Match information

[MedGrl@2022]

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Is there a list of the percentages of students by allopathic and osteopathic schools that got their top three choice of matching for residencies?

In addition, how is everyone going about selecting the schools that they are applying to?

Thanks for your help! 🙂

 

[NickNaylor]

Is there a list of the percentages of students by allopathic and osteopathic schools that got their top three choice of matching for residencies?

In addition, how is everyone going about selecting the schools that they are applying to?

Thanks for your help! 🙂

Definitely do not use match info.

 

[MedGrl@2022]

Definitely do not use match info.

why not? How else can you get data regarding test scores, etc? Is that not important? I want to make sure that I am giving myself the best chance of being successful. Where can I gain this information?

 

[Goobs]

Match info is generally more dependent on the students that year than the particular institution.


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[sinombre]

Yep, this is basically what you'll find if you spend time searching this topic (which you should do... there are literally hundreds if not thousands of threads discussing this topic in detail).

 

[DrEnderW]

why not? How else can you get data regarding test scores, etc? Is that not important? I want to make sure that I am giving myself the best chance of being successful. Where can I gain this information?

Your personal interests, board scores, LOR, and research experiences are going to matter more than your specific school.

For example, it's not like "School X" created 4 neurosurgeons in last years match. It just so happened that 4 students with competitive applications happened to have a passion for that field and were lucky enough to match after significant clinical exposure to NS. Next year, there could be zero neurosurgery matches because the students didn't have the interest in that class year. Perhaps that specific group all wanted a competitive internal medicine residencies instead.

Point is, individual interest and merit is more important than what happened in last year's match. It's difficult to interpret a match list because different students in different years want different things such as: academic vs community, different locations, different specialties and interests, etc. Also, you won't have a feel for what programs are deemed "desirable" and will only be looking by specialty.

 

[NickNaylor]

why not? How else can you get data regarding test scores, etc? Is that not important? I want to make sure that I am giving myself the best chance of being successful. Where can I gain this information?

It is hard to interpret because you know nothing about any of the data. What if a school matches a bunch of people to primary care? Does that mean the school sucks? Or does it mean that the students that year just happened to be interested in primary care? How do you know what a good residency is? How do you know that students decided not to forgo residency at a "prestigious" institution in favor of being close to family or getting to another part of the country?

The point is that this data is difficult to interpret even if you're outside a particular SPECIALTY, much less as a pre-med that hasn't even submitted his/her AMCAS.

 

[235009]

Is there a list of the percentages of students by allopathic and osteopathic schools that got their top three choice of matching for residencies?

Nope. Some schools might report it if it sounds flattering but know that it is completely meaningless because it only shows preferences AFTER interviews have been offered. You may have gotten your "first choice" what does that mean if you were not even offered an interview your top 5 choices that you applied to? Also if you got interviews at a whole host of competitive programs you're more likely to drop further in your rank list than someone who applied or only got interviews at less selective programs.

 

[ar2388]

yea dont use match info to determine which med school to go to...
you may want to know if they reglarly have a lot of people who do not match but its all based on the individual person and how they study and how hard.. even different calsses within one school can differ quite a bit.

 

[imnamerican]

I'm in the minority on SDN in thinking that match lists should be a factor (but far from the primary factor) in deciding where to go for medical school. Mostly, it gives you an idea of if your program happens to have a regional bias, which can be important if you have specific plans for residency. It's also useful to know if your school matches people well into academic programs, which is important if you're into that kind of thing.

 

[circulus vitios]

Is there a list of the percentages of students by allopathic and osteopathic schools that got their top three choice of matching for residencies?

In addition, how is everyone going about selecting the schools that they are applying to?

Thanks for your help! 🙂

How could that be viewed as a useful metric?

 

[NickNaylor]

I'm in the minority on SDN in thinking that match lists should be a factor (but far from the primary factor) in deciding where to go for medical school. Mostly, it gives you an idea of if your program happens to have a regional bias, which can be important if you have specific plans for residency. It's also useful to know if your school matches people well into academic programs, which is important if you're into that kind of thing.

I think that's reasonable, but my guess is that there won't be many surprises. I.e., schools with strong research reputations likely place many students at academic-type programs.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717

 

[deleted547339]

It is hard to interpret because you know nothing about any of the data. What if a school matches a bunch of people to primary care? Does that mean the school sucks? Or does it mean that the students that year just happened to be interested in primary care? How do you know what a good residency is? How do you know that students decided not to forgo residency at a "prestigious" institution in favor of being close to family or getting to another part of the country?

The point is that this data is difficult to interpret even if you're outside a particular SPECIALTY, much less as a pre-med that hasn't even submitted his/her AMCAS.

Agreed. You can't know how to interpret a match list without talking with each individual student. I have a classmate that matched into a solid IM program, but wanted to do OB/gyn and only ended up 1 interview in the specialty. People might see that and be impressed when it wasn't what he wanted. Another one of my classmates is going into IM - she's freaking brilliant. She had everything it takes to be at a MGH, BWH, Mayo, NYP, WashU, etc for IM but wanted to move to the city where her husband had a connection to get a good job. She got her number 1, but you might see that and think she was disappointed because it's only an above average program, not elite.

I ended up matching at my favorite program. I interviewed at Harvard, UNC, Vandy and a few other big name places; turned down interviews at Hopkins, Stanford, etc. If you saw where I am going on my school's match list, you might say "Oh, that's a really strong program" but you wouldn't say "wow, he matched at Harvard/Yale/Whatever." Coincidentally, I had a classmate match at Yale for my specialty - pre-meds will probably be impressed by that, but in the specialty I matched into, it's just OK. Another friend matched into a top program in the field, but it's a stand-alone hospital that pre-meds wouldn't know about because it's not affiliated with a med school.

The point of all of this is simply to say that you can't know how to interpret match lists without literally getting an honest interview from every student in the class over a several year period.