Eh, I agree and disagree. I would only give my school credit for preparing me to do well on Step 1, which is obviously a component of matching something competitive (so in that sense I agree with you). However, 3rd/4th year are all you. You make the connections, you prepare yourself for all boards after Step 1, you seek out mentors (my school really only knows about the AOA match and nearly nothing about the ACGME match), etc. My school is almost totally disengaged 3rd/4th year which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it forces the students to do more work, which also isn't a bad thing. The only reason I bring this up is because I think student>>school when it comes to matching ACGME (AOA is a little different).
Also, in the ACGME world, I don't think one program I interviewed at had heard of my school and it is definitely one of the more established DO schools. My point is, school name doesn't carry any weight for ACGME residencies like Yale, Harvard, Wash U, etc. More than likely, they have never heard of it, which again is why I don't think where you go to school has much to do with a match list. Even if you look at newer DO schools (some of which I've probably never even heard of), there is going to be an outlier that is an awesome match. Can we credit the school for that? Partly, but I would argue the student is by far the more important factor. Every school has years with varying degrees of match list "awesomeness". I'm sure there are times when you can look at Harvard's or Yale's list and say that you aren't that impressed.
Like I said, I will agree that the school is partly responsible for a match list. However, I would never advise a pre-med to look at a match list to help determine where they are going. It really doesn't matter. Go to whatever school, do your best, and accomplish whatever you want. I'm really only saying this from an ACGME side of things; maybe you can argue that it's different for AOA, but that isn't my point.
