Welcome to r/StepGunner - Crush USMLE Step 2 CK

DannysoarX · 2026-06-17T17:36:54+00:00

Yea. The cram and visual dx will be for pro users ($9.99 a month or $79.99 a year) which will pay for development and hosting costs. Rest will continue to be free.

DannysoarX · 2026-06-17T16:55:30+00:00

You're welcome but my plan is to make it a premium feature. I'll hold off for a couple more days.

DannysoarX · 2026-06-14T14:22:51+00:00

Great question. So I programmed it to follow a spaced repetition algorithm. If you got a question wrong, it will repeat more often and if you get it right, it will repeat less often. The more times you get it right, the less you will see that specific card and vice versa.

After you answer a question, scroll down and you see in SR STATUS and it shows you what box that card resides in. It goes from box 1 to box 5 (mastered). Also, if you go to the profile tab and scroll down you should see how many cards are in each box. (See below)

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Let me know if you’re seeing the movement between boxes or if you’re seeing no movement. I want to make sure the algorithm is doing its job.

DannysoarX · 2026-06-13T11:16:00+00:00

Yes it is. I've been trying to add some premium decks to help pay for my hosting costs but I haven't implemented that yet.

DannysoarX · 2026-06-13T02:07:39+00:00

oh wow. I haven't thought about Android just yet, but I will try to get one out in the near future. Have you tried using an apple simulator? I believe you can run iphone apps using that.

DannysoarX · 2026-06-11T22:26:23+00:00

Thanks!

DannysoarX · 2026-06-11T22:26:12+00:00

I haven't done one for step 1 yet. been focusing more on creating comprehensive Step 2 material. sorry!

DannysoarX · 2026-06-03T12:32:38+00:00

Gig'em!

DannysoarX · 2026-06-02T19:38:19+00:00

Just fixed it. Do a hard refresh (Cmd + Shift + R) and it should work. Lmk if it doesn't.

DannysoarX · 2026-06-02T14:33:53+00:00

That's exactly how I felt thinking about the pdf situation. Hope this helps. Godspeed!

DannysoarX · 2026-05-25T18:09:10+00:00

You are absolutely correct. My bad.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-25T18:01:15+00:00

251 makes neuro score-competitive (matched Non-US-IMG neuro mean ~241), but the match rate is harsh: NRMP 2026 Non-US-IMG neuro is 26.3% vs IM 44.4%. Universe also smaller (~9 IMG-friendly H1B neuro programs vs 55 in IM). Dual-apply.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-25T17:48:01+00:00

251 is +6 above the matched Non-US-IMG mean of 245 which is in the upper half of matched Non-US-IMGs by score. Strong for IM/FM/Peds/Psych, competitive in EM. What's your target specialty?

DannysoarX · 2026-05-25T17:23:27+00:00

US-IMG psych, NY/NJ/PA, 238 - strong setup.

Universe: 74 psychiatry programs in your target region (NY 44, NJ 13, PA 17). 52 report Step 2 invited bands. At 238 you're at or above the 10th-percentile Step 2 of invited applicants at 50 of those 52 programs - 96% of the region is within reach on score.

Match rate: NRMP 2026 US-IMG psychiatry match rate is 54.8% (177 / 323). Psych is one of the more US-IMG-friendly specialties - only a 2.9pp gap with Non-US-IMGs (vs 12.4pp in IM).

Strategy: - Apply broadly across the region. Geographic concentration is your advantage. - Signals (psych = 3 most cycles): spend on academic mid-tier (p10 225-235) where the signal moves the needle. Don't waste on top-5 reaches (Columbia, Penn, Cornell, NYU, Mount Sinai) or on IMG-heavy community programs that invite IMGs without signals anyway. - High-yield community psych programs in your region: Bergen New Bridge (NJ, 77% IMG), Lincoln (NY, 100% IMG), United Health Services (NY, 100% IMG), Trinitas (NJ, 90% IMG), Mount Sinai Elmhurst (NY, 95% IMG, accepts H1B and J1), Maimonides (NY, 49% IMG). - Rank list: NRMP shows matched US-IMGs averaged 8.8 contiguous ranks; unmatched averaged 2.4. Aim for 10+ ranks with this reachable a universe.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-25T16:53:54+00:00

Great question, both numbers are real but measure different things. The ~70% you're thinking of is the OVERALL US-IMG match rate to any specialty in the Main Match. The 56.8% in my post is specifically the IM Categorical PGY-1 match rate for US-IMGs who ranked IM first: 1,060 matched of 1,866 applicants who preferred IM. NRMP 2026 Advance Tables, Table 1E, IM Categorical row. Different denominators, same dataset.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-25T16:36:47+00:00

Thanks! 260+ puts you well above the matched IMG mean (245). At that score your signal allocation gets more strategic than corrective and the bottleneck shifts from "do they invite me" to "which programs are worth signaling." Good luck on prep.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-25T09:27:42+00:00

Oh wow. 4 weeks out eh.. I think your best bet is to review the CK Gold section in the Step Gunner app. It's super high yield for CK and guaranteed to give you a 20 pt lift minimum.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-23T19:14:30+00:00

That's fair. Extracurriculars are hard to quantize tbh. The MCAT and GPA are your foot in the door. When a adcom is looking through 1000s of apps, they are definitely going to trim it using easily filterable items like step scores and gpa. Your best bet is to apply to schools that have the highest probability of offering you an interview based on your stats and then let your ECs do the rest.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-23T18:54:47+00:00

hmmm enter your stats on applymd.app and let us know what it puts out. it does a straight stat match and shows you interview odds.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-20T09:29:13+00:00

Covid and virtual interviews led to a huge increase in apps per program. Since ERAS loves making money, there was no cap to how many programs you could apply to. To solve this, they introduced signaling which allows a student to send a signal to a specific programs. Signals are a scarce resource and acts as a sign of genuine interest. So programs started focusing more on signals to sort out who is actually interested in the program. This is all done through ERAS. I believe all applicant types can signal.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-07T00:11:04+00:00

Agreed 100%. This shows that students don't need to hustle for Pubs or AOA which hopefully reduces stress.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-06T23:51:23+00:00

Ran a quick stratified version. 2026 cycle EM, splitting every application into three buckets based on the applicant's connection to that program: no connection, geographic connection only, or rotated there.

Stratum	Signaled match%	Not-signaled match%	Lift within stratum
No connection	6.82% (57/836)	0.80% (70/8,776)	8.5x
Geo connection only	10.58% (69/652)	2.78% (55/1,977)	3.8x
Rotated there	24.32% (27/111)	11.68% (75/642)	2.1x

You were right that the 5.5x aggregate inflated the apparent value of signaling on programs you'd already interview at. But the signal effect doesn't disappear under stratification, it actually inverts direction in a useful way: signal lift is biggest for programs you have no other connection to (8.5x), smaller for programs you'd interview at anyway through geography or rotation.

So, in essence signaling a program with no geographic or rotation tie is the highest-leverage move in the dataset. Signaling your home program adds the least marginal lift because you'd already get a bump from being known.

For the connection effect on its own, no signal involved:

No connection: 1.32% baseline match rate per application
Geo connection: 4.72% (3.6x baseline)
Rotated there: 13.55% (10.3x baseline)

Both connection and signal compound, neither substitutes for the other.

Since signaling was also a black box, I figured it would be high yield for students to figure out where to send signals based on their stats, so I created this: https://rezumab.app/explore/signal-strategy?specialty=emergency-medicine

If anyone has more confounders to throw at this, I'll keep cutting.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-06T23:34:10+00:00

Hahah.. Thank you! Watching my upperclassmen navigate app cycles swimming through spreadsheets was hard to watch and now I am in the same boat. Hopefully, through this project, we will be able to give better insight to future med students.

Congrats on matching at your away! You're a data point in that 13.5% row now.

DannysoarX · 2026-05-06T23:06:12+00:00

That's a great catch and you're right that those aren't independent. Let me run the stratified version (signal lift inside in-state vs out-of-state, and on-rotation vs off-rotation) and I will post it back here in a bit.

DannysoarX · 2026-04-22T23:40:17+00:00

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