How Much Weight Should a Match List Carry?

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LurkerLurker

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I apologize if I'm posting in the wrong area, but thought that current medical students and allopathic grads might be able to offer more insight than my fellow pre-meds.

So I've recently been accepted to a couple different medical schools, and I'll preface this entire thing by saying I fully realize there are worse problems to have and I'm very grateful to be in this position.

-school 1 is ranked in the 60s for NIH funding and school 2 is ranked in the 80s. From what I've read this difference probably doesn't mean a ton to me as a medical student, right?

-school 1 I'm OOS at a state school and will pay OOS tuition all 4 years (about 50k). School 2 is my state school (under 20k). Cost of living is similar for both.

Obviously financially school 2 knocks it out of the park. But here's my conundrum- I'm really interested in either ortho or derm. I recognize that these are both very competitive specialties and that I'll need to work my tail off and kill my steps to have a shot at either one and that a lot of this comes down to me and the work I put in.

But, school 1 has a pretty good match list in this regard. Last year around 5-6 matches to derm and 4-5 to ortho out of a class of 115ish. School 2, on the other hand, has a VERY primary care focused match list with almost everyone going to family medicine or IM (2 went ortho last year, 0 went derm- similar class size of 120).

How should I interpret this as an incoming medical student? I have no firm idea that I'll still want to do either ortho or derm after being exposed to more, and there is plenty with IM or general surgery that I'd be very happy doing, I'm sure. Nonetheless, i don't want to be at any disadvantage. Should I view the match list as a big red flag that says I'm going to be fighting hard if I don't want to do primary care (current students at school 2 told me they did feel supported for whatever specialty they chose) or do these things tend to more reflect what people at the schools really want to do?

I liked school 1 a bit more in general, but I'm sure I would REALLY like not being 500k in debt after residency as long as I'm not less likely to get to do what I really want to do.

Thank you all so much for reading what turned into a rather long post. I truly value the opinion and insight of many of the SDN members here.
 
School 2

You wont be at a significant enough disadvantage at school two to eat the difference in debt. Just get involved in research in the subject area and make connections while killing grades and steps. But likely your desire for derm/ortho will change anyways.
 
LurkerLurker said:
[-school A mid tier vs. school B mid tier
-school A 200k tuition/4yr vs. school B 80k/4yr]

But, school 1 has a pretty good match list in this regard. Last year around 5-6 matches to derm and 4-5 to ortho out of a class of 115ish. School 2, on the other hand, has a VERY primary care focused match list with almost everyone going to family medicine or IM (2 went ortho last year, 0 went derm- similar class size of 120). ...
Should I view the match list as a big red flag that says I'm going to be fighting hard if I don't want to do primary care (current students at school 2 told me they did feel supported for whatever specialty they chose) or do these things tend to more reflect what people at the schools really want to do?
Click to expand...
Similarly ranked schools, though one is significantly cheaper. If this was a question between a top 10 vs top 100 school, pursuing the more expensive option may be reasonable depending on who you ask and what your priorities are; however, this is not one of those examples.

Match lists often reflect what students want to do vs. what they can do. It's likely that school B has a very strong primary care mission and does a great job of recruiting and retaining students who share that mindset. Something to look at is whether School B has a home ortho and derm department for you to do research in. Something else to keep in mind is that many people starting out thinking derm, ortho, optho etc. end up pursing less competitive specialties when they learn of their STEP 1 scores and clerkship grades, or decide that another field is a better fit from them come application time. Best of luck
 
Moko said:
Similarly ranked schools, though one is significantly cheaper. If this was a question between a top 10 vs top 100 school, pursuing the more expensive option may be reasonable depending on who you ask and what your priorities are; however, this is not one of those examples.

Match lists often reflect what students want to do vs. what they can do. It's likely that school B has a very strong primary care mission and does a great job of recruiting and retaining students who share that mindset. Something to look at is whether School B has a home ortho and derm department for you to do research in. Something else to keep in mind is that many people starting out thinking derm, ortho, optho etc. end up pursing less competitive specialties when they learn of their STEP 1 scores and clerkship grades, or decide that another field is a better fit from them come application time. Best of luck
Click to expand...


Thank you so much for the response (everyone else as well!). This is really what I was wondering- whether to interpret that list as "most of the students here wanted to do primary care" or "most of the student where weren't competitive applicants outside of primary care." They do have a very strong primary care recruiting focus so that could definitely account for all of it. They do also have a home derm and ortho depts (I've actually done some research with derm here already).

This really does help a ton everyone, thank you. I guess my biggest concern now that I actually get a choice is not limiting myself. If I do, for any number of reasons, decide a primary care type residency is more my fit I guess I'm actually probably less limited at school B knowing I can actually pay off the debt lol.
 
WingedOx said:
this matters way more than any match list unless mommy and daddy are cutting the check.
Click to expand...

Boy would that be nice but I don't think my parents would be done laughing before I finished med school if I even asked, lol. I'm pretty much non-trad and supported myself through UG and will be through med school as well.

Actually talked to a recruiter and considered the HPSP route, but sounds like actually getting into residency and not becoming a GMO is a crap shoot.
 
LurkerLurker said:
This is really what I was wondering- whether to interpret that list as "most of the students here wanted to do primary care" or "most of the student where weren't competitive applicants outside of primary care." They do have a very strong primary care recruiting focus so that could definitely account for all of it.
Click to expand...
I'd vote for the former (i.e. school B attracts a self-selecting bunch). As mentioned, I also suspect that school B has excellent primary care mentors and does a great job at exposing their students to primary care, both of which don't hurt in attracting students to those fields 😉.
 
Go to the school that gets you ready for Step 1.

Implicitly I am cautioning you against school 2. Why? PC-focused schools often have a very high bull**** burden (tedious humanities in medicine curriculum, etc.). All of this will eat in your stamina and time.
 
Premed questions go in the premed section
Match list questions have been asked a million times
 
Moko said:
Match lists often reflect what students want to do vs. what they can do.
Click to expand...

An excellent point to keep in mind. Even if you were gung-ho for ortho/derm, seeing only 2 people match in one year isn't something that should weigh too heavily on your mind. On the other hand, if they only matched 2 people into ortho or derm over the course of 5-10 matches, that would be far more concerning.

Since you said you're not 100% on what area you want, I agree with everyone else that option B seems like the better choice unless you don't care about your financial freedom at all.
 
Less debt gives you more options as you figure out what you enjoy in a few years. It is tougher to love general peds if you are drowning in 500k of loans.
 
Match lists should carry zero weight - nothing, zilch, nada...you get the point.

As has been pointed out, you don't know the motivations. And there are many, many motivations that arise during the match. You don't know that the student who is ranked in the top 10, is AOA, has already published in CHEST and has a 260+ Step 1 score has always wanted to be a pediatric cardiologist and has a husband who runs his family's business that pretty much requires him to stay in the area (true story). You only see that someone matched into pediatrics at their home institution (which actually has a remarkable division of pediatric cardiology) which doesn't seem that exciting. Similarly, you don't know that the student who matched into the community surgery program in a sizable but pretty unglamorous location knows he is going to back to his hometown to take over his father's surgery practice once he's done (true story), he wants to go some place that will let him cut and cut often with no fellows taking the good cases. Said program has the right case volume and the right educational experience and supervision he feels he needs. Those types of stories are not uncommon, but end up causing pre-meds to think a school isn't very good when they clearly delivered the students towards their intended career path.

Simply put, the data you want - how many students got into one of the top three programs on their rank list - doesn't get reported (maybe a rare school).

Don't use match lists to decide.
 
repititionition said:
Go to the school that gets you ready for Step 1.
.
Click to expand...

And ultimately this is really what my dilima arose from, but looking more into it today it looks like they both have pretty similar step 1 averages (that are right around the national average) and pass rates.

I also, earlier today, found out a friend of my wife from UG who went to our state school (school 2) is doing ortho at Vanderbilt right now and he seemed to feel like he got very well prepared to match there.

I really do appreciate everyone on here offering their insight! It's great that we have a platform for discussion like this.

I'm tentatively saying school 2.. As someone pointed out, maybe I get in and realize peds is my calling. That's an easier decision to make if it won't mean working into my late 70s to repay loans.
 
BigRedBeta said:
Match lists should carry zero weight - nothing, zilch, nada...you get the point.

As has been pointed out, you don't know the motivations. And there are many, many motivations that arise during the match. You don't know that the student who is ranked in the top 10, is AOA, has already published in CHEST and has a 260+ Step 1 score has always wanted to be a pediatric cardiologist and has a husband who runs his family's business that pretty much requires him to stay in the area (true story). You only see that someone matched into pediatrics at their home institution (which actually has a remarkable division of pediatric cardiology) which doesn't seem that exciting. Similarly, you don't know that the student who matched into the community surgery program in a sizable but pretty unglamorous location knows he is going to back to his hometown to take over his father's surgery practice once he's done (true story), he wants to go some place that will let him cut and cut often with no fellows taking the good cases. Said program has the right case volume and the right educational experience and supervision he feels he needs. Those types of stories are not uncommon, but end up causing pre-meds to think a school isn't very good when they clearly delivered the students towards their intended career path.

Simply put, the data you want - how many students got into one of the top three programs on their rank list - doesn't get reported (maybe a rare school).

Don't use match lists to decide.
Click to expand...

After seeing this, I'm not impressed by a publication in chest
http://journal.publications.chestnet.org/article.aspx?articleid=2480384
 
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LurkerLurker said:
Actually talked to a recruiter and considered the HPSP route, but sounds like actually getting into residency and not becoming a GMO is a crap shoot.
Click to expand...

Depends on the specialty and branch of service. Navy tends to send most people to GMO years, while Army and Air Force tend to keep them through. There's also a possibility of a civilian match (I know two Air Force people my year who were granted a deferral for civilian match). Ortho and Derm, yeah, you'd probably have to do some GMO time. But if halfway through Med school you decide Peds, look into it again if military is something you're interested in (don't just do it for the money).
 
Offhand, I'd go with school 2 for the cost, but also I think it would be easier to justify going to that school as your top pick since it's in state. Hypothetically, you could have gotten into a better school, but chose the state school. If you go to school #1, it's kind of obvious that you didn't get in anywhere higher. Not that it will matter, but that's how I'd look at your application at first glance.
 
BigRedBeta said:
Riiight...it only has an Impact Factor of 7.4, one of the most widely cited journals in all of medicine, and she was a medical student who didn't take any time off to take part in this research...
Click to expand...

Who is a medical student?
 
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It was a joke, I know about chest lol. I am familiar with medical students publishing as I am a medical student. Also lots of people publish without taking time off but a pub in chest is definitely impressive
 
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