Med School's Reputation & Match Results

[psipsina]

I'm in the process of making a decision between two medical schools and I am curious how much of an effect a school's reputation for producing good physicians has on the individual students match list. Sure some schools have much better match lists than other schools, but is this a product of the school itself or the students that choose to go there because of the school's reputation. Regardless of which school I choose I will be the same student with the same drive and capability, and both schools I am looking at have similar approaches to curriculum and training. The only differences are the prices and the quality of the match list, but is it the school I am coming from that will determine if I can match into a competitive residency, or is it how hard I work and my innate capabilities?

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[NehsNairb]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=264102

Post #9 from that thread scared me.

--Board Scores: Step 1 - 252, Step 2 -262
--AOA and class rank: junior AOA, 1/150
--Reputation of medical school: regular old state school (this was definitely an issue)
--Research: 2 first author papers (small) in pediatric oncology; one year spent in basic science lab but no publications from that.
--Honors in clerkships: all
--# and where you did away rotations: Stanford, Duke
--# of programs you applied to: 35
--Where invited for interviews: got 26 invitations, went to 14 (Thomas Jefferson, Maryland, Loyola, UAB, Emory, Harvard, Wash U, Michigan, Wisconsin, Duke, Cleveland Clinic, Hopkins, Indiana, Mayo-Jacksonville)
--Where matched: Loyola
--Anything that helped your app: 2 big-wig letter of recs, first author pubs, board scores.
---Things that hurt: Lack of pedigree re: med school name, no home rad onc department and thus no rad onc research.
--Plans if not matched: research year
--Prelim year: Freaking prelim medicine...did not get TY. Very unhappy about that. 9 months inpatient medicine, here I come!
--Matched at what number of prelim yr on list: 2
--Other: I am excited about going to Chicago! I did go further down my list than I expected, but I am still very happy. But I do agree with Sim - the rad onc match process is a strange one. I am still a little baffled by it. I had 3 "truly great" interviews on the trail...didn't match at any of them.


With stats like that, I thought she would match into a top program. Maybe Loyola is one but somehow I don't get the feeling that it is. Anyway, for competitive residencies, I'm sure school name definitely helps.

 

[Brainsucker]

You've hit a very controversial topic. Law2Doc will be here any minute to argue with the last poster and with me. Think about which school's attendings will be better connected to residency directors at top programs. If you know what you're interested in or a few things that you're interested in, see if you can find out about the school's reputation in those areas. If your school has a top program in something, program directors other places are likely to have had an affiliation with that school. Also, see if there's a big difference in MCAT scores between schools. If so, innate ability is driving the USMLE differences. If not, the education/culture of the school is making the difference.

You should also decide how much it matters to you. If you want family practice, you can go anywhere. If you want rad onc or derm, on the other hand...

 

[Sureshot83]

The best way to check is to compare the match lists of the two schools in question. If the cheaper, less prestigious one is still sending people into IM/peds at top hospitals, or ortho, derm, rad onc, neurosurg, plastics, etc. anywhere, you can be pretty sure you will do just fine at that school.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

In re: earlier scary post

Radiation Oncology is unusual in that resident selection is not totally based on previous academic performance, or at least it is less so than say Dermatology in their dependence on board scores and grades.

 

[oompa loompa]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=264102

Post #9 from that thread scared me.


--Plans if not matched: research year
--Prelim year: Freaking prelim medicine...did not get TY. Very unhappy about that. 9 months inpatient medicine, here I come!
--Matched at what number of prelim yr on list: 2

hey, I have a question: what's up with prelim year(s) anyway? Are they dependent on the specialty you enter or the program you match into? Also, if you don't match anywhere, then what are your options? Research or an internship?

 

[Brainsucker]

hey, I have a question: what's up with prelim year(s) anyway? Are they dependent on the specialty you enter or the program you match into? Also, if you don't match anywhere, then what are your options? Research or an internship?

They're the internship. Some residencies have built in internships while you have to match into an internship for others. You can do an internship and try to match again from that, but it's risky. You can also take the year for research. Yet another option is a pre-residency fellowship. Seems like a bad idea to me since you basically get worked, but hey, it's out there.

 

[njbmd]

I'm in the process of making a decision between two medical schools and I am curious how much of an effect a school's reputation for producing good physicians has on the individual students match list. Sure some schools have much better match lists than other schools, but is this a product of the school itself or the students that choose to go there because of the school's reputation. Regardless of which school I choose I will be the same student with the same drive and capability, and both schools I am looking at have similar approaches to curriculum and training. The only differences are the prices and the quality of the match list, but is it the school I am coming from that will determine if I can match into a competitive residency, or is it how hard I work and my innate capabilities?

Hi there,
Medical school doesn't matter as much as performance at said medical school. My medical school was pretty lowly ranked yet I matched into a solid academic General Surgery residency and I am headed for fellowship. I aced Step I and Step II and I did very well in medical school. My classmates matched into Derm, Ophtho, Rads Onc, Ortho, Neurosurg and other competitive specialties. We send grads to Hopkins, Stanford, Mayo, Mass General and other competitive academic residencies. In short, your performance is everything. If you don't have the drive and the grades, your school is not going to put you over.

I chose my school because they awarded me a full-ride tuition scholarship (merit) from Day 1. I did very well and had very good letters of rec for residency (nationally known surgeons). I had six schools to choose from but now looking back and owing $40K instead of $150K, I know that I made the right decision and the medical school that I attended has no bearing on my practice today.

Your medical school rank list is pretting meaningless unless YOU have the grades to be competitive. Just because someone went into Derm the four years before you started medical school is no guarantee that you will be a shoo-in for Derm. Choose the school where you can do the best. If you are interested in a very competitive specialty, track early and make some contacts. Landing a competitive residency is academic and political so make sure you have both. A top grad from a low ranked school will always go further than a bottom ranked grad from a top school.

The quality of the match list will change from year to year based on the academics of the people in any one class. If your school doesn't have a particular department, you can do an away rotation and get the contacts.

njbmd

 

[ny skindoc]

There is no question,that at the top name places the match lists are at the highest level across the board for 90% of the grads.They tend to match in in competitive specialties at the best known programs for those specialties.Once you get past the so called top 20 or so,this changes rapidly.
For 80% of US med schools the lists are more similar than different.So if you are comparing say Jefferson to Tufts to GW to many state schools etc..comparing match lists will not be too useful..

 

[excalibur]

Psipsi,
You've heard from me before. Previously, it sounded like tuition was a pretty big factor. In the end, it's your performance at your med school that's important, not the actual med school. Also important are your evaluations and your letters of recommendation, but again these are determined by the student's performance and personality, not the med school. So as before, I suggest going to your state school.

 

[TexPre-Med]

There is no question,that at the top name places the match lists are at the highest level across the board for 90% of the grads.They tend to match in in competitive specialties at the best known programs for those specialties.Once you get past the so called top 20 or so,this changes rapidly.
For 80% of US med schools the lists are more similar than different.So if you are comparing say Jefferson to Tufts to GW to many state schools etc..comparing match lists will not be too useful..

I strongly disagree. Take UT-SA and Texas A&M. Neither are considered top-tier schools. In the past 6 years, A&M has sent 2 people into plastic surgery, and 21 into anesthesiology (according to their information pamphlet matchlists). UT-SA does this every year. A&M has half the students, but even after doubling the #, UT-SA sends 2x the students into competitive specialties (& does so every year). If you wanted to match either Anesthesiology or plastic surgery, I bet you wouldn't rank A&M over UT-SA knowing this information (other things being equal). UT-SA has a better track record, and by shear numbers, their program will be better known in these 2 specialties.

Also, compare Johns Hopkins and Baylor. Both are top-tier schools, but Baylor sends more students yearly into competitive specialties. JH students are more likely to do primary care or research. Feel free to look up both schools' match lists. Baylor's (by competitive specialties) is MUCH more impressive.

For the record, I am not trying to insult any of the 4 above schools. They are all great institutions, and at each school, one can match into any specialty. I am merely pointing out their normal residency tendencies that make them unique. There is a big difference between many match lists. Inspect the schools' match lists that you are considering. One of the reasons I chose TT was because they send the highest % of students to both anesthesiology and EM in Texas.

 

[dz88]

where can I find these individual school's match lists? (like johns hopkins and baylor)?

 

[drchekhov]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=264102

Post #9 from that thread scared me.

--Board Scores: Step 1 - 252, Step 2 -262
--AOA and class rank: junior AOA, 1/150
--Reputation of medical school: regular old state school (this was definitely an issue)
--Research: 2 first author papers (small) in pediatric oncology; one year spent in basic science lab but no publications from that.
--Honors in clerkships: all
--# and where you did away rotations: Stanford, Duke
--# of programs you applied to: 35
--Where invited for interviews: got 26 invitations, went to 14 (Thomas Jefferson, Maryland, Loyola, UAB, Emory, Harvard, Wash U, Michigan, Wisconsin, Duke, Cleveland Clinic, Hopkins, Indiana, Mayo-Jacksonville)
--Where matched: Loyola
--Anything that helped your app: 2 big-wig letter of recs, first author pubs, board scores.
---Things that hurt: Lack of pedigree re: med school name, no home rad onc department and thus no rad onc research.
--Plans if not matched: research year
--Prelim year: Freaking prelim medicine...did not get TY. Very unhappy about that. 9 months inpatient medicine, here I come!
--Matched at what number of prelim yr on list: 2
--Other: I am excited about going to Chicago! I did go further down my list than I expected, but I am still very happy. But I do agree with Sim - the rad onc match process is a strange one. I am still a little baffled by it. I had 3 "truly great" interviews on the trail...didn't match at any of them.


With stats like that, I thought she would match into a top program. Maybe Loyola is one but somehow I don't get the feeling that it is. Anyway, for competitive residencies, I'm sure school name definitely helps.

Don't freak out about this person's match. If you read the rest of the thread, it appears her problem was not so much her school's reputation as the fact that it doesn't have a home rad/onc department, therefore: she had no elective rotations, no place to do impressive research in the field, and (apparently) no LORs from "homer" professors in the field.

To the OP, I think one measure to keep in mind is the breadth of clinical resources at the schools you're choosing between. Obviously most of us won't go into the specialty we're thinking of right now, so considering the breadth of a school's offerings could be helpful. Even top schools may be lacking in some areas. For example, at my Baylor interview, one MS4 said that she was worried about matching into EM because her school didn't have a rotation in that field. It was a slight point against Baylor in my book
that they didn't have a rotation in this basic field (something that I'd overlooked even in my extensive investigation of their curriculum leading up to the interview).

Moreover, I certainly feel that choosing an undergrad that was not terribly prestigious, but very large and very solid across the board was extremely helpful to me as a student. I chose it for the wealth of opportunities, which it definitely afforded while switching majors and adding a few extra ones. I'm sure there are many others on SDN who will agree with me based on similar experiences. I'd encourage you to make sure that both schools have rotations in all the general basics as well as interesting elective opportunities in special fields.

Moral of the story: if you're not sure what you want to go into, don't focus exclusively on the ROADE specialties to guide your examination of a matchlist. Because as the Rad/Onc Match Stats thread and njbmd state, going to a broadly solid school won't harm your matching prospects, but attending a school without a department in an area that you may eventually want to match into could ruin them.

 

[happydays]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=264102

Post #9 from that thread scared me.

--Board Scores: Step 1 - 252, Step 2 -262
--AOA and class rank: junior AOA, 1/150
--Reputation of medical school: regular old state school (this was definitely an issue)
--Research: 2 first author papers (small) in pediatric oncology; one year spent in basic science lab but no publications from that.
--Honors in clerkships: all
--# and where you did away rotations: Stanford, Duke
--# of programs you applied to: 35
--Where invited for interviews: got 26 invitations, went to 14 (Thomas Jefferson, Maryland, Loyola, UAB, Emory, Harvard, Wash U, Michigan, Wisconsin, Duke, Cleveland Clinic, Hopkins, Indiana, Mayo-Jacksonville)
--Where matched: Loyola
--Anything that helped your app: 2 big-wig letter of recs, first author pubs, board scores.
---Things that hurt: Lack of pedigree re: med school name, no home rad onc department and thus no rad onc research.
--Plans if not matched: research year
--Prelim year: Freaking prelim medicine...did not get TY. Very unhappy about that. 9 months inpatient medicine, here I come!
--Matched at what number of prelim yr on list: 2
--Other: I am excited about going to Chicago! I did go further down my list than I expected, but I am still very happy. But I do agree with Sim - the rad onc match process is a strange one. I am still a little baffled by it. I had 3 "truly great" interviews on the trail...didn't match at any of them.


With stats like that, I thought she would match into a top program. Maybe Loyola is one but somehow I don't get the feeling that it is. Anyway, for competitive residencies, I'm sure school name definitely helps.

But the bottom line is that this person is nevertheless outstanding and matched. 50%+ don't match in radonc.

 

[Plastikos]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=264102

Post #9 from that thread scared me.

--Board Scores: Step 1 - 252, Step 2 -262
--AOA and class rank: junior AOA, 1/150
--Reputation of medical school: regular old state school (this was definitely an issue)
--Research: 2 first author papers (small) in pediatric oncology; one year spent in basic science lab but no publications from that.
--Honors in clerkships: all
--# and where you did away rotations: Stanford, Duke
--# of programs you applied to: 35
--Where invited for interviews: got 26 invitations, went to 14 (Thomas Jefferson, Maryland, Loyola, UAB, Emory, Harvard, Wash U, Michigan, Wisconsin, Duke, Cleveland Clinic, Hopkins, Indiana, Mayo-Jacksonville)
--Where matched: Loyola
--Anything that helped your app: 2 big-wig letter of recs, first author pubs, board scores.
---Things that hurt: Lack of pedigree re: med school name, no home rad onc department and thus no rad onc research.
--Plans if not matched: research year
--Prelim year: Freaking prelim medicine...did not get TY. Very unhappy about that. 9 months inpatient medicine, here I come!
--Matched at what number of prelim yr on list: 2
--Other: I am excited about going to Chicago! I did go further down my list than I expected, but I am still very happy. But I do agree with Sim - the rad onc match process is a strange one. I am still a little baffled by it. I had 3 "truly great" interviews on the trail...didn't match at any of them.


With stats like that, I thought she would match into a top program. Maybe Loyola is one but somehow I don't get the feeling that it is. Anyway, for competitive residencies, I'm sure school name definitely helps.

You never know, and nothing personal to above person. Sometimes though, there is a person with similar stats that is more normal, there are a lot of paper tigers out there who interview poorly.

 

[abcxyz0123]

There is no question,that at the top name places the match lists are at the highest level across the board for 90% of the grads.They tend to match in in competitive specialties at the best known programs for those specialties.Once you get past the so called top 20 or so,this changes rapidly.
For 80% of US med schools the lists are more similar than different.So if you are comparing say Jefferson to Tufts to GW to many state schools etc..comparing match lists will not be too useful..

the top med schools send the most students to top residencies because they carry the top students. it has very little to do with the name of the school.

 

[Aseptic Pimp]

exactly...

 

[8744]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=264102

Post #9 from that thread scared me.

--Board Scores: Step 1 - 252, Step 2 -262
--AOA and class rank: junior AOA, 1/150
--Reputation of medical school: regular old state school (this was definitely an issue)
--Research: 2 first author papers (small) in pediatric oncology; one year spent in basic science lab but no publications from that.
--Honors in clerkships: all
--# and where you did away rotations: Stanford, Duke
--# of programs you applied to: 35
--Where invited for interviews: got 26 invitations, went to 14 (Thomas Jefferson, Maryland, Loyola, UAB, Emory, Harvard, Wash U, Michigan, Wisconsin, Duke, Cleveland Clinic, Hopkins, Indiana, Mayo-Jacksonville)
--Where matched: Loyola
--Anything that helped your app: 2 big-wig letter of recs, first author pubs, board scores.
---Things that hurt: Lack of pedigree re: med school name, no home rad onc department and thus no rad onc research.
--Plans if not matched: research year
--Prelim year: Freaking prelim medicine...did not get TY. Very unhappy about that. 9 months inpatient medicine, here I come!
--Matched at what number of prelim yr on list: 2
--Other: I am excited about going to Chicago! I did go further down my list than I expected, but I am still very happy. But I do agree with Sim - the rad onc match process is a strange one. I am still a little baffled by it. I had 3 "truly great" interviews on the trail...didn't match at any of them.

I was first author on a paper called "Our Friend the Gopher" when I was in third grade.

Jeez.

 

[lilycat]

To the OP, I think one measure to keep in mind is the breadth of clinical resources at the schools you're choosing between. Obviously most of us won't go into the specialty we're thinking of right now, so considering the breadth of a school's offerings could be helpful. Even top schools may be lacking in some areas. For example, at my Baylor interview, one MS4 said that she was worried about matching into EM because her school didn't have a rotation in that field. It was a slight point against Baylor in my book
that they didn't have a rotation in this basic field (something that I'd overlooked even in my extensive investigation of their curriculum leading up to the interview).

Just to correct some misinmformation here...

Baylor does have a rotation in Emergency Medicine -- however, what I'm guessing this MS4 was complaining about is that Baylor does not have an Emergency Medicine Department -- those are two very different things. This is because Baylor still practices EM the "old-school" way due to the presence of Dr. Mattox, the chief of staff at Ben Taub (our main county hospital site and 1 of 2 Level One trauma centers in Houston) and one of the legends in the field of trauma surgery. The "old-school" way is having the ER divided between Medicine and Surgery -- each department has "half" of the ER and takes their cases accordingly. There are a few other schools/hospitals in the country that still do this as well, but it's definitely an older system. You can do ER rotations (typically on the surgery side -- that's where you get your MVA and motorcycle shocks, auto-ped accidents, GSWs, practice suturing small lacs, etc.) both on your surgery core and as a separate elective. Most students who want to go into EM also do an elective at UT-Memorial Hermann Hospital since they have an EM department.

Additionally, if you have more questions about Baylor and EM, try finding BKN in the residency forums -- he is an EM program director who graduated from Baylor.

As for the Baylor match list this year, I wish I had saved it, but it was really outstanding -- we had some very bright and some very politically savvy people applying -- 5/7 derm, 12 anesthesia, 4 plastics, 2 rad-onc, 7/8 ophtho, 7 or 8 ENT, 7 or 8 urology, 8 or 9 radiology, a bunch of general surgery, etc.

 

[drchekhov]

Thanks for clearing things up, lilycat. I obviously didn't have the whole picture (who does when applying?), but that MS4's comments were the first thing I thought of to illustrate easily my bigger point.

Care to share your thoughts on the OP's question?

 

[lilycat]

Thanks for clearing things up, lilycat. I obviously didn't have the whole picture (who does when applying?), but that MS4's comments were the first thing I thought of to illustrate easily my bigger point.

Care to share your thoughts on the OP's question?

Ugh. There's no easy answer to this question. One, the question is too vague and two, there's a ton of factors that go into an "impressive" match list.

First off, every student applying to med school needs to realize (if they haven't already) that most schools fall into one of two categories -- either primary-care oriented or research-oriented. For example UW is a well-respected school that tends to be primary-care oriented while Baylor is a well-respected school that tends to be research-oriented. That's not to say that kids from Baylor don't match into FP or IM, and that kids from UW don't match into rads or ophtho, but the different philosophy or focus of the two schools will skew match lists appropriately.

Second, if residencies have positive personal experience with graduates from School X, they will tend to look favorably on future residency applicants from School X, regardless of US News ranking or general perception of "reputation." There also tends to be a very strong regional bias to this -- for instance, CA residency programs seem to love taking students from CA schools -- that's not to say that people from outside CA never get into those programs, but I think it's just that much harder for applicants from TX, NY, etc.

Third, don't underestimate the possible effect of debt level on choice of specialty, and thus how the match list for a school may appear. Judging from the experience of my class and the classes above me the last couple of years, I would say about 1/3-1/2 of a class has trouble deciding on a residency by the end of third year -- either because they loved everything or they didn't really love anything. If you go to a private school and are graduating with $200K in debt, there may be a heightened sense of pressure to choose the more financially lucrative field if you are torn equally between 2 or 3 options, interest- and talent-wise.

Fourth, the match and residency application process can be very political. In that sense, it can be an advantage to come from a school with a department in your field that has a good reputation -- those letters may really help you in getting interviews and getting a high rank. However, if you go to a less-well recognized school, you can achieve the same effect by doing an away rotation at a high-powered/well-recognized program and getting some quality letters before you leave. There's no rule that you can only get letters from your home institution.

Finally, I think the most important determinant is personal achievement. Going to a big-name school will not cover up your below-average step score, or a marginal pass in pharmacology. Personally, I would select the school that is the "best fit" whether that means being close to family, in a good climate, a supportive administration, whatever. If you are a happy student, I think you will perform better.