anyone have info on these 2 programs? how hard is it to match at these places, are they top10? quality of faculty, quality of teaching, size of dept, # of spots/yr, call schedule, preference to md/phds, etc. thanks

*edit*: btw, stanford ophthy isn't even ranked on the usnews.com best eye dept list (up to #19). Is stanford eye really not great or do they not release their stats or something. I was surprised that ucsf's ranking was only 14 too.

i was actually wondering about these programs too.
how much more competitve are california programs in general?

I have a friend/former roommate who is a PGY-4 at Jules-Stein and he said that one real drawback was that out of state persons had a real disadvantage at least at UCLA. Although he is from Texas and it obviously worked out fine for him. How true the bias is...who knows? But I know that I had one friend this year that had some great interviews (Duke, Wilmer, Michigan, etc.) but was never invited to interview west of Utah.

my two cents worth....

yeah, Baylor eye is right about out of state applicants being at a disadvantage for california schools. It's actually the UC schools. It's because since it's a public university, it is intended more for CA residents rather than out of state people. Usually, for out of state applicants, their standards are higher. I'm a undergrad right now but I'm sure it's still the same for its med school since it's at the UC still. But when I was checking out the requirements for applicants, the out of state people have to have a higher gpa and test score, which I think is unfair.

I am curious about what people's thoughts are with these two programs. I hear UCSF is a small but good program overcoming little obstacles here and there. I haven't heard a peep about Stanford. Is it just a name...or is it a really strong program?

Stanford is not a top tier ophtho program. No reputable faculty member outside of stanford would tell you that their program is on par with UCSF, UCLA, or USC, which are all top 10 programs.

Like Yale, in the case of ophtho, Stanford's overall reputation as a top academic center does not carry over to the quality of the ophtho program.

That being said, if you want to be in california and don't mind the extremely high cost of living in Palo Alto, I'm sure Stanford would provide perfectly good training for most people planning on a private practice career.