. First, this is 3-5 years of your life, to flip flop so easily shows that during the first 3 years you took very little interest in this, and its not a decision that should taken half heartidly. Seriously, I've seen this many a times where people flip flop, end up in that specialty, then match out of it again after internship year. This is five years of your life, it should be taken seriously, and I don't think rash decisions should be made over a one month elective in a certain specialty.
Secondly, look at the difference in lifestyles between the two. If you were interested in surgery, why not G-surg, or ENT, or Neuro, or anything like that, why family med? You do know that the only residencies really having problems comforming to the 80 hour work week are the surgical ones. From my experience most people interested in family med hated their surgery rotation, hated the lifestyle, and hated the attitude...for me I was a surgery junky, I loved being in the OR REGUARDLESS of what it was....and you get a chance to experience this in 3rd year.
Thirdly, we're talking about 4th year here...if you are unsure at that point which specialty you want, maybe you should think about preliming. The other poster mentioned she made her decision during 3rd year, which is where you get your surgical experience, where you get to explore your personality and what fits you well in medicine. If your interested in ortho, EXPLORE IT THEN, why wait later(especially 4th year, which is last minute)??? Go to the lectures, grand rounds, spend your free time in ortho clinic/OR, research ortho...this is the looking into things during the first 3 years I talked about. Yes, I know some private docs in surgical specialties who decided late, however, this was in an era before the match, and they had a chance to explore surgery in there internship before committing to a specialty. Its a much different boat. Nothing is wrong with a prelim year, if your unsure, just do it, in the grand scheme of things 1 year is a small small portion of your professional career
I can say one thing that sums it up. There was a student I rotated with who was b/t Plastics and ortho, 2 at least surgically related specialties...you know what one of the residents said to him "Oh, so you aren't really seriousl about ortho then?" It doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what you thin, it matters what the powers that be think, and that kind of sums up alot of the attitudes I've encountered. If you want it, you better be dead serious about it, not some passing fancy in your 4th year to PC....

I personally think the above comments made by VTMD07 are rude and condescending. I thought this forum was for encouraging one another and helping people along in this process. The above posts are what makes me not want to visit this forum very often.

Wow, you guys really need to chill. First, I was being sarcastic about the cheerleading part; you know, kinda playing into the stereotype that orthodocs like athletic people. Second, I'm just a third year student who hasn't even had surgery. Just because I have zero surgery/ortho experience right now (which is probably half of all third years at this point of the year) doesn't mean I can't explore ortho as an option. Third, there are some med schools that don't even have the option of doing ortho before 4th year. So you say go to grand rounds/clinic/research/OR. I call BS on that one. How many students fall inlove with clinical ortho based on grand rounds/clinic/research? I can understand wanting to do ortho based on shadowing in the OR, but I think a better way to make sure is to do an actual rotation. Overall, just becuase you somehow "knew" you wanted to do ortho before doing an actual ortho rotation doesn't give you the right to chastise someone for starting to explore the field by asking questions. Get over yourselves.

LMAO..if you think those are rude and condescending, oh boy. Sorry that I don't want to blow smoke up everyone's arse, and tell it how I see it. Once again, I told you a conversation verbatum that a resident told a student, and those are the opinions that matter. If you think any type of surgery is some lovey dovey type field, your in for a rude awakening...

Once again if your seriously interested in ortho, why wait til 4th year to be involved in it? And if you think I'm just asking this question to be a jerk, what do you think they will say to you on the interview? And do you think that saying well spending my free time in ortho grand rounds/clinic/research/OR wouldn't really show me anything about the field, so I was just waiting til I could do a rotation. I really doubt that will fly. Medical school is not oriented to producing orthopods, ortho is a small small fraction of what you learn, and you MAY have to go above and beyond to find out if thats what your interested in(which anything I would commit 5 years of my life to I most obviously would). I'm sorry if taking some of your free time to go spend in ortho isn't what you feel you should do, and you feel that all you need to learn about ortho can be found in a 1 month rotation, b/c your chances with matching with that attitude with your stats are slim to none. And fine, call BS on that stuff, but I didn't know for sure I wanted to do ortho til 3rd year, I had a feeling but I kept myself open. And i spent an extra week over xmas break working in the ortho clinic and OR at my home program to get a better look for me. I too was tired of busting my butt in 3rd year, but I am not going to half arse choose a profession just because I'm too lazy to go that extra lil bit to see if its right for me.

Your original post was so inflammatory, and if you are ignorant to that lord help you. Don't come on a message board for any competitive specialty, say those things, and not expect to get flamed....

VTMD07....

some valid points, but PLEASE...if you're going to start flaming someone posing as if they're somehow less worthy of going into ortho because their stuff isn't as in order as YOU THINK yours is, at least make sure your spelling is right.

Or just find a less judgmental/condescending way to give advice to someone who in the end is probably not a whole lot different than you.

ok...time to chime in.....

1) it IS easier to get into ortho as a woman....there are just less women who apply, but those who do are getting tons of interviews with inferior stats.

2) as far as what VTMD07 said: Yes he may seem like a know it all, but he is smart enough to have picked up on the fact that the powers that be are looking for any reason to bump you down their rank list...that is why the residents will watch you and analyze you all day long

My poor thread...

BigBear - In my opinion, for many of us going into ortho, it is exactly like being you in this thread. Many of us must face attitude and adversity, but calmly let it destroy itself. The turtle also wins the race to happiness in orthopedics.

Man this weed is good...

Hopefully this thread will go back to providing useful information. I posted here originally to possibly get some info and maybe encouragement. I was expecting something more like "yeah, ortho's great, you should definitely explore it more cuz i think you should have a shot." Instead I get flamed for not being dedicated to ortho. I can just image VTMD07 growing up and being the asshole attending that thinks that nobody is dedicated enough to operate with him without being yelled at. He'll be that one guy that med students hate. I find it ironic that he tells another poster to have thicker skin when he's the one taking offense to my original post. Anyhow, I'll just continue to figure out what specialty I want to dedicate my career to, and let those flamers words motivate me to make sure I make the right decision.

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Well, I made this same switch at the end of my 3rd year/beginning of 4th year. It made perfect sense to me, to the programs who interviewed me, and most importantly to the program I matched at.

What one in similar circumstances needs to do is to apply to programs not run by the likes of VTMetc.

I had a fair amount of medical experience/exposure before med school that did not include ortho. It wasn't until relatively late in the game that I found the field that most suited my interests (diverse patient population, actually helping people, cool collegues, etc). It wasn't until late in the game that I realized that I wouldn't make a good family doc...

On the other end of the spectrum, I am suspect of individuals who know from "before med school" that all they want to be is an orthopod. How did you know that your interests/talents/etc might not have been better suited for a different specialty? What did you do to make sure this was not the case? Again, I would be more suspect of the applicant who went through school with blinders on than an applicant who took a considered approach in matching the entirety of their interests to their chosen fields.