How important is where you go to school in terms of matching in residency?

[Dr. Anonymouss]

---

Members don't see this ad.

This may get some biased responses as I posted this in the MD forum, but I would expect the same bias if I posted it in the DO forum. None the less, how important is the medical school one attends in terms of the competitiveness of their application towards matching in residency. In other words if a DO student scores a 250 on the USMLE which is well above the average for all of the competitive specialties, how would they compare to an MD counterpart with a lower USLME score. (I will let you create the score difference for yourself in order to determine when the DO student would be ranked more favorably). I am just curious to this as I constantly see MD students debating over whether to attend school A ranked 20 with full COA as opposed to school B ranked 30 with full tuition scholarship. In my opinion, the school shouldn't matter, it should be the outcome that you received from that school, in other words, the board scores should be ranked much more favorably. I am interested to hear what everyone else thinks and if this assumption actually correlates with match data.

Thanks

- Future DO student.

 

[993444]

1) Not all DO schools are created equal.
2) Depends on the specialty and program
3) Depends on the rest of your application.

 

[CidHighwind]

I’m going to be honest, it matters. Not “if everything else is equal, the person from the better school gets a small edge” matter, but “this person scored 15-20 points lower than you on Step and has many more interviews than you’ll get” matter. There’s the perpetuated myth on here that the Steps are the great equalizer, and to some extent they are. But coming from one of those NIH top 40 schools (or better) will help you even more. For whatever reason people like to have the “top 5 vs top 25” discussion on here, but at that top end the diminishing returns arent that much. You’ll see a much larger difference from a top 20 or 30 school, vs one that isn’t even ranked for example.

Residency directors themselves say that where you go for school matters. Since many people will look at a residency’s page, look at the students they took, and judge the quality of the program from that. Is that fair, or even necessarily a good measure? Debatable, but people do it. Plus, I assume that it’ll be a lot easier to get research and get published from working with a PI that cranks out papers all the time, versus having to set up your own since your own institution doesn’t have it in your area of interest.

The reality is that even getting into any medical school is tough, so if all you get is a DO acceptance, take it. But yes, if you think you’ll be interested in anything even remotely competitive, take the better school, even if it costs more.

 

[ciestar]

Well, considering some programs won’t even consider DO students at all, school absolutely does matter. As a low-tier MD myself, it starts to become more about marketing yourself. Getting and nailing those auditions is so key.

 

[Ho0v-man]

This may get some biased responses as I posted this in the MD forum, but I would expect the same bias if I posted it in the DO forum. None the less, how important is the medical school one attends in terms of the competitiveness of their application towards matching in residency. In other words if a DO student scores a 250 on the USMLE which is well above the average for all of the competitive specialties, how would they compare to an MD counterpart with a lower USLME score. (I will let you create the score difference for yourself in order to determine when the DO student would be ranked more favorably). I am just curious to this as I constantly see MD students debating over whether to attend school A ranked 20 with full COA as opposed to school B ranked 30 with full tuition scholarship. In my opinion, the school shouldn't matter, it should be the outcome that you received from that school, in other words, the board scores should be ranked much more favorably. I am interested to hear what everyone else thinks and if this assumption actually correlates with match data.

Thanks

- Future DO student.

There’s more to it than board scores. The issue is that some DO schools have subpar third year clinical training compared to MD schools. Simply put, the bar for what qualifies as an acceptable rotation at a DO school is lower. This is the best and most fair part of the discrimination that DO students face.

We also have almost zero research opportunities compared to our MD counterparts. So of course, we are on average less competitive for research-heavy programs. Again, this is totally fair.

However, the big issue is prestige. If someone sees DOs on the residency roster, they tend to question the quality of the program and rank it low or not at all. That’s what’s messed up, imo. But that’s the reality of the situation. As a result, programs are hesitant to take the hit to their prestige by a accepting a DO student.

These issues get very exaggerated on SDN. Realistically, a DO with a 220s+ step 1 will match most non surgical or non derm fields as long as they aren’t geographically restricted. But the “tier” of that program will be lower. This doesn’t always equate to quality but it can.

 

[Moko]

My thoughts:
- I agree with others that MD will open more doors than DO
- Among MD schools, school rank also matters to some extent for residency selection; however, there is unlikely to be a significant difference between a rank #20 vs #30 school (I would take the #30 school w/ full tuition scholarship barring other external factors). Compare T10 vs T50 schools, or T50 vs unranked schools, for example, and you will see a significant difference in match outcomes that cannot be explained by baseline matriculant statistics alone.

 

[Lucca]

MD vs. DO makes a very significant difference; i.e. whether or not you have any realistic chance of matching a certain specialty at all like ENT.

Beyond that, take a look at the match list threads on the MD forum from the past couple of years and draw your own conclusions – not just by looking at the number of students matching into the "most competitive" specialties, but where people match within their specialty of interest. The rly short answer is that it matters more at the places youd expect it to but as others have said the differences are more between large categories than individual schools (the exception to that being that you always have the greatest advantage at your home program; in other words, if you want to match at Harvard you're better off going to Harvard).

MD & DO - 2019 Match Lists

Post match lists here.

forums.studentdoctor.net