How does a specific school contribute to an individual student's match potential?

[BicycleGuy]

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Match lists seem so arbitrary and difficult to apply to how going to a specific school will affect me. I am wondering how I can gauge a school's possible effects on my match potential. Please comment on and add to the factors I've listed below.

Some factors I've thought of:

1. Factors that affect happiness and stress, e.g. fit in a class, everything location can affect, COA, grade policy, time given to go on interviews
2. Factors that affect Step 1/2 score, e.g. dedicated study time, study resources, pre-clinical curriculum
3. Availability and strength of training for my specialty of interest during med school (how does one even evaluate this factor?)
4. Reputation and location of school

 

[theKingLT]

Match lists seem so arbitrary and difficult to apply to how going to a specific school will affect me. I am wondering how I can gauge a school's possible effects on my match potential. Please comment on and add to the factors I've listed below.

Some factors I've thought of:

1. Factors that affect happiness and stress, e.g. fit in a class, everything location can affect, COA, grade policy, time given to go on interviews
2. Factors that affect Step 1/2 score, e.g. dedicated study time, study resources, pre-clinical curriculum
3. Availability and strength of training for my specialty of interest during med school (how does one even evaluate this factor?)
4. Reputation and location of school

I would say number 3 should be more like availability of research for your specialty of interest, except for something really clinical based like EM

 

[Goro]

Match lists seem so arbitrary and difficult to apply to how going to a specific school will affect me. I am wondering how I can gauge a school's possible effects on my match potential. Please comment on and add to the factors I've listed below.

Some factors I've thought of:

1. Factors that affect happiness and stress, e.g. fit in a class, everything location can affect, COA, grade policy, time given to go on interviews
2. Factors that affect Step 1/2 score, e.g. dedicated study time, study resources, pre-clinical curriculum
3. Availability and strength of training for my specialty of interest during med school (how does one even evaluate this factor?)
4. Reputation and location of school

Medical schools are as much feeders to residency programs as UG schools are to med schools. Their grads are known products.

 

[LyMed]

This is a good list, particularly for ms1/2. Later on, LORs and phone calls mean a lot from reputable physicians, particularly in competitive specialties.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Home departments can make or break (literally)

 

[BicycleGuy]

This is a good list, particularly for ms1/2. Later on, LORs and phone calls mean a lot from reputable physicians, particularly in competitive specialties.

Home departments can make or break (literally)

Any suggestions on how to assess the strength of these factors (home dept and LOR quality) before I matriculate, or do I just hope for the best on this front?

 

[WedgeDawg]

Any suggestions on how to assess the strength of these factors (home dept and LOR quality) before I matriculate, or do I just hope for the best on this front?

What specialty are you interested in

 

[aldol16]

1. Reputation and location of school

This definitely matters in the match - just go on over to the MD forums and look at the match lists. Top schools tend to like to take students from other top schools. The "top" programs for each specialty will be different but in general, this is the case from the match lists I've seen. The "reputation" of the school is really based on how previous students from that school have done after matching so it's really a marker for how well a school is preparing/training you. Also, just know that there may be beef between certain programs where they won't take each other's students or will only very rarely take a student from that school. These are more idiosyncratic and it's more of a thing in the smaller, more competitive fields. You get a sense for these things after you get more involved in a specialty.

Any suggestions on how to assess the strength of these factors (home dept and LOR quality) before I matriculate, or do I just hope for the best on this front?

Take a look at some residency forums depending on the specialty you're interested in and look at the Doximity rankings by reputation. These are't 100% foolproof but they'll give you a sense of where the top programs are. In general, in small disciplines, if someone very well known makes a call for you, that means more than if someone who is unknown makes a call. The people who are very well known in their fields tend to be at those top programs.