How to evaluate/compare match lists among different schools?

[FFH]

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Based on what I learned here on SDN and on advices I have received from faculties, adcoms and friends in the fields: I clearly know the importance of evaluating and comparing the match lists of schools.

However I have no idea how to do this properly. I mean, there are so many factors that seemed relevant, but I don't know how much weight to give to each factor.

Please advice! Thanks so much!

 

[ridethecliche]

I think the important breakdown is to look at matches in primary care vs specialties. If the number is incredibly skewed towards primary care, then it might not be the best fit for you if you're interested in specialties. Also compare the %'s to Step 1 score.

 

[Law2Doc]

I've written many threads on why match lists are misleading to premeds. Schools offer them up because most of the time they look "good" but they know it's data you have insufficient info/tools to reasonably process.
(1) you don't know what programs are good in each field. You can't. I'm much further down the line and I'd be guessing if I told you I knew the pecking order of programs in each field other than my own. the big name med schools are really not good in everything, there's inevitably one or two fields each is actually poorly regarded or considered malignant. And as a premed you'll never know. This is all stuff you learn word of mouth from mentors plugged into the field, late in med school. And programs will get better and worse over time as their success is often tied to chairmen or PDs who my move or retire. You'd need somebody plugged in to tell you if a place is a rising star or a rotting carcass of a program,
(2) you don't actually know what the seniors at a particular program WANTED. Just what they GOT. A list might look amazing to you, but if eg it really reflects everyone's fifth choice the school did pretty poorly and people are going to be unhappy. The place where everyone got their first choice is a better launch pad than the place where everyone got their fifth choice, even if the latter list looks objectively "better" to a premed.
(3) looking at specialties vs primary care doesn't tell you enough of the story. What if a Particular class was simply more interested in primary care? What if the faculty in primary care are just very charismatic and people come out of there liking those rotations the best? what if most of the people in IM you are calling primary care are really going to do GI fellowship and be specialists? What if all the anesthesiology and radiology "matches" were really ortho and derm hopefuls who had to SOAP into the next best thing they could find? And again, this doesn't really reflect what people can get -- in most med schools the top graduate tends to go into IM or surgery, by choice, not derm or plastics. Not because they couldn't get those competitive specialties, but because it's not about getting the most competitive thing you can get -- it's about picking the career you will enjoy for the next 40 years. If eg you really like working with kids you go into peds, even if some premed is going to think you didn't push the envelope.
(4) you don't really know what field you are going into. Most med students change their minds more than once. You dont want to pick a school because you think it's an ophtho mill and then find out you hate ophtho.

I usually liken trying to evaluate match lists to coming into a movie one minute before the credits and trying to figure out what happened. How did the characters I see on the screen get there? Is this the ending they wanted? What things on their journey shaped their decisions? Are the guys I'm seeing on the screen good guys or bad guys, winners or losers? without the context that comes with either knowing all these people personally and knowing how they subjectively did, or more typically actually sitting down with a mentor in the third year of med school to know how the programs in the field you are interested in actually stack up, you don't know if this movie was a comedy, tragedy, etc. So I say put the lists aside. I know you won't listen to me because I too ignored this kind if advice and looked at them when applying. But knowing what I know now, I wouldn't bother.

 

[medic86]

I've written many threads on why match lists are misleading to premeds. Schools offer them up because most of the time they look "good" but they know it's data you have insufficient info/tools to reasonably process.
(1) you don't know what programs are good in each field. You can't. I'm much further down the line and I'd be guessing if I told you I knew the pecking order of programs in each field other than my own. the big name med schools are really not good in everything, there's inevitably one or two fields each is actually poorly regarded or considered malignant. And as a premed you'll never know. This is all stuff you learn word of mouth from mentors plugged into the field, late in med school. And programs will get better and worse over time as their success is often tied to chairmen or PDs who my move or retire. You'd need somebody plugged in to tell you if a place is a rising star or a rotting carcass of a program,
(2) you don't actually know what the seniors at a particular program WANTED. Just what they GOT. A list might look amazing to you, but if eg it really reflects everyone's fifth choice the school did pretty poorly and people are going to be unhappy. The place where everyone got their first choice is a better launch pad than the place where everyone got their fifth choice, even if the latter list looks objectively "better" to a premed.
(3) looking at specialties vs primary care doesn't tell you enough of the story. What if a Particular class was simply more interested in primary care? What if the faculty in primary care are just very charismatic and people come out of there liking those rotations the best? what if most of the people in IM you are calling primary care are really going to do GI fellowship and be specialists? What if all the anesthesiology and radiology "matches" were really ortho and derm hopefuls who had to SOAP into the next best thing they could find? And again, this doesn't really reflect what people can get -- in most med schools the top graduate tends to go into IM or surgery, by choice, not derm or plastics. Not because they couldn't get those competitive specialties, but because it's not about getting the most competitive thing you can get -- it's about picking the career you will enjoy for the next 40 years. If eg you really like working with kids you go into peds, even if some premed is going to think you didn't push the envelope.
(4) you don't really know what field you are going into. Most med students change their minds more than once. You dont want to pick a school because you think it's an ophtho mill and then find out you hate ophtho.

I usually liken trying to evaluate match lists to coming into a movie one minute before the credits and trying to figure out what happened. How did the characters I see on the screen get there? Is this the ending they wanted? What things on their journey shaped your decisions? Are the guys I'm seeing on the screen good guys or bad guys, winners or losers? without the context that comes with either knowing all these people personally and knowing how they subjectively did, or more typically actually sitting down with a mentor in the third year of med school to know how the programs in the field you are interested in actually stack up, you don't know if this movie was a comedy, tragedy, etc. So I say put the lists aside. I know you won't listen to me because I too ignored this kind if advice and looked at them when applying. But knowing what I know now, I wouldn't bother.

I wish I could like this more than once. Awesome post, Law2Doc!

 

[NickNaylor]

I've written many threads on why match lists are misleading to premeds. Schools offer them up because most of the time they look "good" but they know it's data you have insufficient info/tools to reasonably process.
(1) you don't know what programs are good in each field. You can't. I'm much further down the line and I'd be guessing if I told you I knew the pecking order of programs in each field other than my own. the big name med schools are really not good in everything, there's inevitably one or two fields each is actually poorly regarded or considered malignant. And as a premed you'll never know. This is all stuff you learn word of mouth from mentors plugged into the field, late in med school. And programs will get better and worse over time as their success is often tied to chairmen or PDs who my move or retire. You'd need somebody plugged in to tell you if a place is a rising star or a rotting carcass of a program,
(2) you don't actually know what the seniors at a particular program WANTED. Just what they GOT. A list might look amazing to you, but if eg it really reflects everyone's fifth choice the school did pretty poorly and people are going to be unhappy. The place where everyone got their first choice is a better launch pad than the place where everyone got their fifth choice, even if the latter list looks objectively "better" to a premed.
(3) looking at specialties vs primary care doesn't tell you enough of the story. What if a Particular class was simply more interested in primary care? What if the faculty in primary care are just very charismatic and people come out of there liking those rotations the best? what if most of the people in IM you are calling primary care are really going to do GI fellowship and be specialists? What if all the anesthesiology and radiology "matches" were really ortho and derm hopefuls who had to SOAP into the next best thing they could find? And again, this doesn't really reflect what people can get -- in most med schools the top graduate tends to go into IM or surgery, by choice, not derm or plastics. Not because they couldn't get those competitive specialties, but because it's not about getting the most competitive thing you can get -- it's about picking the career you will enjoy for the next 40 years. If eg you really like working with kids you go into peds, even if some premed is going to think you didn't push the envelope.
(4) you don't really know what field you are going into. Most med students change their minds more than once. You dont want to pick a school because you think it's an ophtho mill and then find out you hate ophtho.

I usually liken trying to evaluate match lists to coming into a movie one minute before the credits and trying to figure out what happened. How did the characters I see on the screen get there? Is this the ending they wanted? What things on their journey shaped your decisions? Are the guys I'm seeing on the screen good guys or bad guys, winners or losers? without the context that comes with either knowing all these people personally and knowing how they subjectively did, or more typically actually sitting down with a mentor in the third year of med school to know how the programs in the field you are interested in actually stack up, you don't know if this movie was a comedy, tragedy, etc. So I say put the lists aside. I know you won't listen to me because I too ignored this kind if advice and looked at them when applying. But knowing what I know now, I wouldn't bother.

Completely agree. Hell, I look at a match list and still don't know whether someone has matched a "good" program or not. And as an example for the OP, if you were to look at my match results on the list next year, you likely wouldn't be impressed. I applied to very few "powerhouse" programs primarily because I didn't want to go to the places those "powerhouse" programs were. The one or two places that I did interview at that pre-meds would likely be impressed by will be pretty far down my list because I just wasn't that impressed with them. So how would you interpret that data? You would see a school and probably think "WOW, that rocks" if I matched at one of those places. I would look it at as a failure and be disappointed. The program I will be ranking second is a community program that you have likely never heard of. Yet I would be extremely happy if I were to match there. Multiply this situation by how every many students are in the class and you can see why match lists are a pretty useless piece of information for you.

I think @ridethecliche's point is just about the only potentially useful piece of info you should try and get out of a list. Even that info isn't necessarily representative of a school. It's only representative of one particular class. If you can look at several years worth of match lists, then I would say you have less of an issue.

 

[Law2Doc]

I think @ridethecliche's point is just about the only potentially useful piece of info you should try and get out of a list. Even that info isn't necessarily representative of a school. It's only representative of one particular class. If you can look at several years worth of match lists, then I would say you have less of an issue.

Meh, you still don't know if the ten people each year listed who went into peds because they like peds could have gotten into more competitive specialties if they chose while the three guys who did anesthesia each year were plastics hopefuls who came up short. Or maybe everyones choosing FM at particular program because the faculty is amazing and inspiring and everyone want to be like them. The match list doesn't tell you what YOUR options could be coming from a Particular school. It doesn't even tell you what the graduating classes wanted. It shows you what they ultimately got. The rest is you just pretending you know how to fill in the gaps. Usually incorrectly because you have no frame of reference.

 

[ridethecliche]

I think looking at match lists like I described and average board scores gives you useful information. Some schools make this easier to look at than others.

I honestly think this information should be available to students though. I.e. % matching primary care and % specialty care as well as average board scores.

These data can help make educated decisions. If I'm interested in maybe doing a specialty residency, then I'm probably better off going to a school with a lower % primary care if I'm picking between two programs all else equal. If a school has like 60-70% primary care match then that means that it's pretty focused on that for whatever reason.

And yeah, I think these data make the most sense in 5 year aggregates at the very least.

 

[Law2Doc]

I think looking at match lists like I described and average board scores gives you useful information...
These data can help make educated decisions...

Odds are high you won't still think this in a few years. It's easy, and not unusual, to say these are likely important and useful when the match is still so far on the horizon. Once you actually get there you more often than not will kick yourself for thinking you had a clue. I sure did.

I have no problem with programs making these things available. I have problems with premeds using them for anything more than kindling or hamster cage lining.

And again, I made some of these same mistakes back when. So I fully expect a lot of people to ignore me just like I ignored many of my predecessors.

 

[Psai]

I think looking at match lists like I described and average board scores gives you useful information. Some schools make this easier to look at than others.

I honestly think this information should be available to students though. I.e. % matching primary care and % specialty care as well as average board scores.

These data can help make educated decisions. If I'm interested in maybe doing a specialty residency, then I'm probably better off going to a school with a lower % primary care if I'm picking between two programs all else equal. If a school has like 60-70% primary care match then that means that it's pretty focused on that for whatever reason.

And yeah, I think these data make the most sense in 5 year aggregates at the very least.

Status: Medical Student (Accepted)

 

[ridethecliche]

Odds are high you won't still think this in a few years. It's easy, and not unusual, to say these are likely important and useful when the match is still so far on the horizon. Once you actually get there you more often than not will kick yourself for thinking you had a clue. I sure did.

I have no problem with programs making these things available. I have problems with premeds using them for anything more than kindling or hamster cage lining.

If historical data shows that a school matches a TON of people in primary care then that's either a huge part of their curriculum, mission, or otherwise. I'm sure one can get a great education at these institutions, but schools that match people to more specialties overall probably have a deeper pool and higher scores to begin with.

I agree that it's hard to say anything more than that because certain peds residencies might be much harder to get into than certain ortho residencies, i.e. based on location, but if I want to go into xyz specialty, it certainly bodes well for me if the school has historical data suggesting that a lot of people end up doing that.

For instance, I'm in albany already. I have an interview invite at Rosalind Franklin. I'm not sure I want to throw 500 bucks into the wind to go and interview there. I'm looking at a bunch of match lists. Looks like RF has way more people go into specialty care even though it has no hospital so I guess it gets to rotate through good centers in chicago and the institution is well regarded in spite of the snafu a few years ago. Hm. Maybe i should go after all.

Status: Medical Student (Accepted)

Job history: Working with med students, residents, fellows, and attendings at a top ranked academic institution. Talks to them about the process and what they would look at if they were looking now. What other factors to consider, etc.

I mean, you can give a valid criticism.

People keep saying that none of this stuff matters but provide little information outside of 'go where you like'. That's bogus! Tell me why I'm wrong and give a better metric to go by.

I'm not saying this is perfect, but it's better than saying 'Yay fit!'.

 

[Law2Doc]

If historical data shows that a school matches a TON of people in primary care then that's either a huge part of their curriculum, mission, or otherwise. I'm sure one can get a great education at these institutions, but schools that match people to more specialties overall probably have a deeper pool and higher scores to begin with.

I agree that it's hard to say anything more than that because certain peds residencies might be much harder to get into than certain ortho residencies, i.e. based on location, but if I want to go into xyz specialty, it certainly bodes well for me if the school has historical data suggesting that a lot of people end up doing that.

For instance, I'm in albany already. I have an interview invite at Rosalind Franklin. I'm not sure I want to throw 500 bucks into the wind to go and interview there. I'm looking at a bunch of match lists. Looks like RF has way more people go into specialty care even though it has no hospital so I guess it gets to rotate through good centers in chicago and the institution is well regarded in spite of the snafu a few years ago. Hm. Maybe i should go after all.

But again, you are taking results and connecting the dots in a way that YOU feel is obvious, but maybe really isn't. Maybe people go into primary care because some of the faculty at their school (I won't get into specific schools) are amazing and have been for years-- that doesn't mean the ortho faculty are awful or that you wouldn't get ortho easily from there if you had the scores and you wanted it. Or maybe they have a recruitment bias for people that profess a love of primary care but in fact the couple of people that chose other things tended to actually match much better. or maybe every guy who matches into IM intends to subspecialize, so teir high primary care rate is really a high subspecialization rate. Or maybe there's just a class or two that for any host of reasons chose the path of least resistance to stay in a specific geographic region. People for the most part are selecting what they WANT to do, not the most competitive thing they can get. You just don't know. You are jumping to a conclusion that might be obvious to you, but is just as likely dead wrong.

The fact that a guy I know who had the top class rank at his school and crazy high board scores CHOSE IM over literally anything else he might have wanted really should have no bearing on whether that school is good for, say, derm. If he wanted derm he had the numbers, my bet is he would have gotten it. But you are going to simply assume he wouldn't in your shallow analysis. And guess what, there are dozens of these stories at many schools (yes "a TON" can be accounted for), a heck of a lot more than you'd think. Because again, at this stage it's not really about what you can get any more it's what you want to do for the next 45 years. Premeds think in terms of "gotta get the most competitive thing" -- first college, then med school. But then the game changes, and it's now about ones interests, finally. And for most of us, how it looks to a premed on a match list really doesn't factor into the equation. If I want to work with kids, I do peds. If Im into the inner workings of the mind, maybe I choose psych. Of maybe I do IM to get to cardiac, GI or rheum. It all looks worse on your analysis but if it's what I ENJOY it's a better choice for me than making a few more dollar as an ophthalmologist and making the primary care to specialty ratio look better for you.

 

[Psai]

Rank of the institution is irrelevant. How does that reflect on your experience? Ditto talking to older students. I've spent tons of time talking to older students and residents as a medical student. The perspective you gain from talking to people vs living things yourself is completely different. People here always talk about their 10 years as a nurse or interactions with upperclassmen as if that matters. It does make you slightly more informed but in the end, it doesn't even matter. There's pretty much no way to determine the quality of the education you will receive without going through it and there is no way to compare it against another institution as you haven't attended. You get an idea of what it's like from your own experiences and from what you hear but for you, you have no relevant experience. You're wrong because you're wrong

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/match-day-2014.1061302/
read through this thread

 

[Law2Doc]

...
People keep saying that none of this stuff matters but provide little information outside of 'go where you like'. That's bogus! Tell me why I'm wrong and give a better metric to go by.

I'm not saying this is perfect, but it's better than saying 'Yay fit!'.

I think you are trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole because you are unsatisfied with the round peg, but that doesn't mean the round peg was the wrong one.

Most US allo med schools are going to be adequate launch pads to get to wherever you want to go. The bigger half of the equation is you -- you have to work hard and study hard and score well on tests and be loved by your attendings, patients and residents. And you are going to be the same you wherever you go. So what you really want is to pick a setting where you can thrive and do well. If you are going into a field which expects research, make sure it's a place that has adequate facilities and Infrastructure. If you are the kind of guy who does best with self study, make sure you pick a Place where lecture isn't mandatory. if you'll never get any work done being close to the beach or a ski slope, choose a place without those. If everyone you met on interview day struck you as a jerk, don't go there. And so on. Lots of reasons to pick or not pick a place. The goal is to find the Place you will thrive and do well. You really truly are choosing the place that let's you do your best work, not choosing it so much for what it brings to the table. If they can make you better that's great but you'll be surprised how much this journey is going to involve you figuring out the best way force feed your brain rather than them doing it for you.

 

[WingedOx]

Don't.

 

[Narmerguy]

If historical data shows that a school matches a TON of people in primary care then that's either a huge part of their curriculum, mission, or otherwise. I'm sure one can get a great education at these institutions, but schools that match people to more specialties overall probably have a deeper pool and higher scores to begin with.

I agree that it's hard to say anything more than that because certain peds residencies might be much harder to get into than certain ortho residencies, i.e. based on location, but if I want to go into xyz specialty, it certainly bodes well for me if the school has historical data suggesting that a lot of people end up doing that.

For instance, I'm in albany already. I have an interview invite at Rosalind Franklin. I'm not sure I want to throw 500 bucks into the wind to go and interview there. I'm looking at a bunch of match lists. Looks like RF has way more people go into specialty care even though it has no hospital so I guess it gets to rotate through good centers in chicago and the institution is well regarded in spite of the snafu a few years ago. Hm. Maybe i should go after all.



Job history: Working with med students, residents, fellows, and attendings at a top ranked academic institution. Talks to them about the process and what they would look at if they were looking now. What other factors to consider, etc.

I mean, you can give a valid criticism.

People keep saying that none of this stuff matters but provide little information outside of 'go where you like'. That's bogus! Tell me why I'm wrong and give a better metric to go by.

I'm not saying this is perfect, but it's better than saying 'Yay fit!'.

L2D is really nailing this home, and I'm not sure you're understanding the point. It's not that none of it matters, it's that you don't have the decoder ring necessary to figure out how it matters. Ultimately, to make a decision on the basis of something you simply do not have the information to interpret is foolish when there are other incredibly important variables to consider when choosing a school (cost, location, curriculum, resources, etc).

I want to reiterate L2D's point that things like "primary care" vs "specialty" are misleading. The majority of people I've met who float going into IM are not interested in staying in IM, most wanted to subspecialize. This is common, but not predictable without knowing those individuals. Further, not everyone wants to go into specialties. Part of what makes my class pretty cool is that a lot of people are interested in a diverse array of stuff, so there's not a ton of overlap--only a couple people want neursurg, a handful want oncology, a few want psych, a few want to do EM, others want to do ob/gyn because they care about women's health, etc etc. People will do what they want to do and they'll try to do what it takes to make themselves competitive for it.

Give yourself some credit, and trust people that have come before you when they say: you are the captain of your ship. You can be successful coming from any school, the biggest determinant of how far you go is how far you want to go and what you make of the resources that are provided to you.

 

[Shams al Deen]

Ok I'm honestly confused by this, because to me the differences in match lists are quite apparent when looking at 'top tier' schools versus less competitive schools. I've only been looking at internal medicine matches because there's always a large enough sample of students going into IM each year. You can clearly see that top tier schools consistently match students into top IM programs (the top IM programs are basically all the big names you'd expect--idk anything about 'malignant' programs or whatever). And you can also easily see that the less competitive med schools will only have 1 or 2 kids per year matching into top IM programs.

I realize that:
1) most of this difference is due to difference in students' desires and abilities at highly ranked schools versus other schools
2) unless you're comparing schools in different categories (like top 10 versus unranked), it is very difficult to find meaningful differences in the match list

However, I do think that students in less competitive med schools are also very smart and want competitve programs, but sometimes are put at a disadvantage because they didn't go to the most well-regarded school. At the very least, match lists have shown me that going to Hopkins vs random state schools matters for more than just research.

 

[Psai]

Or maybe the kids at the top school are top students and would be wherever they were
pedigree does matter for top programs and competitive specialties. they have their pick of the litter. but it's not to say that you can't do plastics if you're not at harvard

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Ok I'm honestly confused by this, because to me the differences in match lists are quite apparent when looking at 'top tier' schools versus less competitive schools. I've only been looking at internal medicine matches because there's always a large enough sample of students going into IM each year. You can clearly see that top tier schools consistently match students into top IM programs (the top IM programs are basically all the big names you'd expect--idk anything about 'malignant' programs or whatever). And you can also easily see that the less competitive med schools will only have 1 or 2 kids per year matching into top IM programs.

I realize that:
1) most of this difference is due to difference in students' desires and abilities at highly ranked schools versus other schools
2) unless you're comparing schools in different categories (like top 10 versus unranked), it is very difficult to find meaningful differences in the match list

However, I do think that students in less competitive med schools are also very smart and want competitve programs, but sometimes are put at a disadvantage because they didn't go to the most well-regarded school. At the very least, match lists have shown me that going to Hopkins vs random state schools matters for more than just research.

IIRC, some residents have pointed out that the actual school matters a bit more for top IM and peds programs.

 

[FFH]

I've written many threads on why match lists are misleading to premeds. Schools offer them up because most of the time they look "good" but they know it's data you have insufficient info/tools to reasonably process.

(1) you don't know what programs are good in each field. You can't. I'm much further down the line and I'd be guessing if I told you I knew the pecking order of programs in each field other than my own. the big name med schools are really not good in everything, there's inevitably one or two fields each is actually poorly regarded or considered malignant. And as a premed you'll never know. This is all stuff you learn word of mouth from mentors plugged into the field, late in med school. And programs will get better and worse over time as their success is often tied to chairmen or PDs who my move or retire. You'd need somebody plugged in to tell you if a place is a rising star or a rotting carcass of a program

This is one of the key things that confronted me when I was looking at the match lists. The schools are very proud for the fact that some of their students got into really big names, but having worked at big name hospitals, I know the names don't determine the quality of the residency programs, nor the environment. I've worked in a program where the attending used to make the residents cry often with sexism and mean comments. How could me, you or anyone know enough about each and every specialty to say one match list have more people that match into great and happy programs Vs. another?

(2) you don't actually know what the seniors at a particular program WANTED. Just what they GOT. A list might look amazing to you, but if eg it really reflects everyone's fifth choice the school did pretty poorly and people are going to be unhappy. The place where everyone got their first choice is a better launch pad than the place where everyone got their fifth choice, even if the latter list looks objectively "better" to a premed.

Good point, but I've seen quite a few schools have said things like, almost all the students matched into their top choice. or top 2 choices. This is one of the few aspects that I believe that actually can be compared.

(3) looking at specialties vs primary care doesn't tell you enough of the story. What if a Particular class was simply more interested in primary care? What if the faculty in primary care are just very charismatic and people come out of there liking those rotations the best? what if most of the people in IM you are calling primary care are really going to do GI fellowship and be specialists? What if all the anesthesiology and radiology "matches" were really ortho and derm hopefuls who had to SOAP into the next best thing they could find? And again, this doesn't really reflect what people can get -- in most med schools the top graduate tends to go into IM or surgery, by choice, not derm or plastics. Not because they couldn't get those competitive specialties, but because it's not about getting the most competitive thing you can get -- it's about picking the career you will enjoy for the next 40 years. If eg you really like working with kids you go into peds, even if some premed is going to think you didn't push the envelope.

(4) you don't really know what field you are going into. Most med students change their minds more than once. You dont want to pick a school because you think it's an ophtho mill and then find out you hate ophtho.

Totally agree. Premed have no clue what they'd end up liking. Many young male premeds seem to like surgery because it sounds great, only to find out later that it's not what they want when they matured a bit. All of my current interests are not competitive. IM, EM, ObGyn and Psych.

I usually liken trying to evaluate match lists to coming into a movie one minute before the credits and trying to figure out what happened. How did the characters I see on the screen get there? Is this the ending they wanted? What things on their journey shaped their decisions? Are the guys I'm seeing on the screen good guys or bad guys, winners or losers? without the context that comes with either knowing all these people personally and knowing how they subjectively did, or more typically actually sitting down with a mentor in the third year of med school to know how the programs in the field you are interested in actually stack up, you don't know if this movie was a comedy, tragedy, etc. So I say put the lists aside. I know you won't listen to me because I too ignored this kind if advice and looked at them when applying. But knowing what I know now, I wouldn't bother.

Great analogy. The match list has not been given a lot of weight in my evaluation of schools precisely for this reason. I actually haven't really looked at them. I am very fortunate to have a few potential options that are all great in terms of cost, location, students, research and culture. I'm running out of things to compare. I asked because I remembered a couple adcom members telling me that when choosing schools: I need to "really look at the match list because that's what really matters". Of course I nod and thank them for giving me advice, but for reasons that you said, I don't know how to "really look at them"

 

[Berkboy]

What is considered a large proportion matching into primary care, that would turn a specialist-hopeful (prospectively) student away from a school? 30%? 40%? 50%? 60%?

Also, can't that be attributed to other factors, like Law2Doc suggested?

 

[FFH]

The percentage of people choosing primary care has very little bearing on individual applicants' future. This is only a logical conclusion, not an experience-derived. I am not qualified to comment in the later fashion because I'm only a "medical student-accepted"
1. because it pertains on the overall quality of the incoming students. As @Law2Doc commented, the capacity and quality of individual applicants is a constant, it might be affected by differences in the quality of one's peer, but the degree is subject to speculation.
2. because it pertains on the mission of the school. It makes more sense for community oriented schools to have more graduate choosing primary care because that's been emphasized throughout their admission process.
3.Whatever conclusion you can drew from that data is can be better drawn based on other information. If a school truly is incapable in placing the students in competitive specialty, the school should have defects in its management and operation that should be apparent when you talk to people about it.
4. It's not a telling factor among schools that are closely ranked/equally good.

 

[sunnysnow7]

I hope you don't mind if I piggyback on this thread, but is the average Step 1 score an important metric in evaluating a school? Assuming that you are comparing schools in which matriculating students have comparable GPAs and MCAT scores, does the average Step 1 score indicate the "quality" of the pre-clinical curriculum?

 

[Law2Doc]

Ok I'm honestly confused by this, because to me the differences in match lists are quite apparent when looking at 'top tier' schools versus less competitive schools. ...The top IM programs are basically all the big names you'd expect--idk anything about 'malignant' programs or whatever....

First, I'm not convinced you are on the mark that "the top IM programs are basically all the big names you'd expect". Some are. Others I'm sure you are giving undeserved credit to. What's your resource for this? Without a mentor in the field, which you would only get during third year if you are going into that field, I'm betting you are merely trying to equate the underlying med schools prestige to all of it's residency programs, which is not the case. EVERY med school system is weak in at least one specialty residency. There is no "X is great in everything." If it were that easy I'd say sure, read the match lists, you, as a soon to be med student, know all you need to know because you've heard of the big name med schools. But sorry, doesn't work that way. Although I certainly know people who choose to go to objectively weaker residencies because they hope the brand recognition of the underlying university helps them. Second, your paranthetical " idk nothing about malignant programs" is kind of my point. If you are looking at a match list and pegging something as a Great match isn't it kind of important to know that, aside from the name that for whatever reason impressed you, this place is known to be a he'll-hole that is nobodies first choice? Most of us aren't going to rank a place known to treat you poorly as our top choice just because it looks good to people outside of the loop.

 

[Law2Doc]

I hope you don't mind if I piggyback on this thread, but is the average Step 1 score an important metric in evaluating a school? Assuming that you are comparing schools in which matriculating students have comparable GPAs and MCAT scores, does the average Step 1 score indicate the "quality" of the pre-clinical curriculum?

Couple of issues. First, schools have tacitly agreed not to publish Step scores because they feel it inhibits their ability to try experimental teaching techniques, such as PBL. So there isn't really a trustworthy published source of accurate numbers and as result lots of opportunity and ways to misstate these by the places that choose to break the agreement. Second, to some extent the better scores on these tests come from two groups, the good test takers and those who get more study time. So schools that land good test takers and those places that give more time off probably do better than the average. A lot of IMGs have crazy high scores because they spend 8 months studying. Doesn't mean their programs were better than a lot of US programs whose average was closer to the US average. Third, med school is very much an individual effort. Half the people in med school don't even go to class and instead study on their own. So are you really going to score differently if you went to a different place? And is their average score going to reflect on the teaching, pull it up or down?

I'd love to say there's an easy objective thing like step score or match list you could point to and use to decide which place is "better" but honestly, ad I said above the place you feel you can thrive at and get focused and do your best work is going to be the best choice.

 

[ridethecliche]

It's actually funny to see the step scores charted for certain schools and see the dips accompany new curricula. I'd be super apprehensive to go to a school with a brand spanking new curriculum if I was the first year that was going to do it. 3rd or 4th, probably not much of an issue, but there's no way I'm going to a school that's switching everything up starting my first year if I have a choice in the matter. Obviously I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but the thought still holds.

 

[Law2Doc]

It's actually funny to see the step scores charted for certain schools and see the dips accompany new curricula. I'd be super apprehensive to go to a school with a brand spanking new curriculum if I was the first year that was going to do it. 3rd or 4th, probably not much of an issue, but there's no way I'm going to a school that's switching everything up starting my first year if I have a choice in the matter. Obviously I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but the thought still holds.

My bet is you'd still be you and score the same.

 

[sunnysnow7]

It's actually funny to see the step scores charted for certain schools and see the dips accompany new curricula. I'd be super apprehensive to go to a school with a brand spanking new curriculum if I was the first year that was going to do it. 3rd or 4th, probably not much of an issue, but there's no way I'm going to a school that's switching everything up starting my first year if I have a choice in the matter. Obviously I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but the thought still holds.

Where have you seen that data? The schools I've interviewed at only provide Step 1 scores from the last graduating class.

I would be curious to see if Step 1 scores rise (or plummet) among schools that completely overhaul the curriculum, like Vanderbilt did this year.

 

[Law2Doc]

Where have you seen that data? The schools I've interviewed at only provide Step 1 scores from the last graduating class...

Careful with this. Since it's not officially reported in any standard way, they are free to play with how they are reported, and spin things in the best light. A guy who failed and retook -- do they use his first score in the average, the retake or what? people that scored badly and left or transferred, are their scores still in there. People that took a research year -- or are on the MD - PhD path, what class do they count towards. Etc etc
I could see places getting creative with the numbers and pulling back in people with high scores who really belong in other classes, and leaving off poor stats of transferred or retakes to get to a final higher number. If there's no set standard for how to report things, creative accounting is allowed.

 

[GomersGoToGround]

Based on what I learned here on SDN and on advices I have received from faculties, adcoms and friends in the fields: I clearly know the importance of evaluating and comparing the match lists of schools.

However I have no idea how to do this properly. I mean, there are so many factors that seemed relevant, but I don't know how much weight to give to each factor.

Please advice! Thanks so much!

Interesting. Myself, among many others, have delved into countless threads explaining that pre-meds should not compare/evaluate match lists of schools.

 

[Shams al Deen]

First, I'm not convinced you are on the mark that "the top IM programs are basically all the big names you'd expect". Some are. Others I'm sure you are giving undeserved credit to. What's your resource for this? Without a mentor in the field, which you would only get during third year if you are going into that field, I'm betting you are merely trying to equate the underlying med schools prestige to all of it's residency programs, which is not the case. EVERY med school system is weak in at least one specialty residency. There is no "X is great in everything." If it were that easy I'd say sure, read the match lists, you, as a soon to be med student, know all you need to know because you've heard of the big name med schools. But sorry, doesn't work that way. Although I certainly know people who choose to go to objectively weaker residencies because they hope the brand recognition of the underlying university helps them. Second, your paranthetical " idk nothing about malignant programs" is kind of my point. If you are looking at a match list and pegging something as a Great match isn't it kind of important to know that, aside from the name that for whatever reason impressed you, this place is known to be a he'll-hole that is nobodies first choice? Most of us aren't going to rank a place known to treat you poorly as our top choice just because it looks good to people outside of the loop.

Well my source for saying that "top IM programs were all the big names you'd expect" came from: http://health.usnews.com/health-new.../doctors-name-americas-top-residency-programs

However I just read how they came up with the list. They basically just surveyed physicians who may or may not be up to date on which IM programs are good. So obviously the list is filled with all the big name med schools. I concede that this list is probably useless and is only ranking programs based on name recognition.

 

[Psai]

here is a comprehensive list of things usnews is good for:

 

[GomersGoToGround]

here is a comprehensive list of things usnews is good for:

You've got the best avatar, ever!

 

[NickNaylor]

I hope you don't mind if I piggyback on this thread, but is the average Step 1 score an important metric in evaluating a school? Assuming that you are comparing schools in which matriculating students have comparable GPAs and MCAT scores, does the average Step 1 score indicate the "quality" of the pre-clinical curriculum?

In my opinion, no. The points that @Law2Doc and @Narmerguy make with respect to your individual effort is, in my opinion, the most important driver for your step 1 performance. No matter where you go, there are going to be things you were never taught that you will have to study for step 1. No matter where you go, there will likely be questions on your standardized exam covering content that you have never even heard of. No matter where you go, you are almost certainly going to use the same prep resources. People at Harvard don't have some magical toolkit that's inaccessible to people at EVMS. It's the same books and the same qbanks. Average scores are, in my opinion, more a reflection of the student body of the school than of the school itself. This is why GPA/MCAT correlates at all with step 1 scores IMO.

At the end of the day, you're going to be sitting somewhere pounding out 8-10 hours of studying a day for several weeks. What you make of that time will dictate how well you do on the boards, not your institution.

 

[BurbyPrep89]

I didn't read this whole thread, because it started out like every other thread about match lists on SDN. Pre-meds don't know anything. Wonderful.

I'll say this:
If you know what residency you're specifically looking at, say, Internal Medicine, you can find the actual hospital ranks for this speciality (which change yearly), and look at the factors which are used in this ranking and determine which of these is actually important to you. You could end up with your own rank list.

You could look at the schools which "got" people into these specific hospitals for this specific residency program. I have "got" in quotes, because a lot of this is largely dependent on what you do as an applicant. Also, this is really just to give you an idea of whether more people who did pick this specific residency got into hospitals that are highly ranked for this specific residency. Still largely dependent on you as an applicant.

This is not rocket science. It also applies to fellowships. For instance, MSKCC is ranked number 1 in the US for cancer care. So it's not too much of a stretch to say that if you want the "best," you should come here. Best meaning you'll have huge name recognition. Of course, this list is iffy because one of the factors is hospital referrals which MD Anderson will always win at - because Texas - and the other is Magnet Nursing, which will not affect you as a fellow, but bumps a hospital up several points. By the way, the number of points allotted to each factor changed last year, so you'll need to watch these too.

But seriously, this is not "impossible to understand." And while, yes, to some extent the individual attributes and wishes of each applicant factor more into the list, it does get people thinking. And thinking is important.

IMHO.

 

[Psai]

I didn't read this whole thread, because it started out like every other thread about match lists on SDN. Pre-meds don't know anything. Wonderful.

I'll say this:
If you know what residency you're specifically looking at, say, Internal Medicine, you can find the actual hospital ranks for this speciality (which change yearly), and look at the factors which are used in this ranking and determine which of these is actually important to you. You could end up with your own rank list.

You could look at the schools which "got" people into these specific hospitals for this specific residency program. I have "got" in quotes, because a lot of this is largely dependent on what you do as an applicant. Also, this is really just to give you an idea of whether more people who did pick this specific residency got into hospitals that are highly ranked for this specific residency. Still largely dependent on you as an applicant.

This is not rocket science. It also applies to fellowships. For instance, MSKCC is ranked number 1 in the US for cancer care. So it's not too much of a stretch to say that if you want the "best," you should come here. Best meaning you'll have huge name recognition. Of course, this list is iffy because one of the factors is hospital referrals which MD Anderson will always win at - because Texas - and the other is Magnet Nursing, which will not affect you as a fellow, but bumps a hospital up several points. By the way, the number of points allotted to each factor changed last year, so you'll need to watch these too.

But seriously, this is not "impossible to understand." And while, yes, to some extent the individual attributes and wishes of each applicant factor more into the list, it does get people thinking. And thinking is important.

IMHO.

"I didn't read any of this relatively short thread which would have told me exactly why I'm wrong but like your typical premed, I will complain about people not taking my uneducated opinion seriously. I'm still going to post a novel though with the expectation that people will accord my words the same respect that I did not offer others"
Thanks for that

 

[BurbyPrep89]

"I didn't read any of this relatively short thread which would have told me exactly why I'm wrong but like your typical premed, I will complain about people not taking my uneducated opinion seriously. I'm still going to post a novel though"
Thanks for that

I'm actually not wrong. ESPECIALLY, if your reasoning is the US News. As useless as it might be for functionality on an individual basis, it is a representation of how hospitals are viewed by, at the end of the day, the lay man. The lay man is the one going to the hospitals for care. The lay man makes hospitals money. The professional world revolves around money. That is why those "big name" hospitals care about those lists. And some of the factors on those lists are actually important to patient care.

Also, I saw your unedited version lol. Less vitriol, same bias. Congratulations on getting angrier in the space of two minutes. 😉

 

[BurbyPrep89]

A) The "actual rankings" of residencies (not hospitals, which is an important difference) were just released for the first time ever, this year. The metrics used to compile these rankings have been debated ad nauseum in the specialty specific forums. Basically they are a survey response heavily biased towards academics so the rankings are a typical "prestige begets prestige" ranking, rather than a measure of training quality. The previous rankings were ranking of hospitals - largely based on things like research funding. How many RO1 grants the cardiology department has is not a metric of the quality of training of the medicine residency

B) The rankings miss a lot of important things that you only find out later down the line when you have actual mentors in the field. Like that maybe MGH is the consensus "best" general surgery residency - but if you are interested in transplant surgery they aren't considered as strong since their hospital doesn't do liver transplants. Or that one "top 10" residency program doesn't rotate at a children's hospital so your peds surgery experience isn't very good. Or that another program has largely built its reputation as a result of a dynamic PD who is actively being recruited away to another job.

C) In every field there are supposed "top" programs that come with them a heavy heavy reputation for malignancy.

D) Most applicants don't know what they want to do. Among the ones that do, at least half change their minds.



Again you're missing the important point. You know the result. Not what the applicant wanted. Who is to say that the top student in the class didn't have a spouse with a job in Ohio so they ranked your "top" programs lower than they did Ohio State.

You can't look at the result and divine the intent.

Which is why I specified that the applicant can end up with his or her own rank list. I don't believe I missed the point at all. I repeatedly mentioned the importance of the applicant's individual needs and abilities in determining where he or she ends up.

The idea of not knowing what one wants to do is great, but if anyone wants to look at a match list, I maintain that it needs to be done on the basis of a specific residency. And then evaluated based on what the applicant is actually looking at. And then compared with what the residency programs provide. For instance, Johns Hopkins might be in the "top ten" for IM, but let's say I don't want to leave the Northeast. My "top ten," will not include JH.

The idea that the above is impossible for a "pre-med" to understand is what I find ridiculous.

I also did finish by saying the list really just gets people thinking.

 

[sunnysnow7]

In my opinion, no. The points that @Law2Doc and @Narmerguy make with respect to your individual effort is, in my opinion, the most important driver for your step 1 performance. No matter where you go, there are going to be things you were never taught that you will have to study for step 1. No matter where you go, there will likely be questions on your standardized exam covering content that you have never even heard of. No matter where you go, you are almost certainly going to use the same prep resources. People at Harvard don't have some magical toolkit that's inaccessible to people at EVMS. It's the same books and the same qbanks. Average scores are, in my opinion, more a reflection of the student body of the school than of the school itself. This is why GPA/MCAT correlates at all with step 1 scores IMO.

At the end of the day, you're going to be sitting somewhere pounding out 8-10 hours of studying a day for several weeks. What you make of that time will dictate how well you do on the boards, not your institution.

Thanks, Nick.

Along those lines, do you have any thoughts about one-year versus two-yead versus 1.5-year pre-clinical curriculums with respect to Step 1?

 

[BurbyPrep89]

Like @Law2Doc I have been around long enough to know this is tilting at windmills. Every year or two there is a pre-med who thinks this. Doesn't change the fact that they are wrong, just there is little chance of convincing them of their own arrogant naivety

I suppose I could do the whole, "you don't know me or my experiences" thing, but it would be largely useless. You would still walk away thinking all "pre-meds" are ignorant.

Although...I really suppose I could make an attempt to show that those who follow this mantra are wrong...it's just that "there is little chance of convincing them of their own arrogant naivety." 🙂

 

[NickNaylor]

Thanks, Nick.

Along those lines, do you have any thoughts about one-year versus two-yead versus 1.5-year pre-clinical curriculums with respect to Step 1?

No, I don't. Strictly speaking, the shorter curricula I think necessarily require "more intensity" if only for the fact that they have to fit in the same or slightly less material into the same amount of time. I have no idea how these different schemes affect step 1 scores; TBH, I wouldn't think of these designs in that way. In my mind, what would be more important is how much dedicated study time you get. Many people will start studying concurrently with classes, but for my money I'd much rather prefer having 5 vs. 2 weeks of dedicated studying.

I don't think the design of the curriculum would make much of a difference one way or another. If they did, particularly in a negative way, I imagine you would see schools performing an about-face after switching to the shorter pre-clinical curricula. Instead, the exact opposite seems to be happening, with more and more schools considering or moving toward this kind of structure. I think there's a lot to be said to have an additional 6-12 months available to pursue electives, dedicate to research, etc. - even if there was a slight downward trend in terms of step 1 scores. Again, though, I don't know whether or not that last point is true.

 

[NickNaylor]

I suppose I could do the whole, "you don't know me or my experiences" thing, but it would be largely useless. You would still walk away thinking all "pre-meds" are ignorant.

Although...I really suppose I could make an attempt to show that those who follow this mantra are wrong...it's just that "there is little chance of convincing them of their own arrogant naivety." 🙂

You aren't the first person to walk down this path. Really it's just arrogance; you think you understand things about which you actually know very little. By the way, no one's trying to put you down because of it. We were all in your shoes at one point; like @Law2Doc, I also naively ignored the advice of others and mistakenly thought I knew better. Would you be offended if someone told you that a tenured professor knows more than you about the intricacies of an academic career and a whole host of other things about the profession? Of course not. What's the difference here?

At the end of the day, it's a futile point. You're gunna believe what you're gunna believe. Just be sure to report back in a couple of years and let us know how wrong you were. You won't, of course, but we'll celebrate the quiet victory nonetheless. Medicine is very much an experiential vocation. Your background, whatever it may be, is pretty irrelevant. It's highly unlikely that it's going to make you any more learned than people that have actually gone through the process themselves. In contrast, your accomplishments thus far are limited to getting accepted to medical school.

Again, this isn't meant to put you down - it's just illustrating the gulf of experience that separates you and those you're arguing with. You shouldn't be so quick to disregard that.

 

[BurbyPrep89]

Ok, let's play a game.

Let's say you have correctly identified the "top 10" programs in internal medicine. Our your "personal" top 10 (you haven't correctly identified these programs with anything approaching the same level of reliability that a 4th year student would, but let's skip that part of the conversation).

You are comparing two schools.

Each school had 5 students match into internal medicine.

School A had 4 students match into your desirable list of programs.

School B had only 1 student match into your desirable list.

Which school is better? Why?

Trick question; it doesn't matter, unless I happen to be any one of those students. 😉

It would however make me wonder whether there are factors in one school that make students either more interested in or more desirable to a program. A nice thinking point. Thinking is such fun.

 

[BurbyPrep89]

You aren't the first person to walk down this path. Really it's just arrogance; you think you understand things about which you actually know very little. By the way, no one's trying to put you down because of it. We were all in your shoes at one point; like @Law2Doc, I also naively ignored the advice of others and mistakenly thought I knew better. Would you be offended if someone told you that a tenured professor knows more than you about the intricacies of an academic career and a whole host of other things about the profession? Of course not. What's the difference here?

At the end of the day, it's a futile point. You're gunna believe what you're gunna believe. Just be sure to report back in a couple of years and let us know how wrong you were. You won't, of course, but we'll celebrate the quiet victory nonetheless. Medicine is very much an experiential vocation. Your background, whatever it may be, is pretty irrelevant. It's highly unlikely that it's going to make you any more learned than people that have actually gone through the process themselves. In contrast, your accomplishments thus far are limited to getting accepted to medical school.

Again, this isn't meant to put you down - it's just illustrating the gulf of experience that separates you and those you're arguing with. You shouldn't be so quick to disregard that.

Well I suppose...challenge accepted?

Just to clarify, the argument here, is that a pre-med cannot comprehend that different people want different things and a match list is the result of these wants and the wants of the various programs...er matching...?

 

[NickNaylor]

Well I suppose...challenge accepted?

Just to clarify, the argument here, is that a pre-med cannot comprehend that different people want different things and a match list is the result of these wants and the wants of the various programs...er matching...?

The argument is that using a match list to choose a school should be pretty near the bottom in terms of factors that you should consider, and the typical pre-meds that attempt to use this data to drive a decision 1) don't know how to interpret the data and 2) are in a completely different phase in their life and likely won't accept or very casually dismiss things that play a huge role in coming up with a rank list beyond "I want to go to the best program I can possibly get into."

 

[BurbyPrep89]

The argument is that using a match list to choose a school should be pretty near the bottom in terms of factors that you should consider, and the typical pre-meds that attempt to use this data to drive a decision 1) don't know how to interpret the data and 2) are in a completely different phase in their life and likely won't accept or very casually dismiss things that play a huge role in coming up with a rank list beyond "I want to go to the best program I can possibly get into."

I see.

I don't believe I have ever said that anyone should ever use a match list to choose a medical school. I'm simply explaining that match lists are not the great mysteries of the universe, and that the general reason of how they come about is not some undefinable concept, impossible for a "pre-med" to understand.

 

[NickNaylor]

I see.

I don't believe I have ever said that anyone should ever use a match list to choose a medical school. I'm simply explaining that match lists are not the great mysteries of the universe, and that the general reason of how they come about is not some undefinable concept, impossible for a "pre-med" to understand.

But then what's the point? If you do, in fact, understand how they come about, then you would understand their complete lack of utility for anyone. So why are we having the discussion?

 

[BurbyPrep89]

But then what's the point? If you do, in fact, understand how they come about, then you would understand their complete lack of utility for anyone. So why are we having the discussion?

Because. Because I understand this. And I am a pre-med. And, you, all of you, should not make blanket statements about groups of people. Because high horses are for fictional characters and in the real world people don't fall into neat categories.

 

[NickNaylor]

Because. Because I understand this. And I am a pre-med. And, you, all of you, should not make blanket statements about groups of people. Because high horses are for fictional characters and in the real world people don't fall into neat categories.

Then what was all that nonsense you included in your first post in this thread? You claim to not fit the mold but, alas, you fit the mold.

 

[iniquus]

Your premed momma is so fat, she can't jump to a conclusion...about these match lists.

 

[BurbyPrep89]

Then what was all that nonsense you included in your first post in this thread? You claim to not fit the mold but, alas, you fit the mold.

The mold of...

The fact that the match list won't help anyone pick a medical school, doesn't change the fact that medical students will eventually have to make their own "lists" of residency programs.

What factors are included in making this list are subject to changes, but that there are factors and that some of those are already included in the - oh my God I'm actually pulling this - USNWR is not nonsense.

And just FYI, prestige isn't a factor that only "pre-meds" consider. Unless you're implying money is as well.