QUOTED:Decelerated Curriculum and its effect on Matching?

[NotAProgDirector]

Decelerated Curriculum and its effect on Matching?

Obviously there are different cases, for anonymity's sake I'll ask for opinions on a few. How does it effect choice and competitiveness assuming just one stumble for the poor academic performance, for all other scenarios preformance was as good as it gets.

Forced deceleration due to poor academic performance.

Forced deceleration by admittance.

Optional deceleration by choice.

Thanks.

This is a bit of a vague question, so it's hard to answer.

First, it's hard to know what "forced deceleration" means exactly. You mention "one stumble", but forced deceleration usually means that you failed a few courses -- if you fail just one, usually you just retake the exam, or make it up over the summer, etc.

I assume we are talking about the first two years -- if you fail your third year clerkships, that's a whole different manner. I'm also assuming that you are at an allopathic, US medical school.

So:

1. If you prove that your problem is "fixed" and do well afterwards, you will still do OK in the match. Mid-competitive fields (IM, Gen Surg, etc) are still within your reach. Top programs will likely discard your application. Highly competitive fields (ENT, Plastics, Rads, Derm) are a stretch but depend more on connections than grades -- with the right LOR and top USMLE's, you might still have a chance.

2. I have no idea what this is.

3. I'm also not sure what this is. If you fail a course and then decide to split the 2nd year into two pieces, I think the advice in #1 applies. If you're talking about expanding your medical school to 5 years by either 1) splitting the 4th year to gain more experience, or 2) adding another degree (MPH, MBA, etc), then that's probably a plus.

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[Shalom77]

I think #3 is doing the first year of medschool in two years (or perhaps the first two years in three years) by choice. Several women in my med school who had babies during their first year chose this option. I don't think they were at a competitive disadvantage - but the people I knew who did this were interested in fields like family practice and psychiatry. There may have also been other reasons for people choosing to do this like learning disabilities, etc.

I don't think expanding your 4th year for other opportunities is considered "deceleration."

I'm also not sure what #2 is but are you talking about people required to do this as a condition of admission to med school?

It seems that advantage of choosing this or being assigned to do this at the outset compared to someone forced to do it for poor academic performance is that there's no record of academic failure. I don't really know how it's viewed though by residencies.

 

[petterford]

yes, i agree to shalom try #3!!!