How to read a match list??

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I am trying to decide between medical schools for the coming year, and most of the schools I interviewed at gave me a matchlist. However, I have no clue how to interpret them. What makes a good match list? I know schools that have students matching into "competative" specialities is a factor, but what about the reputation of different progams withhin a specific speciality? Where can I go to find out what the competative programs are? I figurd sine some of you are applying for residencies right now you might know. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[deleted77919]

Interpreting a match list is difficult for a premedical student, I wouldn't put much emphasis on them. It's just too tough to know what the best programs in every specialty are. Furthermore many students chose residencies based on family and other considerations besides just prestige.

As far as quality of residency programs, most of this seems to get passed around by word of mouth. So once you are interested in a particular specialty you can start finding out about different programs. It's tough to find out about all of them and then apply that data to a match list you received on interview day.

 

[soeagerun2or]

Look for names like Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard (Brigham Women's, Boston Children's, Mass General), Yale, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, Washington University, UCSF, Cedars Sinai, U of Penn, New York Presbyterian, Case Western, Duke, Stanford and so on.

 

[deleted109597]

Or, alternatively, look for plastics, derm, ENT, and ortho, because those are competitive even at places without the names.

 

[DoctorFunk]

Or, alternatively, look for plastics, derm, ENT, and ortho, because those are competitive even at places without the names.

But you always need to keep in mind that when looking at the match list for only a single year there is a chance that no students in that class were interested in specialties like Derm, Plastics, or Neursurg.

 

[deleted109597]

But you always need to keep in mind that when looking at the match list for only a single year there is a chance that no students in that class were interested in specialties like Derm, Plastics, or Neursurg.

I've never seen an entire class that didn't have at least one of those. Even places with class sizes in the 50s. That being said, an off year can destroy any match list. They changed the format of teaching at my school some 4 years back, and because of that a very large percentage of them failed Step I, and the average was hovering around 200. Now, all of them ended up somewhere, but that match list was not stellar by any stretch of the imagination. So, to really see how a school does, you need to see a run of them.

 

[dilated]

I've never seen an entire class that didn't have at least one of those. Even places with class sizes in the 50s. That being said, an off year can destroy any match list. They changed the format of teaching at my school some 4 years back, and because of that a very large percentage of them failed Step I, and the average was hovering around 200. Now, all of them ended up somewhere, but that match list was not stellar by any stretch of the imagination. So, to really see how a school does, you need to see a run of them.

!!
Seriously? Nobody noticed that the curriculum was veering wildly off course? And that people were doing horribly on their Step prep? That's crazy, I always figured all the "new curriculum" stuff was window dressing.

 

[Green Arrow]

Thanks' for all of the responses. So, a good rule of thumb is to look for placements at "Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard (Brigham Women's, Boston Children's, Mass General), Yale, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, Washington University, UCSF, Cedars Sinai, U of Penn, New York Presbyterian, Case Western, Duke, Stanford and so on" and for placements in plastic surgery, ENT, Ortho, and dermatology. That definately clears things up a bit.

 

[soeagerun2or]

Thanks' for all of the responses. So, a good rule of thumb is to look for placements at "Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard (Brigham Women's, Boston Children's, Mass General), Yale, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, Washington University, UCSF, Cedars Sinai, U of Penn, New York Presbyterian, Case Western, Duke, Stanford and so on" and for placements in plastic surgery, ENT, Ortho, and dermatology. That definately clears things up a bit.

That is the rule. The programs I listed are exceptional overall, the fields listed are competative. If matched at the programs in the fields I listed double bonus!

 

[AmoryBlaine]

Another thing to remember with Match lists is that various fields tend to swing back and forth in # of students year to year. I know that a few years ago my school sent like 15% of the 4th years to Ortho and the next year only 4-5 people did it.

I wouldn't use a Match list to help you decide where to go to med school. For many fields the best programs aren't at the ivory towers...

 

[Samoa]

Perhaps we could give the OP an idea of what programs are good in each field, but aren't at one of those schools. I'll start with what I know, since my class is interviewing right now. Others please add any info you have

Peds:
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Cincinnati Childrens
Rainbow Babies and Childrens Hospital
Seattle Childrens
Baylor College of Medicine (Texas Childrens)

Derm:
anywhere but the home school (though if lots of people are matching and a couple of them match at home, that's OK)

Neurology:
Partners (which is actually MGH/Brigham)
Beth Israel
Emory
UVA
U. Rochester
others?

IM:
generally the big names

Optho:
Bascom Palmer
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Doheny

Ortho:

Neurosurg (generally NOT the big name schools):
Barrow Neurological Institute
USC
Cleveland Clinic
University of Washington
Baylor
Of the big name schools--UCSF, Michigan, Duke (Hopkins & Columbia known for taking their own, so unlikely to see on any other school's list)

Surgery (in addition to the big names):
Cincinnati
UAB
Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
Emory
Harbor-UCLA
NYU
Colorado
UVA

 

[Wizard of Oz]

If you wanna know how to interpret a list, just ask the school. They'll spin it for you in what ever direction makes it look best to them. Favorite comment, "80% of our students got their first or second choice." (Fine print: 80% of our students wanted to stay at the same school and do primary care.)

I'll amend Samoa a little bit. If you are interested in ped's, neurology, IM, or family med, you will not have a hard time matching in most parts of the country if you graduate from a U.S. allo school. So in those cases, I think that your match list is really going to reflect more about where the students wanted to go rather than whether or not they were competative.

Interpreting a match list is difficult for a premedical student, I wouldn't put much emphasis on them.

I disagree with this statement. I placed significant emphasis on them during interviews because I believe it is one of the few objective measures of school quality in which all of the schools don't give you the same answer (percentage of students matching high on their list, percentage who pass boards the first time, low atttrition, debt levels, etc.). Since I am in a part of the country where there is only one allo school in my state and many of the states in the region, I want to know how easy it is leave the state if I want to. Take a competative specialty like anesthesiology--a local group of docs doesn't want to take students trained in my state because they think that the school's program sux, so a lot of our grads go to UAB instead. I looked at another tough one, radiology--a very high percentage of recent grads stayed home for residency. Is it because they weren't competative out-of-state? Or did they just not want to leave? The list won't answer this question for you, but I considered whether or not my personal goals coincided with what the people on the list were able to accomplish.

 

[Samoa]

I don't disagree with the Wizard. But the question isn't whether you can match in the part of the country you want to, because you can do that from any school. The question is, how well in each region do they match? For example, you come from Boston, go to some non-northeastern medical school, and want to come back for residency. Theoretically, any program in Boston is acceptable to you. So do you end up at Boston U, or at Tufts, or at a Harvard program? Or do you match at some small no-name program outside of Boston?

That's the difference between a good match and a not-so-good one.

I agree, though, that if you're going to some region where there aren't any of the big name programs, then you have to assume that student went there by choice, and not simply because they fell to the bottom of their rank list.

Lots of people matching at the home program is generally a good sign in fields like IM, peds and surgery. It means students think highly enough of the program to stay (and statistically speaking, many of them could probably match well elsewhere if they wanted).

 

[vtucci]

Perhaps we could give the OP an idea of what programs are good in each field, but aren't at one of those schools. I'll start with what I know, since my class is interviewing right now. Others please add any info you have

Peds:
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Cincinnati Childrens
Rainbow Babies and Childrens Hospital
Seattle Childrens
Baylor College of Medicine (Texas Childrens)

Derm:
anywhere but the home school (though if lots of people are matching and a couple of them match at home, that's OK)

Neurology:
Partners (which is actually MGH/Brigham)
Beth Israel
Emory
UVA
U. Rochester
others?

IM:
generally the big names

Optho:
Bascom Palmer
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Doheny

Ortho:

Neurosurg (generally NOT the big name schools):
Barrow Neurological Institute
USC
Cleveland Clinic
University of Washington
Baylor
Of the big name schools--UCSF, Michigan, Duke (Hopkins & Columbia known for taking their own, so unlikely to see on any other school's list)

Surgery (in addition to the big names):
Cincinnati
UAB
Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
Emory
Harbor-UCLA
NYU
Colorado
UVA

Emergency- the big names are often not the best programs here. Some of the programs often cited as the best are:
Denver
Arizona
Cook County
Vanderbilt
UNC
Carolinas
Christiana
UMaryland (Shock trauma)

However, best in Emergency Medicine is going to depend on a lot of things. Do you want rural? suburban? Urban? Community setting vs. academic practice vs. county hospital? How many patients do you want to see on a shift?

 

[Law2Doc]

That is the rule. The programs I listed are exceptional overall, the fields listed are competative. If matched at the programs in the fields I listed double bonus!

Not exactly correct. Those schools certainly are tops in some things. However, most of those places are not the best in every field. Samoa's approach of breaking it down by specialty is a much better approach, and closer to the way med students ultimately decide where to apply when they get to that stage. But even that is a bit subjective, and your (OPs) advisors/mentors when you get to med school may have different opinions.
Thus as Dakota suggested, a match list is a difficult tool to use well as a premed.