Many are going to pass/fail even for rotations making class ranks obsolete.
There are 100s of programs for each specialty and only about 10-20 elite programs in each area look for research.
Most of the prestigious schools are leading the charge to eliminate ranks.
So here is my take and that of many who know the process intricately also. This wont be documented anywhere so pls dont ask for any lol
What was happening is that the top tiered schools (Ivy leagues and Tier 1s) went āholisticā for undergrad admissions.
They thought that nothing happened to their quality and so they went āholisticā for medical admissions (and all other professional admissions) too. Now in the top med schools there were many who performed at the level of that med school but there were many students who did not because they were the āholistic admitsā lol. When it came to raw scores for block exams, national percentiles for shelfs etc and STEP scores these students lagged behind many students from the lower ranked med schools. So this put a dent in the name of these med schools and the residency programs these students could get into.
How do they fix that? They went more woke lol Pass/fail STEP1, no rankings, no scores, no nothing. So all the students at these top med schools are now technically ātop studentsā and no one can know that a particular student from Harvard med or Stanford med is actually sub par. This pass fail STEP push was done by the elite medical schools.
And for residencies many of these top 25 - 30 med schools swap the students amongst themselvesā¦ reciprocacyā¦ so even their āholistic studentsā get into a decent residency program, because now no one can know that a particular student is sub par!! Because there are NO grades or scores!! They will be however looking at STEP 2 scores for now, at least that is the buzz.
So the top schools have gone pass fail and are turning to no scoring etc. But some mid level schools are still keeping internal rankings, and scores etc because they want their students to be able to shine when time comes for residency placements also.
So in general this is where the value of higher ranked med schools come into play. A student at higher ranked med schools has a better shot at getting into a top residency program even if they have performed poorly on most exams because there is no record of poor performance.
However for parents and students here that is not the question. The first question is to get in a med school. That is where BSMD programs come into play because it has gotten harder and harder for ORMs to even get into a med school. So even tho the BSMD programs are in mid tier med schools the residencies can be thought of later on. Focus on getting admission to BSMD or a med school first and think about the residencies later!!
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Both Penn State and Pitt, in the past 3-4 years, have taken >80% of OOS students for BS/MD. Penn State at one point was >90% OOS students
In-state students and parents hate them for that.
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Penn State BS/MD program is with SKMC i.e. Thomas Jefferson University. SKMC is in Philly.
Penn State Medical is a different medical school based in Hershey, PA.
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When you say they offered lot of seats to OOS are I donāt know if the majority of the OOS falls in the states surrounding PA more like an informal regional candidates.
Anyway my comment is based on the two experiences I had with my boys especially the youngest one.
Penn State has offered interviews to candidates from CA, AZ, TX, FL, VA, NJ, MD, NY, OH, MI, IL, MA, WV, OR, GA, apart from PA - just looking at our students who received interview invites in the past.
Received our first āno thanksā from Siena College/Albany Medical College program. Accepted for UG but declined for medical program. Definitely wasnāt our first choice. Hopefully will get better 
Sorry to hear this. Was it email from Siena or from AMC?
It was from Siena. It was directed to my email (as the parent) vs. my sonās email which was placed on the application. I thought that this was a little odd.
It is strange. Thank you for sharing! So, we, parents, need to check our emails more regularly. Wish your son a good luck with another schools.
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If it isnāt documented anywhere, what makes you think all your unfounded (IMO) assertions are true?
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The biggest driver for a P/F Step 1 was AMSA. The organizationās petitions gained additional importance after several highly publicized med student suicides during the 2010s, esp those that occurred in NYC.
Med schools and residency program initially actively opposed going P/F but after the negative publicity generated by the suicides plus several research studies in different specialties found that there was only a weak correlation between a high Step 1 score and success as resident, they dropped their opposition.
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Got the interview Penn State PMM for Jan 11 at Jefferson, Philly.
Any guidance, suggestions and what to expect in the interview. One med student and one faculty interview.
Any one has any previous experience and guidance on sample questions.
Appreciates your help and response.
Check the interview date - is it Jan 10 or Jan 11?
Read my post #316 above - it has some interview tips.
The best way to prepare is to do mock interviews.
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Thank You. Sorry. It is on Jan 10th.
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I was looking at graduating classes of medschools , some of which were brand new. Even they had residents matching into radiology, urology, ENT and ortho. These were in south Texas and had only 30 students each year. So what this demonstrates is that if you are at the top at that new/ small school you stand a chance at getting into competitive residencies. So you class positions. Letter etc matter.
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To my knowledge the ivies only offer FA based on incomes and there are no merit based FA
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That particular article was talking about how the percentages have increased in ivies compared to the general population expectation of about 6-7%. Also these student self identified as LGBQT+.
Not sure I called them merit.
" Not so sure about that. Many schools with FA only and no merit scholarships have reasonable FA outside of unit loans in medical schools. I know at least one person each attending Yale, Cornell and Columbia on almost full FA scholarship who are starting this year.
All are from Texas and each found these schools cheaper to attend than Texas schools where tuition is usually 22k."
This was very specific to Brown numbers being totally out of proportion to any other school.