<p>“at my son’s med school, the students are told their quartile standing after every module exam.” -
-What are "module exam"s? End of block exams at D’s Med. School were p/f. Nobody can fail, so my guess is that who fails, have to retake (do not have experience, cannot tell for sure). but in this case, everybody has exactly the same standing - they passed. Then, during rotations. shelf exams have very little effect on the grade. At most, it is about 25%, but at some places, they cannot bring the grade up at all, they can bring it only down. My D. has meetings with her dean. They are giving feedback at these meetings, but she never was told about her standing in a class. She is almost done with her 3rd year. No grades in first 2 years, no grades (and NO exams, except Step 2) in 4th year. 3rd year is the only one that has grades, but they are mostly determined by evals, exams have very little or no effect on the grades in 3rd year.
Check the match list at ANY Medical school. Every single one (including DO) places some number of students into very competitive MD residency. Specifically, we have checked on the other side, at several residency programs. Specifically, one in very competitive specialty accepts 4 - 6 from Med. Schools and 2 from DO every year. </p>