Step 1 Cut off - Need your info

Geeze, I didn't mean to hijack this thread. I was just trying to get some more info based on what some people told me. I wasn't trying to rub anything in anybody's face. Just exploring different fields like all MS3s do. I don't think there's anything wrong with switching fields from family to ortho early in 4th year if you feel strongly about. And in regards to "TibulaDoc"s comment, I'm sure I'm not the only one looking forward to winter break after a working hard during third year.

I can't say that I totally agree to the perceived double standard that my friends describe. And we don't even know if it actually exists, or if these people even match after interviews. But I'm at least going to explore my chances of getting into ortho. OK, I'm not going to say anymore about this. This thread will be very useful for future applicants like me. I wish I new actual numbers so I can contribute, but right now I'm only a leech.

Everyone handles applications differently, obviously. If you really want to have some facts, instead of just opinions, maybe you should check out the August 2006 issue of Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research.

I agree with the above. I just got done with an interview up at Mayo, and the program director, Dr. Hanssen, referred to this article as to how the Mayo applicants were scored. Not that every other program is using this scoring system, but it's a good thing to be aware of (especially if you want to go to Mayo) . The citation for the article is below. There's also a bunch of other good articles in that month about fellowship selection and other ortho residency topics.

A Quantitative Composite Scoring Tool for Orthopaedic Residency Screening and Selection.
Clinical Orthopaedics & Related Research. 449:50-55, August 2006.
Turner, Norman S MD *; Shaughnessy, William J MD *; Berg, Emily J *; Larson, Dirk R +; Hanssen, Arlen D MD *

UCLA - 230
UC Davis - 205 (rotated)
Loma Linda -205
San Francisco/St. Mary's program - 230
Stanford-205
Yale-205
University of Florida - Jacksonville - 230, 205 (rotated)
University of Illinois - 228
Southern Illinois University - 228
University of Kansas - 228
UMKC- 230
University of New Mexico - 230
University of Oklahoma - 230
Oregon Health Sciences - 230
Brown - 228
West Virginia - 228
HSS - 215 (from the PD)

While the last post above may be a little hard to swallow I can back Da Gooch up on that HSS number...my friend is currently a resident there and he/she scored a 211 on Step 1-no joke...and they did not rotate! However, the person was a golden child otherwise-15+ pubs (took a year off to do a presitgious research fellowship), a couple of their studies won multiple national awards at conferences, they were an awesome college athlete, and held multiple leadership positions and volunteered at various places during medical school. Just shows, if you throw up a brick on test day, you are not necessarily screwed!

Whats really funny is my friend almost didnt even turn in an application to HSS because they thought they had absolutely no shot and figured they'd save the money!

Ha! Yeah, the only reason I threw that up there was because it seemed ludicrous. But that's straight from Williams, so who am I to disagree?