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Competitiveness at top programs
- Thread starter Handinhand
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My guess is you would still have a decent shot. Not everyone who goes into peds or top programs honors their pediatric rotation. I'd make sure you have good letters of recommendation from people who know you well, and see if anyone at your current school has connections at these other programs. Every little thing helps.
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People know rotation grades are largely arbitrary. Step scores and promising LoRs are light years more important. I'm a final-year med student and can tell you that.
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Someone from my school flat out Passed their peds clerkship and wound up at a top tier institution.
Don't sweat it, that high pass is no biggie. Everything else on paper looks like you should be competitive at the top tier programs. Unless you have a reason to, I wouldn't pin all my hopes on a PARTICULAR program--I suspect you'll get invites at a good number of "top tier" places, but why one program might invite you and another might pass largely is a guessing game. If you really have your heart set on a particular program for some reason, then certainly doing an away makes some sense as you pretty much guarantee yourself an interview by doing so.
Don't sweat it, that high pass is no biggie. Everything else on paper looks like you should be competitive at the top tier programs. Unless you have a reason to, I wouldn't pin all my hopes on a PARTICULAR program--I suspect you'll get invites at a good number of "top tier" places, but why one program might invite you and another might pass largely is a guessing game. If you really have your heart set on a particular program for some reason, then certainly doing an away makes some sense as you pretty much guarantee yourself an interview by doing so.
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My school's Pediatrics department hosts a mentoring program for medical students, and one of our residents this year told me she honored her away rotation at Colorado in addition to a great application and still didn't get an interview there. So to me it sounds like an away still isn't a slam-dunk for an interview. But thanks for asking this question, it's something I've been wondering about too since I'm getting ready to start third year and am looking at some of those same programs.
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The selection process for peds seems like a huge mystery because each program said they want "well-rounded" people, which means different things for different programs. At least for derm and stuff it's simply research and board scores. Here's a few thoughts from my interviews at the "top" programs:
Boston- huge emphasis on being social... I suppose this can be determined through clerkship evals, but my med school didn't do grades so I'm not sure. They definitely weigh the interview heavily once you make it to that point.
CHOP- board scores + research. Very academic.
Seattle- anything primary care related scores points and you have to love kayaking
Colorado- my letters of recommendation were the major focus of my interviews. lots of couples matches (the university hospital is next door so I think it's convenient for couples with different specialties. plus big houses in the area are cheap)
Baylor- everybody is really really really nice. they like nice people. southern hospitality. Letters? Evals? not sure how they judge it. Look your interviewer in the eye when you shake his/her hand and don't be afraid to use the word shucks or swell.
CHLA- real work experience before med school seemed to go a long way. Personality is also huge because half the residents live in the same building so they might take a good interviewer over a robot with a 260 who never takes out the trash.
Columbia- didn't get an interview. No ties to NYC so this made sense.
UCSF, Stanford- didn't get an interview... I'm from central CA so this was surprising and I feel is really indicative of how random the process is. CHOP and Boston interviewed me and I'm one of those "typical" california kids who seems like they'll never leave, yet two of the closest programs to my family didn't offer an interview. Therefore all I know about the bay area programs is that I didn't fit what they're looking for. No worries anyway, I ended up at my top choice.
Didn't apply to hopkins, cincinatti, northwestern.
Other random notes:
-My application was similar to OP's in terms of scores/research/other activities. I have very little general peds backround (more subspecialty oriented) which might have sunk my application in norcal. That's just speculation though.
-Didn't do any away rotations but none of my interviewers seemed to care. There were students who had done away rotations in my interview group at Boston and CHLA and everybody was saying hi to them. Seems like an advantage if you have one dream program, but probably not a negative if you don't.
-I didn't do this but other people in my class had picked their top program and then found somebody on the faculty at our school who knew the PD there to make a phone call. Connections certainly help.
-My Y chromosome was definitely working in my favor at some programs. If a residency class ends up with a lot of girls then the pendulum swings the opposite way the following year. It seems like this can happen at any program and is just good/bad luck.
-Most importantly, these are only *my* impressions. There's a very big chance that my interview day was an outlier and I'm way off. Or my interviewer just happened to open my file to that random page, which made me think it was important to the program.
Living the 4th year dream, so I'm happy to answer PM's.
Boston- huge emphasis on being social... I suppose this can be determined through clerkship evals, but my med school didn't do grades so I'm not sure. They definitely weigh the interview heavily once you make it to that point.
CHOP- board scores + research. Very academic.
Seattle- anything primary care related scores points and you have to love kayaking
Colorado- my letters of recommendation were the major focus of my interviews. lots of couples matches (the university hospital is next door so I think it's convenient for couples with different specialties. plus big houses in the area are cheap)
Baylor- everybody is really really really nice. they like nice people. southern hospitality. Letters? Evals? not sure how they judge it. Look your interviewer in the eye when you shake his/her hand and don't be afraid to use the word shucks or swell.
CHLA- real work experience before med school seemed to go a long way. Personality is also huge because half the residents live in the same building so they might take a good interviewer over a robot with a 260 who never takes out the trash.
Columbia- didn't get an interview. No ties to NYC so this made sense.
UCSF, Stanford- didn't get an interview... I'm from central CA so this was surprising and I feel is really indicative of how random the process is. CHOP and Boston interviewed me and I'm one of those "typical" california kids who seems like they'll never leave, yet two of the closest programs to my family didn't offer an interview. Therefore all I know about the bay area programs is that I didn't fit what they're looking for. No worries anyway, I ended up at my top choice.
Didn't apply to hopkins, cincinatti, northwestern.
Other random notes:
-My application was similar to OP's in terms of scores/research/other activities. I have very little general peds backround (more subspecialty oriented) which might have sunk my application in norcal. That's just speculation though.
-Didn't do any away rotations but none of my interviewers seemed to care. There were students who had done away rotations in my interview group at Boston and CHLA and everybody was saying hi to them. Seems like an advantage if you have one dream program, but probably not a negative if you don't.
-I didn't do this but other people in my class had picked their top program and then found somebody on the faculty at our school who knew the PD there to make a phone call. Connections certainly help.
-My Y chromosome was definitely working in my favor at some programs. If a residency class ends up with a lot of girls then the pendulum swings the opposite way the following year. It seems like this can happen at any program and is just good/bad luck.
-Most importantly, these are only *my* impressions. There's a very big chance that my interview day was an outlier and I'm way off. Or my interviewer just happened to open my file to that random page, which made me think it was important to the program.
Living the 4th year dream, so I'm happy to answer PM's.
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Yes, CHOP is very academic, but research is seen of as a bonus and not a necessity.
