Step 1 need to interview

Thanks for your suggestions. Nice post..

According to a program director at a large state university program I interviewed at, there were 1300 applicants, 600 of which had above 230, 400 of which had above 240. Most programs I interviewed at had a cutoff of one of those two scores, unless you rotated there or had a relationship with the program. It's possible to match with a lower score, but it would be a smaller community program or making a good impression on an audition rotation.

i think "cut-off" scores are extremely variable depending on the competitiveness of the program or how much that program emphasizes step 1 (as someone above said, it is just one aspect, but I think it is also a foot in the door and easy "screener" for the 500+ applications). My program looks at every application without a cutoff. One program I interviewed at said they use a cutoff of 240 but >400 of their applicants had >240. One program's average interviewee's score was ~250. Highly variable with the "bigger names" looking for higher scores, but I would say a range of cut-offs is 220-240. Definitely important to apply broadly to maximize interviews. Someone mentioned this, but if you are really striving for a "big name" academic place with a lowish step score, I would really try to rotate there

Cut offs are lower if you rotate (at certain places) FYI

Many Coordinators/PDs shared this info...
I also asked a few bc I was curious.
When I say 'most' I mean most that I know about

How do you know what the cutoffs at your programs were?

Most programs where I interviewed had cutoffs >220. Some were ~215, many were 220-235. Also, these levels generally fluctuate year to year. That being said, this is just one variable in the entire application (although an important one for securing some interviews)...