I'm an MS3 just starting out on clerkships, and am feeling frustrated trying to honor my first 6-wk rotation. I've worked as hard as I can short of coming across as cutthroat, and gotten along great with the residents and attendings. But it seems that the few people who do the grading are all the wrong people -- people who don't really care to spend time to know students, people who think everyone should High Pass, or people who have unfair expectations from first rotation MS3s.

Anyway, that's not really the point of this post ... but basically I'm worrying like crazy about my residency application -- what does it mean if I can't honor all my rotations? I know, I know ... many have made it without honoring any rotations. But I'm asking for two reasons. First, knowing what people will be looking for will alleviate my fears. Secondly, it will help me to focus on what's really important to have a strong application ... and hopefully be a good doctor ... instead of worrying about my grades.

So, my question is: what's more or less important in an application? What matters in what way?

Thanks for the advice,
B

(I honored ~1/2 of my classroom courses, scored 243 on Step 1, and published with an ortho surgeon ... but from what I've read, none of that matters except to say they won't hurt me at least ... true?)