Getting into a residency is about more than class rank and board scores. PASS has all sorts of sections that can be filled up with numerous different activities. After bolstering your resume' appropriately and doing well enough in school and on the boards to get interviews, you still have to interview well. Even after getting the interview, a lot of unforeseen factors can play in to who gets what residency position, although, I highly doubt that it has anything to do with school name at this point. There is always the who you know factor, who spent time at the program, etc. Additionally, there is pure dumb luck or bad luck...every program you interview at may really like you, rank you #2 behind the guy they really, really like and it just so happens that he really, really likes them too.
To an extent, it is a crap shoot. You make yourself as attractive of a candidate as you can and hope for the best. You can make yourself an attractive candidate at any dental school in the country.
While you can ask around to see how many of the people who applied were accepted into their program of choice, I don't think the answers you get will help you much. First off, anyone can apply. You may get someone throwing their hat in the ring who really has no chance and is well aware of it. We had a few people apply for ortho with pretty low board scores and as expected, they didn't get it. Secondly, very few people who match are going to tell you that they matched into a program that they didn't want or that was towards the bottom of their list.
From Buffalo, we matched 3 ortho this year. Maybe 7 applied, but, 4 of them were not in the top 15 (of 86) WITH a 90+ board score. Some were in the top 15 without the boards and vice versa. So, we matched 3 of 3 candidates that had the numbers. As far as I know, everyone who has wanted pros thus far has gotten it. Tomorrow we will know about peds and surg, we didn't have any endo or dental anesthesia applicants this year.
Last year 6 of 7 matched surgery. The applicant that didn't match, didn't match for reasons other than interviews. He went on 8+ and to great programs around the country, including Parkland. Whether he was just unlucky or didn't interview well, we will never know. I don't know the ratios of other specialties off hand.
Those are pretty good odds. Students from Buffalo, that want to specialize and perform well tend to get into the field that they want. I suspect that this is the case at every program out there. The majority of what you need to do to bolster your application is solely on the applicant (boards, EC's, etc). The only aspect of your application that is truly institution based, is competition for your class rank. What you need to decide is just how much competition you want.
