Well residency spot in US doesn't come at a bargain price and it may reallyyyyy stretch your resources. This post is for people who are in their early stages of preparation for USMLE and step exams and also people who are applying this year.
Disclaimer: some expenses may vary depending on whom you speak, some may be old rates. Most of this is costs for IMG who did med school outside of US and Caribbean area. The logic behind this post is to give a rough estimate. Conditions apply!!
Rough idea of the expenses you may incur
Step 1: 900$
Step 2 CK : 900$
Step 2 CS : 1250$
Step 3 : 850$
USMLE WORLD for all the steps: about 1000$
NBME exams: 400 to 600$
US Visa: 200$
Travel to US: 1200 to 1500$ per round trip ( one trip for electives, second trip for observership, research and last trip for your interviews)
Medical school verification and adminstrative procedure costs: 500 to 800$
Cost of staying in US: about 600 to 1300$ per month(depending on the city)
Interview season expenses:
cost of application: 3500$( for one specialty and applying 150 programs. This can hugely increase to around 5000$ which is what applicants have been spending of late)
Cost of travel for interviews: for 10 interviews, you can expect about 2000 to 3000$. also depends on the location of the program and where you set base in US for travel to interviews, mode of travel(bus vs amtrak vs air), whether program gives hotel accomodation, etc
cost of travel for CS: about 500$
Above costs are more or less mandatory.
There are other costs that happen from time to time:
Cost of applying for electives: 500 to 4000$ depending on the program
cost of observership: 1000 to 3000$ per month
other misc travel within US: 1000 to 2000$
phone bill when staying in US: 600$ per year
cost of extension of scheduling period of step exams: 50$ to 100$
recently popular CS preparation courses 1000$
there is much more to this list. USMLE really takes a toll on your bank balance. So be prepared for the expenses that you are bound to do.
The verdict: prepare for expenses from a minimum of 25000 to 40000$ for a residency spot.
Why this post is important is because of people's mindset about miscellaneous expenses during this whole process. Take for example, you are nearing your Uworld subscription end date but you postpone your exam by 1 month and will need to renew or extend by 1 month which costs like 100$. Many of us think it is a waste of cost and you will be economical and not extend it. Only if you knew the bigger picture that the 100$ you invest in UWorld may save 1000s of dollars in future, you will be willing to take it.
The other thing that people ponder over is this: you schedule a 3 month period for step 1 or ck and you extend it by 3 months because you are still in med school and not finish preparations. But even at the end of the extended eligibility, you still dont feel like you are prepared adequately. YOU SHOULD IDEALLY FORFEIT THE APPLICATION AND REAPPLY AND SPEND 900$. Though this sounds absurd, people dont realize the cost of a poor step 1 or CK score on their entire application. As seen above, the cost of applying for just one interview season touches 10000$. A poor score may make you reapply the next year with one year of travel, accomodation, next season application which can total to 15000-20000$. This 900 should look small cost to you(which sadly never happens) but people keep doing the mistake of attempting the exam without fully feeling prepared.
Skip your thoughts about minor costs of residency process. Buy the best study materials, Buy an extended UW subscription, do more NBMEs. Don take the step exams lightly. A good step score can potentially save 20000$ A good step score by itself can make your residency process a breeze. Not only you get more interviews but also quality of the programs will be better with better scores(>250)
Though there are 15 things in a residency application, step 1 score still is the top determinant in that packet.
