Thread: Nice Job Saba SOM on New York Approval

Since roughly 15% of all residencies and fellowships are based in the state of New York this news is huge for the University. There are 19 Neurology residencies from New Jersey to Florida and there are 15 in New York State alone so this will open up alot of doors for myself and fellow students. Recently I heard that the California site visit was pushed back to this fall but this NY approval can only help our case with that issue. All though CA approval will be too late in my case I certainly hope they get it as it will only improve the reputation of the school. Every year Saba has consistently taken steps to better itself and at the same time offer the lowest tuition of any of the major carribean schools. Ross's tuition is double that of Saba and I have rotated with Ross students the entire way thru my clinical rotations and I pay half. Enough said. I am truly thankful to the University and since both of my children want to become doctors ( I tell them their crazy) I would have no reservations about sending them to Saba which is about the highest compliment I can pay as I would not trust my kids to anyone. Good luck to all and if you chose Saba to Study you can sleep well knowing that you made a sound decision. when you get there though dont treat it like a community college and do just enough to get by. Work like a dog, get A's and it will pay off. Scott Jones MS IV

Scott,

As usual, thanks for your posts. I just have a quick question about Step I prep. I'm in fifth right now, and I plan on taking the test in early October/late September after I leave the Rock.

What would you rate as your top 5 recommendations/study sources for preparing? How well do the questions in Kaplan correlate to the difficulty level of the board questions in your opinion? Do you have any experience with scores on Kaplan test and USMLE performance?

I'd appreciate any light you can shed on this matter. (Info from Mark, Troy, Jorge, or any other recent grads would be great!)

Good luck in your fourth year and keep on keeping us posted. It's always nice to hear a voice from the light near the end of the tunnel.

Regards,
JV

1. Watch Kaplan Video Tapes, do not do live lecture and pay 2500 + 1500 room and board when you can watch the best of the best lecturers on video tape covering the same material just as you would hear in the live lecture for about 650 bucks total. Ask anyone who did live lecture for step one and did tapes for step 2 and they will all tell you the same thing, it was a waste of money for doing the lecture. Unless you feel you have absolutely no motivation to watch the tapes on your own and you need to sit in a lecture hall, and 3500 bucks is of no consequence (ie. mom and dad are flippin the bill) then do live lecture but it is the SAME THING PERIOD!!!
2. Read the series of clinical vignette books (10 in all) They are easy to get through and get you thinking clinically. I had these all read in my spare time in fifth sememster and never read them again and I can tell you it helped.
3. Last but not least do questions and if you do nothing else do the Kaplan Qbank (2000 questions) and if time permits also do the 800 or so questions in Q book from kaplan.
4. If time permits I also suggest you go thru a review book like first aid and read thru it to make sure there are no major gaps in your fund of knowlege as the topics covered in this book are pretty major and if something is completely alien to you but it is discussed in First Aid then you know you need to freshen up on the topic.

You can do all of this in about 6 weeks and be ready to take test if you put in a good 10 hours per day 6 days a week. Take Sundays off, I did, its good for the soul. I even thinkI problably only did 6 hours on sat. and usually knocked off at like 2pm. On a typical day I did questions from 8-11 am, went to kaplan center from 12-6 and took an hour each nite to quickly read over what I covered that day on tape to make sure I got the main jist. The important thing to remember is getting the big picture and not memorizing details. The USMLE rarely tests minute details but they do test concepts to see if you truly understand what is going on. It is rare question on step one that is testing a miniscule detail. The questions are not easy beleive me but the concepts are fair game. The one thing the USMLE is good at doing is putting an unfamiliar twist on a familiar topic that truly tests your ability to think thru a problem. I hope this advice helps. Good luck to you. Sincerely, Scott Jones MS IV

When I first started doing kaplan questions on Qbank, I was scoring in the mid 65 to 67% very consistently, mind you this is before I started doing any kind of a review. As I started reveiwing I was scoring in the mid to upper 70s. Now of course I would get the occasional block where I did awesome and of course one where I got hit over the head like a baby seal. My final average was a 76%. The lady told me at the Kaplan Center that with that score If I performed consistently on the actual test would land me over a 95 at least and not to worry. How and where she came up with this I have no idea but she was right. I also took a mock 6 hour Kaplan test at the center which I quickly went thru in like 3 hours without a break and scored a 74. She told me that I would be at least one standard deviation above the mean. she was right. So from what I can tell is that you certainly want to be averaging better than 60% to feel comfortable about a pass on the exam. If you can score better than 65 you should be comforted in knowing that you will more than likely be scoring around the national average on step one. Keep in mind once you score above a 215 it takes very few more right answers to really push up your 2 digit score. Its only 15 or 20 questions that seperates the men from the boys and this is why a reveiw course from a source like Kaplan is crucial. Yes you are taking a course to give you that slight edge but it will get you a score that will make all the difference. Good Luck.

sincerely, Scott Jones MS IV

Scott,

Thanks so much. Very helpful post!

JV