How do you rate a match list, and how do you know how good a residency is?

[PelicanMan]

How are you supposed to know what is a good match list?

Plus how are you supposed to know what is a good residency. Now I know that there are alot of prestigious school that have good residencies but whatabout other residencies.

Now I know that there are difficult residencies to get into, so you could look at how many students in a class get into these competitive residencies but then on the other hand how do you know how many students actually wanted those residencies. Just becuase there are not alot of competitive residencies in a match list doesn't necessarily mean that it is a bad match list, because maybe not many students wanted the competitive residencies.

And as far as the percent of students who get one of their top 3 choices, from what I have seen that percentage is not that different amoung med schools.

PLEASE HELP.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

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[mpp]

I agree with all the points you made regarding the comparison of match lists. Therefore, don't place too much emphasis on match lists. They are useful, but not the end-all of choosing a medical school. If you are an excellent student, graduating from any medical school will make you competitive for any residency.

 

[tonem]

I agree 100% with mpp. How can someone who is still trying to figure out which medical school to go to be expected to know the best residency programs in every specialty. If you check out the residency forums you'll see that people on the interview trail have differing opinions on the "top" programs in their chosen specialties, and they've hopefully been doing their homework. You can certainly make generalizations. Obviously any program at JHU or Harvard is probably pretty darn good, but in emergency medicine for example, most people in the field would agree that Christiana Care or Cinncinatti are better. The average man on the street, unless they were from Delaware would say Christiana Care?

So in the end chose the medical school that feels right for you, study hard, and make your own match list in 4 years.

 

[Winged Scapula]

I must admit I was a little mystified by your post until tonem responded. I take it that you're an undergrad looking at the match list results of individual medical schools, trying to decide which one will provide you the best chances for residency match years from now.

As the others have noted, there isn't much difference amongst most schools. The top tier schools will always have a slight edge when it comes to getting their students into competitive residencies but the most important factor is YOU - your test scores, your grades, your LORs, etc. Thus when choosing a medical school don't place too much emphasis on their match list - because where people matched and into what fields may change over the years just as your interests may.

With that, this thread is moving to General Residency Issues Forum...