To answer your question, first there are a lot of great pediatric ophthalmology fellowships that go unmatched every year. The competition in securing a pediatric fellowship is not nearly as great as say, surgical retina, glaucoma, oculoplastics, etc. I think the general consensus is that as long as there are no glaring problems with your application you will match into a spot should you want one. Now that being said, there are some fellowship sites that are certainly more competitive then others. To evaluate them fairly, I think you need to first figure out what you want to get out of a fellowship. Do you want to be trained as a comprehensive pediatric ophthalmologist (strabismus, low vision, neuro, cataracts, pediatric glaucoma, retinoblastoma, plastic procedures, etc.) or do you want to be trained in doing mostly strabismus and adult/complex strabismus?
In my opinion (and it is certainly an opinion as I don't have an in-depth knowledge of all the wonderful programs out there), Duke, Boston Children's, Vanderbilt, CHOP, and Storm offered fantastic comprehensive experiences. Here you will be exposed and get good surgical numbers to a great variety of procedures, perhaps at the expense of getting crazy high strabismus numbers. Don't get me wrong, you'll get your fair share of strabismus but it might not be as high as at some other places. That being said, you'll get the opportunity to do a lot cataracts, goniotomies, tubes, lid procedures, nasolacrimal, etc. If you want to get great strabismus numbers I thought Wilmer, Michigan, UIC, Jules Stein had a lot to offer. These programs still have the other stuff but their strength lies more in exposing you to a lot of strab.
Again, this is clearly not an exhaustive list. I'm sure there are great places that I failed to mention. Hope this helps.
