Ryan Kelsch contributed to this post.
A great number of DO students take both the USMLE and COMLEX in hopes of broadening their residency options. Others only take the COMLEX, and wonder how they stack up to their USMLE-taking brethren. Program directors and applicants alike want a quick and easy conversion. The two tests are distinct, the scoring algorithms for each are different, and the cohorts examined are dissimilar, but if one were to try to compare apples to oranges, this is how I would do it: