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Yes, I get to leave by noon...the radiology residents of course don't....
ERAS is somewhat similar to AMCAS - lots of demographic information, you basically fill out a CV. Some of the more annoying aspects of the medical school application process have been removed, although I only know how it works for US Med Students, there could be variations for independent applicants as well as IMG's. There are unlimited spots for experiences which is is appropriate (considering some applicants using it are well established physicians or MD/PhD, etc). You don't have to fill in your transcript course by course, the personal statement has more available characters but everyone keeps it to less than a page usually, LOR's are sent to your medical school, then you get to pick and choose which ones go to which programs. You can upload multiple personal statements if you want, then select which ones go to which programs (which I would have found necessary had I ended up applying to med/peds as well as peds).
The one key difference is that of the Dean's Letter or Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE) as it is now called...everyone still call's it the dean's letter. Your Dean of Students will write out an evaluation of you, include comments made during your third year clerkships and your rotations early on in the fourth year, along with any comments about problems with your medical school journey or exceedingly high accomplishments. Dean's Letter's aren't released to programs until November 1st for regular match. Not sure how those work for people doing early match programs though.
But the thing is, at least for peds, is that a lot of programs offer interviews even without your complete application in, and certainly without the dean's letter. That likely plays a role in their final ranking on you on their match lists, but they need to fill spots and if you're interested, then they want to get to see you and how you'd fit in. Certainly for the more competitive programs and definitely the more competitive specialties, there are more applicants than spots, and so they're pickier. Some of my friends looking to do things like ENT and radiology and such have no interview invites yet, and wont' for at least a couple more weeks while programs wait for their numbers to rise so they can get a good handle on where people relate to one another.
I take step 2 in November, both CK and CS. I'm starting on doing a little bit of studying now, but October will be my big month. I'm taking a class that's kind of unique to my school which is an extension of our small group sessions we have while on outpatient medicine. Those cases were PBL on steroids, and at a much quicker pace. They were also much more focused on interpretation of data and making the next management decision. The fourth year cases are a little bit more complex, a lot more "disease X in the presence of condition A" sort of stuff, as well as a lot of review on EKG's and some other things. My friends who took the class and then took boards said it was an immense help, though they didn't necessarily get the amount of time to study on their own that they wanted to.
The axiom I heard while studying for Step 1 was - 5 weeks for step 1, 5 days for Step 2, and a BAC below 0.5 for Step 3 (or at least don't take it while post-call). I had a very average score on Step 1, which I was happy with, but it would be nice to score better. Historically, my school tends to do about 12-18 points better on Step 2. I had one friend who scored 33 points higher from Step 1 to Step 2, so I should have some gains. Whether that will really make a difference in my residency selection/choices, I don't know but it couldn't hurt. In the end, because I'm taking it a little bit later, whatever impact it could have had (good or bad) is attenuated. The thing is that people with super good scores on Step 1 will take Step 2 after match lists are in (don't want to risk getting a lower score), while those with lower scores, or at least less competitive scores for what they want to do, will take it earlier. Me, I'm pretty average, going into a field that has pretty average scores, so I'm okay, and it just comes down to whether or not I can get interviews at some of my "reach" programs.
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