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Beginning 26 January 2022, the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 changed from a numerical score to Pass/Fail. Historically, residency programs have used Step 1 scores as a valuable metric in assessing the competitiveness of applicants. We assessed how residency program criteria will change when evaluating applicants after Step 1 becomes Pass/Fail. A survey was distributed to the program directors of all 144 pathology residency programs accredited by Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Survey questions evaluated the importance of using Step 1 and Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) scores when assessing applicants. Participants were asked to rank a list of applicant criteria used before and after Step 1 becomes Pass/Fail. Data were analyzed using chi-squared and paired t -tests with significance at P  < 0.05. A total of 34 residency program directors (23.6%) responded to the survey. 76.5% ( P < 0.001) of responders believed Step 1 scores were able to predict a resident's ability to pass their board exams, while 41.2% believed Step 2 CK could predict a resident's ability to pass board exams and perform clinically in pathology ( P  = 0.282). 61.8% of responders agreed that an applicant's medical school ranking would become more important ( P  = 0.001). There were no significant differences in the relative importance of 16 selection criteria after the change of Step 1 to Pass/Fail. It does not appear that Step 2 CK will become more important. Although results are constrained by a 23.6% response rate, it can be a start to guiding future students through residency applications., Competing Interests: The Authors declare that there are no competing interests., (© 2023 The Author(s).)

On May 11, 2020, the Association of American Medical Colleges released recommendations discouraging in-person activities for away rotations and mandating virtual-only residency recruitment interviews. This paper focuses on how residency programs have attempted to adjust to this vastly different application cycle by using social media to reach their applicants. A total of 138 programs were identified through the Electronic Residency Application Services. The presence of Departmental/Residency program Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as well as web pages offering virtual opportunities was recorded for each program on October 30, 2020. A total of 132 social media accounts were found; the majority of which were on Twitter, while fewer were on Instagram and Facebook. All 138 pathology residency programs had websites. Sixteen (11.5%) of those advertised virtual open houses and 2 (1.4%) advertised virtual subinternships; social media were more often used for advertisement of these virtual experiences. A total of 58 open house opportunities were advertised on Twitter, 21 on Instagram, and 20 on Facebook. Innovative virtual subinternships ranging from 2 to 4 weeks were developed, but only represented 6% of the usual 126 away rotations available. Pathology programs across the country utilized websites and social media as a method of communication to interact with applicants as part of the #Path2Path in 2020 and to provide virtual opportunities in preparation for a drastically different recruitment cycle., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2021.)