How realistic is a competitive residency from a low tier school like Drexel?

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Wobbler

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I’ll be matriculating this summer and I want to know how realistic this is. I know the whole “anyone can go anywhere if they work hard enough” spiel. But I want to know if it’s a realistic mindset to think this can happen or is it just the outliers who belonged there in the first place and landed at low tier schools by accident?

Thanks in advance!🙂
 
Well matching IM at MGH or Hopkins isn’t out of the question but you’ll definitely have to stand out with AOA, honors, pubs ect.
 
What about matching into plastic surgery or derm residency at Johns hopkins or UCSF
Just look at Drexel match list. Residency Match - College of Medicine
Places include:
  • NYU School Of Medicine - N.Y. (2)
  • Stanford University Programs - Calif.
  • Duke University Medical Center - N.C.
  • Yale New Haven Hospital - Conn.
  • Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education - Minn.
  • University of Chicago Medical Center - Ill
 
if you're a competitive applicant, you're a competitive applicant regardless of where you did your medical school. While some borderline applicants might get the slight edge due to their school prestige, plenty still don't match competitive specialties from those schools as well. If you put in the work and you do well, you can match into a competitive specialty somewhere in the country. I still wouldn't bank of trying to only do a specific region/hospital though. Do away rotations and show your face/work ethic. That will help your chances more than any particular school name will.
 
I am a Drexel grad. It is definitely possible. Not easy, but possible. The people in my class that went to top programs shined in many ways: on exams, rotations, research, and extracurriculars, AOA, not to mention MOST of them I remember being cool people.

Top is also subjective and varies by specialty. For example, a match in Ophtho at Miami or Jeff is like matching at Johns Hopkins or MGH for medicine in terms of prestige. and people look for different things in residency. Someone who was a great student in my class really wanted to do rural family medicine. He matched at a “nowhere” program and was soooo happy but to an outsider it looks like a “bad match”.

Once you are at Drexel, you get what you put into it. Although hahnemann is now gone, I do not think that will change a Drexel MS4’s ability to match to top places, you just might have to get more creative with your networking.

good luck!
 
Honestly, there are many many threads on iterations of this question and they've all answered this question to death. At this point, there's nothing you can do about it because you're already set to matriculate and so there's no use worrying about it now. Best to put your best foot forward. But here's the longer answer.

Nobody on here likes to acknowledge that medicine isn't really a meritocracy. It is up to a certain point but then it depends on the same factors that other occupations and professions depend on, i.e. interpersonal skills. Which is code for networking and who you know. So let's break this down. First, I have to write the disclaimer that this is specialty-specific. If you're talking about specialties that are competitive or top academic programs in a certain specialty, then this applies. If you're talking about specialties that are not competitive, then this will not apply so much. Okay. So I split the advantage of medical school into categories - direct advantages and indirect advantages.

Let's start with direct advantages. This one is easier. A direct advantage is an advantage that is directly based on someone seeing your school name. In simpler terms, it's prestige. Prestige matters. You can see this from looking at any match list from the top schools. They tend to send their students to other top schools. Yes, part of it is that these students were all high-achieving in the first place and their advantage was just compounded by going to that school, but anybody who tells you that prestige doesn't matter is lying to you. That isn't to say it's the end all be all though. It's not. Think of it as a ladder. You're trying to get that competitive residency that you want. Being from a top school means you start off higher on the ladder. If you're from a not-top school, you're still on the ladder. You're just lower down. Doesn't mean that you can't make it. It just means that it's harder. But with hard work, it's possible.

Now that brings us to indirect advantages. These are things that are available to you during medical school that help you move up that ladder. People at top schools also have an advantage when it comes to this. There are more research opportunities at top schools and world-renowned faculty. You will likely be doing research with someone who is well known in the field, or at least you will meet them/work with them on rotations. This stuff matters for the competitive specialties. They're small specialties where somebody making a call for you can make a huge difference - even more of a difference than test scores. Simply put, there are just simply more opportunities, research and otherwise. At schools lower down, you as a student have to seek out those opportunities and be proactive. Again, it doesn't mean you can't get to the top rung with what you have. But you have to maximize what you have.
 
I’ll be matriculating this summer and I want to know how realistic this is. I know the whole “anyone can go anywhere if they work hard enough” spiel. But I want to know if it’s a realistic mindset to think this can happen or is it just the outliers who belonged there in the first place and landed at low tier schools by accident?

Thanks in advance!🙂

The 260 on STEP goes where they want to go for the most part (assuming they're not a tool). Is it a little easier Ivy vs non-Ivy? Sure. But you make your own destiny for the most part. It tends to be the middle and left side of the bell curve at lower-ranked schools that has more difficulties. Unlike law school, it's not the top 20 and then everybody else. Drexel is still an MD school.

David D, MD - USMLE and MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors
 
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