Is it worth it to attend a lower-ranked full p/f school?

[IllinoisEnjoyer1]

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Apologies if this is a silly/ignorant question. I tried to do a lot of searching but it felt like discussions around this were a bit different than my situation.

One of my acceptances is to a lower-ranked school ~T100 with P/F all 4 years. Is there a chance that this will be a detriment if I want to pursue a competitive specialty like ortho? Or is there some benefit to this given the subjectivity of clinical grading? It seems to me that full pass/fail benefits extensively from prestige.

On the flip side, I have acceptances from relatively higher-ranked schools (~T50-75), that have P/F preclinical and more traditional H/HP/P/F clinical years. Would this benefit me given my interest in a competitive specialty (if my grades were to be good)? Does this ranking difference not even matter since it's not like I am comparing a T5 to a T100?

What else do I need to be considering, or is this just a "What I make of it" situation? Thanks!

 

[karaya]

This is what my dean said in Week 1: If you're aiming for competitive specialties, you want some metric with which to distinguish yourself, because you're gonna work hard regardless of grading. Without clinical grades, your residency app puts even more weight on Step 2 (a high-stakes event with some degree of uncertainty). If I were you, I would not necessarily see full P/F as a benefit.

 

[chilly_md]

More likely than not, if you named the schools, they would not appear to be that different to us aside from their arbitrary ranking.

 

[Hollow Knight]

I don’t think there’s a right answer here. Just do whatever you think will be best for you. I personally would be SUPER stressed with graded preclinical (even though I paradoxically got good grades)

 

[thefirerisen]

Its hard to answer this without knowing the schools. I would personally go to the T50 with grades than go to a T100. Look at their match lists to get a better sense of outcomes.

 

[ClashRoyaleKing]

The second school (T50-75) seems like the better option. Most schools have some ranking in clerkships. Does the T100 have a home hospital? It would be better just to name the schools.

 

[IllinoisEnjoyer1]

Thanks, everyone. As has been said I definitely should have put this in the "X vs Y School" thread with more details, so I'll close it and work on a thread there.