Emergency Medicine Clerkship Grading Scheme, Grade, and Rank-List Distribution as Reported on Standardized Letters of...

The Standardized Letter of Evaluation (SLOE) is a crucial component of the emergency medicine (EM) application process. Given the critical role of the SLOE, we attempted to better understand the grading scales used, as well as the distribution of grades and rank-list positions.

Our primary objective in this study was to determine the distribution of grading formats, grades given, and rank-list positions across EM clerkships using the SLOE.

We performed a cross-sectional study of the grading formats, grades given, and ranking distributions as reported on the SLOE during the 2022-23 application cycle. We obtained data on SLOEs from EM residency programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education by reviewing all applicants who applied to either of two EM residency programs in geographically different regions. Trained abstractors recorded the following data: number of students rotating in the prior year; grading format used; and grade and rank distribution among students.

We included 264 programs in our final analysis, after 13 programs met exclusion criteria. The majority of programs (72.2%) use an Honors/High Pass/Pass/Fail grading scheme. We determined the mean percent of each grade: Honors/A 27.6%; High Pass/B 31.1%; Pass/C 40.8%; Low Pass/D 0.2%; and Fail/F 0.3%. Finally, we determined the mean percent for each rank-list position: top 10% was 17.6%; top third 36.5%; mid third 34.1%; and low third 11.8%.

We determined the grading schemes and grade and rank-list distributions for EM programs during the 2022-2023 academic year. Most programs used a Honors/High Pass/Pass/Fail grading scheme, with the majority of students receiving Honors or High Pass, while 0.3% failed their rotation. Both grades and rank list demonstrated evidence of a skewed distribution toward higher grades and rank-list position.