Residency is about 90% what you put into it and you will be able to put a lot more into it if you're happy. I'd come out a much better resident at a county-focused ho-hum reputation residency in a place I love than four years in Boston at MGH. Figure out what you love and what will make you happiest for four years and rank accordingly.
I agree broadly with that statement, in that the most important factor in determining how good of a residency experience and how good a psychiatrist you will become, is dependent on YOU. That said you rank list should reflect which programs are the best FIT for you. Based on my experience through half of residency, these are questions I would try to ask myself to determine the fit and thus my rank list:
Happiness:
1. How important is having your friends and family around to you? If you away form them, how adaptable are you to a new culture ad social life? Moving to a new city and working long hours in a demanding job through intern year) is a reality, and people do leave programs because they may feel isolated and unsupported.
2. Can you still find activities in the new city that will rejuvenate you? How important is sunshine and outdoors and urban cities to you?
3. Can you find the right community to fit in?
Program:
1. Is the program director, associate program directors, mentors, supervisors, and unit directors supportive of residents?
2. Does the independence/hand-holding of the residency suitable for your clinical personality?
3. Are you seeking intellectual stimulation of academic centers, and want to immerse yourself in a culture that is open to new research ideas? How nerdy are you deep down?
4. How important is psychodyanmics? This seems to be me to be one of the biggest areas of variability between regions and even within academic programs. Does the residency have an affiliated psychoanalytic institute or a psychotherapy training program?
5. How hard do you want to work? Busy programs are stressful, but with higher clinical workloads are opportunities to see more diverse and sick patients, and to manage them more independently. How much do you want to be pushe to grow? The corollary is, how prone are you to burnout from work stress?
6. Are you set on a specific type of psychiatry career? If not, how diverse are you interests? If you are undifferentiated, do you want to exposed to be a lot of subspecialities?
7. How well do you interact with narcissists, and can get past your counter-transference and cherry pick their knowledge and wisdom?
8. How much does brand-name really matter to your self esteem? Do you want to be a big fish in a little pond, or a little fish in a big pond?
9. A good estimate of how strong a program is: how many suprevisors and how many hours of supervision a week do residents have in clinic? Is there outpatient clinic starting in PGY2? Another good estimate is: how many clinical faculty, and for academically-oriented folks, how many research faculty are there in the department?
I found the process of figuring out all these questions, and thus the right fit, was most helpful reflecting on my medical school and work experience, and spending the time to talk to people that knew me personally and professionally, as well as people I respected in the field. Reach out to your friends, family, seniors, residents, mentors and PDs at both your home program and programs you are applying to!