PhilAnthropist's match list post question

[Dr. Donkey]

Greetings for windy, coldm penguin-filled Antarctica everbody!

I was purusing the residency match list post that Phil kindly assimilated and couldn't help but notice that the lists from almost all schools in the mid- to high-tiers looked very similar. There is usually a concentration of residency placements around the geographic area of the medical school in question (and of course at the medical school in question) and quite a decent amount of placement at prestigious programs. There were some schools, Yale comes to mind, that seemed to have even more placements at prestigious programs, but aside from a handful of these schools most schools in the mid-/top-tiers (even really well-regarded ones like WashU, UMich, Columbia, Cornell) seemed to be largely similar both in their frequency of placing students in very presitigious programs and in very competitive specialities. Is this just my flawed perception, or is it that there are enough residency spots at good programs that match lists at these schools are mostly indistinguishable? For example, I doubt that if I took the match lists from Duke and UNC or from UCSF, USC, and Stanford (and removed the residents going back to their alma mater) that most people could tell the difference. Is this true? Can they hear me?

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[ny skindoc]

Greetings for windy, coldm penguin-filled Antarctica everbody!

I was purusing the residency match list post that Phil kindly assimilated and couldn't help but notice that the lists from almost all schools in the mid- to high-tiers looked very similar. There is usually a concentration of residency placements around the geographic area of the medical school in question (and of course at the medical school in question) and quite a decent amount of placement at prestigious programs. There were some schools, Yale comes to mind, that seemed to have even more placements at prestigious programs, but aside from a handful of these schools most schools in the mid-/top-tiers (even really well-regarded ones like WashU, UMich, Columbia, Cornell) seemed to be largely similar both in their frequency of placing students in very presitigious programs and in very competitive specialities. Is this just my flawed perception, or is it that there are enough residency spots at good programs that match lists at these schools are mostly indistinguishable? For example, I doubt that if I took the match lists from Duke and UNC or from UCSF, USC, and Stanford (and removed the residents going back to their alma mater) that most people could tell the difference. Is this true? Can they hear me?

You are correct,once you have considered geographical and home school considerations, there is no real difference in matching between prestigious schools.Whats more if you looked at the rest of the med schools in the US past the "top 20-25" schools and did a similar analysis you could hardly tell the difference between 85% of them.

 

[Dr. Donkey]

Yesssss, I love being right. J/k, thanks for the response. Everyone always makes such a fuss about going to top tier here vs mid-teir there because here has a better reputation and it will get me a better residency ect. To me it seems to be somewhat of a moot point though, since the endgame is residency and from all the lists I see, the residency placement seem to be pretty comparable.

I guess it just comes down to how shiny is the school's name on your diploma and, seemingly, not that much more.

You are correct,once you have considered geographical and home school considerations, there is no real difference in matching between prestigious schools.Whats more if you looked at the rest of the med schools in the US past the "top 20-25" schools and did a similar analysis you could hardly tell the difference between 85% of them.