I am familiar with a few of the score cutoffs at various schools based on discussions with friends and talks they have heard from deans and so on. For example, I know one school that has a cutoff of 240.
Can you give me any information about whether applicants that just barely make this cutoff are at a disadvantage, or if this is considered "good enough" and they are solidly in the running for a spot?
Also, I am actually RIGHT at this cutoff, and I am concerned that before I apply in a few years (I just started MS3) the minimum will be bumped up. Can you give any information about how stable these cutoffs are?
Thanks for your time and sorry for bothering you with petty board scores questions.
The cutoffs are typically just that - a way of taking 600+ applications and narrowing it down to 240 or so applications. Once you've made the cut-off it doesn't matter if you've scored 240 or 270 in most situations. All of the rest of your application will be reviewed and if granted an interview your interview will of course be very important.
At the end of the day, someone with a 270 but no 3rd year clinical honors could end up ranked far below someone with a 238 and all 3rd year clinical honors. Most program directors will tell you that the score is used as a cut-off to decrease "risk" of failing the Boards (though there remains great controversy on whether Step 1 or Step 2 is more predictive).
