Step II Importance

How important are Step II scores in the residency application process? Esp if you feel confident about your Step I scores?

Basically, I need to figure out how hard I should study for II, because I worked my tail off for Step I and if it's not vital don't want to have to use my summer fully to ace Step II.

-Bledsoe

If you feel real confident about Step I scores, then take Step II as late as you can. However, don't blow off Step II as it could make a difference. I was never asked about either step score although it is generall understood that many programs use Step I scores as part of their cut-off in deciding who to interview. (Have to have some way to pick 50 interviewees out of 600 applications). If you had not done quite as well on Step I then I'd advocate taking Step II early so that scores would be back before interviews. Any way you look at it, the better you do on Step II is better for you as an applicant. Good luck

I agree, if you did well on step 1, go ahead and put off step 2 till later (late fall/winter if you want, depends on when your particular school wants it taken by) that way if do, err, dont put any effort into it compared to step one you wont have interviewers asking "gee is your step one score a mistake, cause you sure sucked on step 2". Of course if your step one score is lacking in its brilliance, taking step 2 early AND kicking ass will help. I did well on step one, put off step 2 till late october, and only a few of my last interviews had the scores (ends up i actually did a point better!).

One piece of anecdotal evidence for taking step II early regardless of your step one score. A guy I know that recently matched in Rads scored in the 230's on step I, but decided to take step II early anyway. He scored in the 260's. He had to PDs tell him what a great step II score that was and that he wouldn't have been interviewing if he didn't have that score. That was rads and not ortho, but I think taking step II early can be an advantage. If you score the same or better on step II, release it, if not, don't release it and tell anyone that asks that you are waiting for your scores.

Looking at past posts, it appears that many if not most of the programs did not ask or give 2 hoots about Step Deuce, that is if you did not have it (sure it can only help if do well on it. That being said, what is the deal? If I take it early and do slightly worse or even suck arse is anybody going to know my score or know that I took it or can one simply leave it off the application and everyone assume, because they know no better, that you haven't taken it or scores aren't back yet? Guess I would like to take it earlier than later to stop the bleeding of info from my head but prefer not to bust ass studying for it worrying about my score other than Pass.

So you can transmit STEP 1 scores, take step 2, and programs won't know your score unless you submit them? Sounds like a win-win situation...