For those that just went through the match, would you say step scores still matter? I have a 26x step 1 and 27x step 2 but ive heard many times now from faculty both in my department and others that it doesnt matter anymore and its all about "holistic review." Kinda sucks when I practically killed myself for these scores. < they matter to a certain extent to get your foot in the door. Once you're in the don't matter
a lot of derm programs think 240=260 now supposedly. i dont think its a true statement but whatever << I think after a certain point like a 245, the distinction isn't made between someone who is a 245 vs. a 260 in terms of ranking placements. The entire point of the USMLE scores in the Derm match process is to give academic Derm faculty solace that you will pass your Derm Boards written by the ABD. So once you achieve that, you've checked of that box and they move on to other things. <nah bro i heard faculty say even a 240 flat is sometimes considered as valuable as a 260 with no added value for having a good score at a range of top programs to community ones. like "back in the day" it used to be that on advising guides from top schools that you can find online (upenn etc, they would say that a 240 is good enough if you go to a top school with that as a cavaet but i even heard DO applicants now told that past a 240 is fine so i might extrapolate a 250 is good enough for all the points for a step 2 but idk if this is true yet)
I matched with a 26x and 27x with only 1 derm publication on my app. Had 15 interviews. Not URM and from mid-tier med school. It's definitely doable if you do well clinically (especially on aways) and can get good letters >> OP here, thanks everyone for the input on both sides.. see this is interesting to me because in this situation clearly your step scores seemed to matter.. obviously i would agree that away performance and letters are more important but the scores clearly had weight << yeah it definitely gets you in the door. I had a lot of publications in non-derm + some ongoing derm projects including an AAD oral presentation, so my original post may have been misleading saying I only had 1 publication < Did you match at home or an away or somewhere where you had connections?
doesn't matter. my scores were very low. < echo this. I have your scores did not match twice < I think scores matter up to a point but then other parts of your app come into consideration, largely your personality and if they'd like working with you. << This. To the OP, your USMLE scores matter when it comes to that first door of still being in the running to apply to Derm as an MS-4 (unless you're URM, where that rule isn't hardline followed), but it's not the only thing that determines whether you get interviews or whether you match into Derm. This is where having a "story" or a "brand" matters to sell yourself, both in your personal statement and during your interview. I empathize with you, as I have no doubt you worked REALLY hard for those scores, and I'd say like 10 years ago, you would have easily matched with that academic record and a few Derm case reports with your home Derm faculty, but with this more "holistic" review (and not all programs do holistic review or even if they do it, they don't necessarily do it in the exact same way), the things that are emphasized now are different.