<p>Just as the title says…</p>
<p>There’s no magic cutoff. There are people who were junior AOA in my class that I was surprised to find out made it. They had completely normal schedules that weren’t any thing different than what most people were doing. On the other hand, there were people who, even the Monday after a test (when there was only 4 hours worth of lecture material to go over) who would spend >6 hours at the library.</p>
<p>As always this type of thing varies. </p>
<p>There are some people who I never see at social events and there are some people who go out every weekend. As a rule, I don’t ask people about their academics so I don’t know who all the top students are (although I have some ideas).</p>
<p>I’m aiming for AOA. I’m not spectacular or anything but I’m (barely) in the top 25% of my class (top 25% academically gets you nominated for AOA; research, EC’s, awards, etc. gets you elected; 2/3’s of those nominated will get elected). I actually literally timed my studying for a week and outside of going to class, I only averaged 90-120 minutes of studying per day on the weekdays.</p>
<p>BRM and NCG,</p>
<p>Do you get any holidays in med school? How about X’mas break, Summer break etc?
And how long are your breaks?</p>
<p>Is your 90-120 mins of studying an outlier? It seems to go against what we usually hear</p>
<p>For at least the first two years, we get Christmas at our school (2.5 weeks), and this first summer, which will be the only summer we’ll get, is about 2.5 months (give or take a week).</p>
<p>In the first two years, it’s a normal college schedule (summers and spring breaks, MLK Day, etc)…except I didn’t get a fall break like I did in college, but I know places that do. Also, my christmas break was a week shorter, but we finished a week earlier than my college did.</p>
<p>Summer after M1 year was a normal summer, though my school is the only school in the country (that I know) which requires a 3 week clinical experience. It’s designed to be a rural experience, but some people get other experiences approved (like going abroad). </p>
<p>Summer after a 2nd year is short as third year starts the first Monday of July. You have the time off, but you’re actually studying for Step 1 so it’s not really that much different.</p>
<p>Third and fourth year semesters are 24 weeks long, so the way it worked out my third year, winter break actually started a week earlier than my college age friends, and the first and second years. The M1’s and M2’s really got hosed though because they only got 2 weeks, while everyone else got 3 weeks. There was a one week “summer break” between M3 and M4, but that was all the summer we got.</p>
<p>There is a spring break in third and fourth years. </p>
<p>Fourth year…it’s pretty much a vacation once you get outside the first three months or so. Certainly there are hard rotations and easy rotations, but for the most part things are electives, so if you take a difficult 4th year, it’s no one’s fault but your own. Of course flying all over the country for interviews is no picnic, but I find it to be a very different sort of “work” than being at the hospital or clinic all day. Graduation is early May, and my month of May is going to be dedicated to moving and going to weddings it appears. Every intern starts on July 1st, but a lot of programs who have pre July 1 start dates to cover orientation. Going into pediatrics I have to spend a couple days going through the PALS and NALS courses, but some programs have intern retreats and fun things like raft trips.</p>
<p>I think 90 to 120 is a little low but a lot of it depends on how your school is set up for pre-clinical course work. My school was on a “core” system, so essentially learned one subject at a time and had an exam every 3 weeks or so. The weeks immediately after an exam it would be extremely rare that I study for more than 30 minutes a day. The weeks leading up to an exam? Entirely different and I would usually not leave campus until 9pm (after getting done with lectur at noon). Was I studying 9 straight hours? Of course not…I’d usually take 45 minutes for lunch, 45 for dinner, another couple 30 minute breaks, and all of sudden, that 9 (or sometimes 10 or 11 hours) on campus translates to only 5 or 6 hours of actual studying time (and that’s being generous). Combine the two weeks and I start getting close to that >3 hour daily average.</p>
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<p>Here’s my typical schedule:
We normally have lecture from 8AM-10AM. I don’t go to lecture.
So, I wake up at 9AM to go to the lab (anatomy or histology) that runs from 10AM-noon.
Then it’s an hour for lunch from noon-1PM.
Then from 1PM-3PM, we sometimes have a non-science course (like medical ethics or communications).
From 3-6PM I usually take my afternoon nap and eat dinner.</p>
<p>So at 6PM, I’m ready to work. However, I have to first listen to the 2 hours of lecture I missed earlier in the morning. I don’t count this as my “study” time since it’s class that I should’ve gone to. It takes me 3 hours to listen to the 2-hour lecture because sometimes the professor talks so fast I have to pause the audio recording. So, we’re at 9PM already. B/w just chilling, taking breaks, watching TV, going to the gym, and doing my 90 minutes of studying, and going to bed, we’re now at 2AM (that’s my bed time). And then it’s rinse and repeat.</p>
<p>Obviously, I study even less (almost no studying) on Fridays and I average around 3-4 hours/day of studying on the weekend. I also have some extracurricular engagements that I have to fulfill on a couple of nights a week. </p>
<p>1st year is relatively easy compared to second year so I think I will have to step up my game. In fact, my new years’ resolution is to study more (maybe 3 hours/night) so that my grades would be better. </p>
<p>This is my normal “off” week schedule. We only have 6 tests the entire school year so the week of the test is usually freakout time for me and I study way more on those weeks.</p>
<p>Does being part of AOA really mean anything?</p>
<p>It’s a significant part of your app. Basically, it tells residency directors that you were at the top 15% or whatever of your med school class academically. It’s not a killer for any specialty not to have AOA but it will definitely help you if you do get into AOA because it’s a hard thing to achieve.</p>
<p>How much time do you have to spend on ECs and/or research to qualify for AOA?
Do you begin your research in the first year itself or is this an activity you can start during the Summer break?</p>
<p>Greatly appreciate you busy med students taking the time to enlighten others on this board… this sort of first hand experience is exactly what we need to hear.</p>
<p>AOA sets some criteria that med schools must follow (such as selecting no more than 16% of the class for AOA). But, it’s mostly up to the individual med schools. Some med schools use academics only. Some med schools open it up to a class vote (and hence it becomes a popularity contest). What I listed above is how my school does it. I have no idea what caliber of EC’s or research is required or how they’ll be weighted against academics. But, it’s such a longshot to get AOA, that I’m not overly concerned about it (as you can tell by my study habits ;)). Third-year grades (which also factor into AOA consideration) are so subjective that it’s possible to prepare a perfect AOA-quality resume only to lose out b/c of a few ****y attendings.</p>
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Again, this may vary, but how much do students who are really determined to get AOA study during non-exam weeks? I think they would certainly study much more than 90-120min/day and possibly sleep less if they were to fit in similar number of hours of nonacademic activities into their schedule as you, NCG. </p>
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If such subjectivity and luck are involved in choosing who gets AOA, how come AOA is one of the important factors in residency decision?</p>
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<p>AOA matters for some specialties. That being said, judging from [the</a> data provided by the NRMP](<a href=“http://www.nrmp.org/data/programresultsbyspecialty.pdf]the”>http://www.nrmp.org/data/programresultsbyspecialty.pdf), for just about all residencies participating in the NRMP match, there are several other factors which are more important than your AOA status.</p>
<p>It’s very subjective, as NCG has noted, but then again, so are third-year grades. As I see it, getting AOA means that you were quite good as judged by some people at your institution. The inverse is not true - not getting AOA doesn’t mean you weren’t any good at all.</p>