The same study claims that the selectivity of undergraduate institution is also a predictor of step 1 and step 2 performance, even when controlling for undergraduate GPA and MCAT score. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the USMLE and NBME were met with tremendous criticism by the medical community--including their parent organizations AMA and AAMC as well as letters and petitions from physicians and students-- for lack of flexibility and adaptability during COVID and for mishandling testing and refusing to revert step 1 scoring pass/fail before 2022. A summary of current complaints surrounding the USMLE mishandlings can be found here and include the USMLE's "failure to take responsibility," "lack of communication," "day-of cancellations," and unequal access for test takers that created "inequity," "bias," "chaos" and "harm" to students and "shortchanging their clinical experience." By not reverting to remote P/F during COVID, the USMLE is "distracting students from their medical education," said a doctor at a Standford. Because of overemphasize of Step 1, students study for months, often at the expense of classes and clinical training. These further delays will further exacerbate that problem. For the few that were able to test during COVID, many of those students reported taking a day or more off of clinical rotations to fly to their exam, only to find out their exam was cancelled day-of and had to scramble for a new date months later, meaning they would miss more months of their medical education to study for Step 1. The medical community was upset that despite the chaos, harm, and damages to the integrity of the test created by USMLE, the USME's concern was their stakeholders, not students. Despite numerous letters, petitions on change.org and the medical community's public pleas, Michael Barone, VP of NBME Licensure Programs, said that the USMLE would not consider moving up the anticipated pass/fail Step 1 scoring before 2022 because it would affect their "stakeholders" (implying that their stakeholders were residency programs, not medical students). The medical community was upset that the USMLE prioritized residency programs (who want to keep scores visible) over students and doctors (who believe score reporting should be pass/fail as originally intended). The Step scores were not designed to be used as a residency admissions metric; the scores we intended for medical licensing purposes only and have no meaning beyond pass/fail designation.