thanks, that's very nice of you... NIH might think i'm more annoying because i called them so much to see how the progress was on them reviewing my application. and it still took 4 months.

not sure if this had anything to do with it, but once i submitted my step 1 score, i was approved for the rotation not too long after that. even seeing a good transcript from a foreign school might not mean that much... those step scores are standardized, and then they know where you are at compared with US students. not that my score is amazing, but it is decent.