<p>iwbb, What I meant was that the average STEP-1 score could indirectly tell you the percentage of their students who are potentially gunning for those lucrative competitive specialties. When/if there are too high concentrations of these “aim high” students, the atmosphere at that school may be different. For example, in DS’s circle, there are some students who perpetually put in 13 hours of study in the first two years, even well before the preparation period for STEP-1 starts. If you are not able or willing to keep up with these hyper competitive students, you may feel like you are a slacker as a comparison.</p>
<p>Since you seem to be from Brown College, this analogy may be appropriate: If you compare the atmosphere at Brown (open curricullum, in a mid-sized city), vs Columbia College (core course, in a large city) or Penn as a college (preprofessional bent, in a large city), you may see the difference.</p>