Usmle Step 1 Score Percentile

Usmle step 1 is the first national board exam all united states medical students must take before graduating medical school.

Usmle step 1 score percentile. Med students are excellent test takers. We wrote an analysis of the released data discussing how all of the exams were fairly close to a normalized distribution but none of the usmle scores conformed perfectly to a normalized distribution. Again the calculated percentiles are slightly higher than the actual percentiles between 225 and 255. One important thing to note is that overall step 2 ck scores are actually higher than for step 1 and step 3.

For example the average mcat score is roughly 500 with a standard deviation of 10 5. For example it would be easier to score 240 on step 2 ck than to score 240 on step 1. A comparison of scores across steps is not appropriate. While the usmle program does not disclose how the three digit score is calculated step 1 scores theoretically range from 1 to 300 most examinees score in the range of 140 to 260 the passing score is 194 and the national mean and standard deviation are approximately 229 and 20 respectively.

And canadian first time test takers was 230 with a standard deviation of 19. Compared to step 1 the differences are less obvious. To put things into even clearer perspective for you here is the official residency match data showing the step 1 score ranges for matched us applicants by their preferred specialty. Step 2 ck percentiles.

The usmle has released the actual percentile rank for all the usmle step 1 2 and 3 scores. First step 2 ck scores are significantly higher than step 1 scores. For example a score of 220 on step 1 is not equivalent to a score of 220 on step 2 ck or on step 3. However it would be below the median for step 2 ck 42nd percentile.

So a 240 on step 1 is the 66th percentile. Although percentile ranks for step 1 step 2 ck and step 3 are shown in the same norm table it is important to note that scores on the three steps are not directly comparable. This shows us the negative skew towards the lower scores. On usmle step 2 the distribution of scores also has a negative skew.