Step 2 scores decoded: What they mean for your Match prospects

Performance on Step 2 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) isn’t a gauge of how effective a physician a medical student will become. A medical student’s Step 2 score is, however, one key indicator of how many residency program interview invitations they are likely to receive. 

In a 2024 survey of residency program directors conducted by the National Resident Matching Program, a medical student’s Step 2 score—which has taken on increased importance since the Step 1 exam went pass-fail in 2022—was the fourth most frequently considered factor in determining which applicants to interview. 

“Given the numbers of applications that program directors receive, they're still using objective criteria like Step 2 scores to screen the application so that they have a smaller pool from which to invite people for interviews,” said John Andrews, MD, the AMA’s vice president for graduate medical education. 

The importance of Step 2 performance varies widely by specialty. A look at data from the National Resident Matching Program offers insight into which specialties place the most importance on the metric across applicant types.