Applying to only top 20s?

[Psai]

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Not from a top school. Interviewed at almost all of the top programs in my field in my region. Dunno what else to tell you

 

[aldol16]

Are you sure rankings are silly? I have gotten some advice recently from a few physicians at my current job. They have all essentially said, "if you want to go into academic medicine, I think you should go to school X (one of the schools I am strongly considering)." They then proceeded to say, " if you get interviewed/accepted to schools like, Harvard, Penn, Duke, Yale, etc (aka top 10), then your decision will be much more difficult." They said that the individuals that they interview for residency and fellowship programs often come from top 20 schools and not other schools like school X (one of the schools I am also considering, which is not ranked as high). These physicians also graduated from top 10 med schools and top residency programs and are now physicians at a top hospital. So is there not any bias here? Are rankings as silly as you say? In my opinion, I think they matter depending on the kind of physician that you want to be. I'm not saying you can't do well at any school or match well, and quite frankly, getting accepted to any US Med school is an achievement, however I think there are levels to this for academic medicine.

Well, it's impossible to dissociate the individual qualities of those people from the school they ended up attending. Top-tier schools tend to accept top-tier applicants who are likely high achievers anyway and so are more likely to do well in medical school overall, which then leads to better residencies. That's why many people disagree about this. Is it the medical school they went to or the students themselves that determines their residencies?

In PhD programs, there's definitely a stigma that as a general rule of thumb, you'll never teach at an institution higher ranked than the one where you got your PhD at or did your post-doc at. I don't think it's as bad in academic medicine.

 

[Shifty B]

Not from a top school. Interviewed at almost all of the top programs in my field in my region. Dunno what else to tell you

Well, it's highly dependent on the field and the region. Some specialties (Derm, Rad Onc, Neurosurg, ENT) require every possible advantage. Some are easy to go to a top program (Neuro, Psych, FM, IM). A lot of middle ground. Same for regions. Some are hard to crack into if you are from outside (California), others are easier (Midwest).

Depends a lot on the person too. A highly motivated applicant with great grades, high step scores, and research experience will do the best, obviously. In some specialties, however, EVERYONE has that and you need every little thing on your side. Being at a top school, you're more likely to make the connection that you need. Plus, all other things being equal, the person from the better school has the advantage. Same as you go on in your training, perhaps more so because the field becomes smaller and connections become even more important.

It is naive to think that these rankings mean everything, but equally naive to dismiss them outright. Of course there is some upward mobility. Some people start out poor and make a lot of money. But the easiest way to be rich is to start out rich.

 

[Shifty B]

Once you actually have direct access to people who have trained in a field or are responsible for training people in a specialty, on top of a network of peers who had to go through the same process firsthand in the recent past, it is probably far easier to formulate opinions about residency and match. I doubt there is a "Residency 101" sit down talk in medical school but just by going through the process you begin to pick up info and hear names repeated and understand more what the differences are etc

Yes, this.

You start to hear the same names of programs over and over. You notice that more of the faculty are from certain institutions. Plus, you usually develop a mentorship relationship with 1 or more faculty who can help you wade through the differences. Even so, this data tends to be somewhat out of date, but it's a start.

To a certain extent, we are just talking about the reputation of a place. All these rankings are doing is trying to capture it in a numerical form. Is it perfect, absolutely not. But it's not just made up either.