advice? well I think the best advice I got from my upperclassman and residents is "go with your gut feeling". It is SO TRUE. After my 17 or 18 interviews (I lost count after my 10th interview), I think I am qualified to say that many programs are so similar in strength and quality, it eventually boils down to ranking the place where you think you will be the happiest, and whether the program's philosophy is congruent with your career goal. Seriously though, I realized the "name factor" does not truly reflect the strength of a program. Many programs have really big names, but that's probably more relavent to its undergrad, med school, or even graduate schools. US news rank is pretty useless too because it focused on patients not resident training. NIH funding is askewed as well, as these figures published each year on NIH website reflects that particular year's funding, not accumulative fundings. Many institutions have significant extramural fundings (mayo, for example), and their source of funding is not solely dependent on NIH. Lastly, even with the same program, your perception of the program may be 180 degree different from your fellow interviewees. The weather, resident/applicant dinner experience, the representative residents who welcome you at your day, interactions with the interviewers, the infrastructure of the hospital (some 5 star hotel like hospitals came to mind are Baylor's methodist, Northwestern, and Mayo's Gonda building vs. shabby looking ones like LA county of USC) and the earliness/lateness of your particular interview with respect to your interview seaon, all these factors played various role in my final decision in choosing a program. Case in point, I loved everything about Mayo the day I interviewed there, but it was 2 degree that day when I visited there in early December, and man, it was cold. I initially ranked it really high, but since the weather getting really bad and cold in the eastern U.S. last few weeks, I felt it would be really miserable for me to withstand the weather for 4 more years. Another salient example was the interview at USC. They pretty much wasted away the big advantage of the gorgeous weather at the Sunny Southern California with such a lousy, disorganized interview day....to the point that I really want to get up and leave and enjoyed the sunshine out there. Everyone I met during my interview trail who also visited at USC hated it. Northwesten, on the other hand, has one of the most state of the art hospitals, and one of the best view of all chicago programs with an awesome view of the Lake Michigan (the view is probably second to that of UCSF's NICU with views include 1/2 SF, golden gate bridge and the pacific ocean), and situated just 2 blocks from the Magnificant Mile, but boy, the residents I met all seem very unhappy at my pre-interview dinner. One senior resident even blasted about how unsupportive the program is for post-residency career planning. So my advice: if you have the money, visit as many program as you can, diligently write down the call schedule, pluses and minuses about a program (and trust me, you would do this religiously at the beginning of the interview trail, and just carry the nice-looking portfolio binder without even openning it toward the end of the trail), and let everything sinks in before you type in your rank list. Whether it is the prestige/name factor, the weather, the people you met at the program....I think most people who I spoke to just ranked the programs with their gut feelings.
