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I am trying to compare the residency match lists of two med schools I am trying to decide between. Do you guys have any ideas on what I should be looking for? What should I be focusing on?
Match Lists
- Thread starter Athena112
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I think comparing match lists is not always the most useful thing to do because there are so many factors that go into where and what specialty people go into. But here is a general guideline of what I would look at.
1. Location: This may or may not be important to you, but if you want to end up in a certain region or city look at the people from each school that go to that area. Often residency directors rank students from their general area higher because they are more familiar with the schools near them. This can be misleading, though, since med students from an area often wanna stay near there.
2. Competitive specialty matches: This can give you a hint as to the general competitiveness of the students. Ones to look at are ENT (otolaryngology), derm, ortho, radiology, rad onc, emergency. Again, this can be misleading because classes vary in their interests from year to year and there just might not be a whole lot of people that wanted ortho in a class.
3. The programs: Since you will not necessarily know what residencies are the best for each specialty, you can look at the big name med schools. Again, can be misleading b/c some hospitals are really strong in a specialty but don't even have a med school.
4. Your specialty: If you have an idea of what you want to do (although it will likely change) look at the quality of the programs people matched into in that specialty.
Again, just my views. It is very hard to do in my opinion because there are so many variables. The only schools where it may be useful are at places like Harvard, UCSF, WashU which have many big name programs in their list. Most non top 10 med schools will have hard to interpret lists. Good luck and congrats!
1. Location: This may or may not be important to you, but if you want to end up in a certain region or city look at the people from each school that go to that area. Often residency directors rank students from their general area higher because they are more familiar with the schools near them. This can be misleading, though, since med students from an area often wanna stay near there.
2. Competitive specialty matches: This can give you a hint as to the general competitiveness of the students. Ones to look at are ENT (otolaryngology), derm, ortho, radiology, rad onc, emergency. Again, this can be misleading because classes vary in their interests from year to year and there just might not be a whole lot of people that wanted ortho in a class.
3. The programs: Since you will not necessarily know what residencies are the best for each specialty, you can look at the big name med schools. Again, can be misleading b/c some hospitals are really strong in a specialty but don't even have a med school.
4. Your specialty: If you have an idea of what you want to do (although it will likely change) look at the quality of the programs people matched into in that specialty.
Again, just my views. It is very hard to do in my opinion because there are so many variables. The only schools where it may be useful are at places like Harvard, UCSF, WashU which have many big name programs in their list. Most non top 10 med schools will have hard to interpret lists. Good luck and congrats!
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I have to agree with Whisker. It's tough to look at match lists just because there are so many variables. Just a generality or maybe a stereotype but people who go to more well known schools (Harvard, Hopkins, etc) likely expect themselves to go to more well known residencies. Many of these people are caught up in the prestige game so they really shoot for the "name" in their place of residency training. BUT, there is nothing wrong with that.
Many of us who go to state schools look for a residency program that fits us and the name is secondary. Granted, there were plenty of people in my class who matched at big name places (HSS and UT-Memphis for ortho, Vanderbilt for Radiology, Duke, WashU for stuff I can't remember). So if you go to any med school in the US, you can likely get any residency if you excel in med school.
Many of us who go to state schools look for a residency program that fits us and the name is secondary. Granted, there were plenty of people in my class who matched at big name places (HSS and UT-Memphis for ortho, Vanderbilt for Radiology, Duke, WashU for stuff I can't remember). So if you go to any med school in the US, you can likely get any residency if you excel in med school.
