would you rather graduate in the 4th-quartile from a top 20 medical school or in the 1st-quartile from an unranked med school?
poll: 4th-quartile from a top 20 school or 1st-quartile unranked school
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N
njbmd
The top grads from any LCME-accredited medical school are far better than the bottom ranks from any LCME medical school. When it comes to post graduate work, it's about the individual performance and not the medical school. Your medical school isn't going to take your tests or see your patients, you are.
Right now, if you are in an LCME accredited medical school and doing your best, what you would "rather" do is meaningless. You just keep doing what you are doing and taking each task as it comes. In general, the board exams are the great equalizers anyway for the American grads.
Right now, if you are in an LCME accredited medical school and doing your best, what you would "rather" do is meaningless. You just keep doing what you are doing and taking each task as it comes. In general, the board exams are the great equalizers anyway for the American grads.
Why do you say top grads from any school are better than bottom grads from any other school? Is this personal experience? Have you served as a residency program director?
The reason I ask is because bottom line at a top medical school, the class will be more competitive. Period. Graduates of Harvard, UCSF etc are hands down top notch. Nobody will question their intellectual capacity. I agree, however that one's ability to practice medicine will be highly variable, regardless of which university one graduates from.
I know many graduates from top-20 schools saying when they went out to interview for residency, they were well-received nation-wide, because of their University's reputation.
If I'm busting my @$$ at highly competitive medical school, I can't imagine that it would be the same intensity at a midwestern/southern state university. But maybe it would be. It seems you are suggesting as much.
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Lolz at the poll results.
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the correct answer is you would rather be 1st quartile at a lesser known school, assuming you're planning on proceeding to residency after med school. being at the bottom of the class is very bad in terms of your residency competitiveness, both for competitive specialties and the top programs in less competitive specialties.
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Being able to get into a top medical school = you're smart before med school, good job in your art class. Performing like ***** in medical school = you're performing like *****. You can get into HMS but if you do poorly, then you did poorly in medical school.
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I'm just a 2nd year, but it makes sense to me. It's like in undergrad when you were trying to get into med school. Would it have been better to have a 2.5 from Yale or to have a 4.0 from your state school? For med school admissions, I'm guessing the 4.0 from state school would have been looked at more favorably than the 2.5 from Yale.
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That's Yale...now if it was Hahvahd, a 2.5 would've been good enough.
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"Midwestern/southern state university"? WTF?
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More like someone's trying to justify a bad decision attending a top whatever med school simply for its reputation.
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That too.
you all can speculate all you want about my grades. here's the thing, maybe it's just the environment here, but mostly everybody i know picked this school for it's reputation. i ABSOLUTELY don't regret it. it's difficult and challenging, but that's fine. i am happy here. i do have the utmost confidence in my education.
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Reputation is fine, but if it comes at double the financial expense then you are crazy. What medical school isn't difficult? Graduating at the bottom of the class still equals graduating. Just don't expect everyone else to bow down to you because you barely hacked it at a "name" school
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Based on my experienc, school reputation does matter to a certain extent. According to my PIs (I did multiple clinical projects) back when I was working at a reputable hospital, they do give attention to applicants from schools with better reputation. They actually encouraged me to only apply to top 20 or 30 schools (different PDs). I believed them because they were actually involved in the residency and fellowship programs.
Obviously if you are barely passing classes at Harvard and you score below average on Step 1, you are going to be at a disadvantage compared to an AOA with a good step 1 score from a non-ranked program.
But to say that school reputation does not matter is quite bull****.
PS: I am bored out of my mind here these days. Not enough patients coming and SDN is one of the few sites not blocked on our network. Thank god................
Obviously if you are barely passing classes at Harvard and you score below average on Step 1, you are going to be at a disadvantage compared to an AOA with a good step 1 score from a non-ranked program.
But to say that school reputation does not matter is quite bull****.
PS: I am bored out of my mind here these days. Not enough patients coming and SDN is one of the few sites not blocked on our network. Thank god................
well im glad someone else can validate my thoughts. leave it to my arrogance to assume i wouldn't have to work this hard for B's at other institutions.
i think large academic institutions are more concerned with reputation. if you think you are a top-notch school, then you want grads from other top-notch schools. mostly because it says something about your program. i dont think it matters as much outside of academia.
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Nobody is saying reputation doesn't matter at all, just not the large discrepancy you described
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PD rarely look at name of institutions. It's more of a tie breaker than anything else. This is coming from a PD at MGH. They know little of school rankings because what's a "ranked" school...what US News and World Report writes? Does that mean a HMS grad is better than a JHU grad who is better than a Mayo grad? There is little variation between performance of students at different institutions vs. HUGE variation between performance of students at the SAME institution. School prestige is one of the last things PD look at. Just check the most recent NBME studies.
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I go to a midwestern state school. Welp, looks like I'm headed for a family medicine residency at northwest south dakota state university at sioux falls.
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Are you saying you'd be at the top of the class at an unranked school?
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njbmd
Yes, I am a residency director and academic physician. I will question your intellectual ability if you can't answer the questions that I put forth in an interview regardless of where you graduated.
No, graduation from Harvard, UCSF does not guarantee that you are "top-notch" but only that you met their requirements for admission and graduation. It's still about your performance at said school. Your medical school's reputation will not make up for your less-than stellar performance.
Accreditation by LCME ensures that there isn't much difference between medical schools. The accreditation standards are pretty uniform which is why a place like GW can find themselves on probation if they start to have problems. This is also why American grads generally will have less of a problem matching across the board than FMGs regardless of USMLE scores.
Perhaps, a phone call from a nationally known physician from one of those "high ranked" schools might open some doors but I am not going to pass over a top grad from another school because of a political connection that a lesser performer might have. I want the best residency class period.
Bottom line: it's up to you to do your best wherever you land (as long as you are in the US). As I have said many times before, if you had a choice of medical schools, pick the one where you know that you can perform your best. If you didn't have a choice, do your best and keep moving forward.
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Reputation has nothing to do with how difficult it is to achieve certain grades. I go to a small southern school but the curriculum is difficult because it's preparation for Step 1. Only about 10-20% of the class gets A's, completely uncurved. Step average is ~225 so it's not like the students are subpar
I guess my 260 is tarnished because of my school and I have to do residency on Mars 😎
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I'd also like to point out that a lot of very competitive top 20 medical schools are pass/fail and don't even rank their students. If I remember correctly Yale University and the Cleveland Clinic medical school have exams that are entirely for the student's own benefit and don't get reported even to the administrators. Theoretically at those schools, you can fail all of your preclinical exams but as long as you pass the boards, no one will know any better. It supposed to foster a more collaberative learning envrioment.
So the whole point of being ranked in the first 2 years of medical school is pretty much moot except for maybe AOA honors (and for that, a lot of schools factor in your board scores, community service, and other intangible qualities). Third and fourth year clinical grades though are an entirely different matter - large portion of that depends on how well you do on each shelf exam, which is a national standardized exam. So yeah, being in the top quartile of students at an unranked medical school during your 3rd and 4th year carries a lot of weight.
So the whole point of being ranked in the first 2 years of medical school is pretty much moot except for maybe AOA honors (and for that, a lot of schools factor in your board scores, community service, and other intangible qualities). Third and fourth year clinical grades though are an entirely different matter - large portion of that depends on how well you do on each shelf exam, which is a national standardized exam. So yeah, being in the top quartile of students at an unranked medical school during your 3rd and 4th year carries a lot of weight.
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Looks like the OP wants SDN to assuage his insecurities. Too bad OP, enjoy your family medicine residency. I'm sure your top 20 education will give you an instant leg up on managing diabetes and common cold patients for the rest of your life.
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Come on. Of course it is board scores. Who cares if you are #1 at Harvard if you can barely pass your boards.
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same here, hmmm, I guess those people from my school who matched at WashU and UChicago and Michigan (wait, never mind, that's a midwestern state school too) are all flukes...
The attitude of the OP that he could be a star at an 'unranked' school is totally ludicrous. I have noticed that many of the people who are performing at the top of my med school class went to state schools (even ones with cardinal directions in their name), while people from 'big name' undergrads (myself included) are relatively mediocre med students. I knew of a plastic surgeon at UMich who went to U of Southern Alabama for undergrad, then graduated top of her class at UAlabama med school and is now in one of the most competitive specialties in one of the most competitive institutions in the country.
School reputation does matter a lot in certain fields (law, business), and sure, even in medicine having an HMS or Hopkins degree could help you land a position where you can get money to set up your own research lab and get some K08 or K23 grants, but is that why all people are in medical school? No. You are going to be trained as a doctor coming out of any school in the US.
I want to be in academia, but there are a lot of ways for me to get there, and I'm not interested in a super competitive specialty (I get excited about infectious disease, which is staffed by a lot of foreign grads). I'm not fretting that my lack of a top 20 degree (and coming from who anyway?) will close any doors for me, especially since I still have 2 years before I submit ERAS.
So to the OP, get over yourself and do the best you can wherever you are. But don't expect life to give you any favors for being in a 'big name'.
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I could see where high board score coupled with bad class ranking could raise a flag, just like the opposite would. But what the heck do I know
if you do poorly on step 1 or in med school, nobody cares if you went to HMS. there are slackers and under-performers at every school, including HMS and JHU, and the name alone will not carry them.
that said, i think applying residency is different from applying to med school, because at the residency stage, more applicants are at a different stage in life and matching to a specific location becomes more important.
therefore residency programs are more likely to interview people with decent stats but are in the region vs. a better than average candidate from across the country. of course, stellar candidates will likely be pursued by everyone.
that said, i think applying residency is different from applying to med school, because at the residency stage, more applicants are at a different stage in life and matching to a specific location becomes more important.
therefore residency programs are more likely to interview people with decent stats but are in the region vs. a better than average candidate from across the country. of course, stellar candidates will likely be pursued by everyone.
That is certainly the impression the OP gives which is why the is some hostility. I don't think it is an entirely unreasonable assumption that your rank might be a bit higher at a less competitive school but suggesting you would go from bottom quartile to top is not reasonable.
Medical school is not easy and most people work hard at it not just those at the top.
Work hard and do as well as you can where you are at. If you aren't happy with your performance try to find a way to improve it rather than an excuse.
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45408
Why?
I voted for 1st quartile, unranked school. I wouldn't say that prestige doesn't matter, because I think it does. There are more "top students" at top schools than there are top student at bottom schools. (There's a Michael Scott joke in there somewhere.)
However, to be a top student at any US MD school means you're a really good student. The top students in my school (which is ranked, but usually around the 45-50 range) were matching into all of the most competitive specialties (plastics x2, derm x1-2, rad onc x1, urology x4, neurosurg x2, ortho x5, ENT x1, etc). If you're at the top of your class, you're in a good position.
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Med school is so drastically different from undergraduate. It is difficult to quantify what makes a good medical student or doctor by their performance in undergrad. Sure, it is easy to assume that the person who was a rockstar in undergrad will be good in med school, but there isn't much proof in that, especially since the differences in admissions stats are really quite small between top and bottom schools. How much of a difference truly is a .1 or .2 on gpa and 1-3 points on the MCAT? For us it seems like a lot, but it is truly one bad semester and an off day difference.
Is it REALLY the education that makes a school top ranked? I'm willing to put it more on the research and post-graduate education than the quality of teachers. I think, with the exclusion of the outliers, most of us aren't significantly different and a top performing student at that low tier school would probably still be a top performing at the upper tiers..maybe not number 1, but not significantly enough of a difference to matter.
Is it REALLY the education that makes a school top ranked? I'm willing to put it more on the research and post-graduate education than the quality of teachers. I think, with the exclusion of the outliers, most of us aren't significantly different and a top performing student at that low tier school would probably still be a top performing at the upper tiers..maybe not number 1, but not significantly enough of a difference to matter.
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Most of the folks at the top of their med school class are there because they have a fantastic work ethic and are super organized and efficient.
Likewise, most people who are the bottom of their class are still intelligent but often have difficulty managing the workload or don't have a great work ethic.
Somehow I doubt a med student at the bottom of a top tier school would magically grow study skills or a work ethic at a lower tier school.
Likewise, most people who are the bottom of their class are still intelligent but often have difficulty managing the workload or don't have a great work ethic.
Somehow I doubt a med student at the bottom of a top tier school would magically grow study skills or a work ethic at a lower tier school.
this is interesting.
i know i offended lots of people, but the notion that one could do better at a lesser ranked school is prevalent throughout the student body here. everyone seems to say that it wouldn't be this hard other places. i also think that the administration and residency program directors here perpetuate this mentality.
no i don't think one would necessarily go from 4th quartile to 1st quartile by switching to a lesser ranked school. But, I do think it would come easier to do better at other schools. We are all ranked next to our classmates. If my classmates are just a little less hard working than me, then I have a leg-up.
i know i offended lots of people, but the notion that one could do better at a lesser ranked school is prevalent throughout the student body here. everyone seems to say that it wouldn't be this hard other places. i also think that the administration and residency program directors here perpetuate this mentality.
no i don't think one would necessarily go from 4th quartile to 1st quartile by switching to a lesser ranked school. But, I do think it would come easier to do better at other schools. We are all ranked next to our classmates. If my classmates are just a little less hard working than me, then I have a leg-up.
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Just out of curiosity how are you doing on national exams like the shelf exams and Step 1? If you are killing those but ranked near the bottom of the class you might have an argument.
But it could be you are just someone who excels better on standardized tests and doesn't like/unable to deal with the BS of in-class exams
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So students at lesser ranked schools work less hard?
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This. Sure, a good portion of those at top 20 schools are smarter than me. I have no doubts about that. But, I won't sell myself short. Put me in a hospital and it's game over. On the street is where I shine...
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That's just rationalization. You may move from the fourth quartile to the third if you went to Podunk U. Medical School but to claim you might shoot to the top is ridiculous. The cream of the crop at every medical school in the nation is exactly the same. The difference arises in the caliber of the average student at different medical schools.
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People also operate under the assumption that everyone wants to go to a top ten, move to the East Coast, and end up at MGH for residency. This is patently false. There are a lot of factors that influence school decision including family and finances that would lead people to choose "crappy Midwestern or Southern state" schools. You can't make the conclusion that all superstars are at top tier schools.
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Everyone takes the same boards and the same shelf exams. We all had to learn the same material. If you have data showing that your school performs better on those standardized exams, I'm willing to listen, but otherwise, it sounds like a lot of patting yourselves on the back.
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And uh, how many other schools have your classmates attended that they know how difficult it would be elsewhere?
You know, you can get top grades and scores from a top medschool and still not match into any residency. I know of several people at a top 5 med school who had to scramble last year, and some didn't match even then. Why? At their interviews they demonstrated that they would be undesirable co-workers. Your big name school doesn't mean you get a big name residency, although as a pre-med you probably don't believe me.
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Then that just goes to show you how full of yourselves you and your classmates are. You know you've offended lots of people, yet you still continue to make the same baseless claims/judgments. I'd stop now if I were you, since you either a) can't seem to comprehend the fact that you're coming across as incredibly arrogant, or b) really don't care how you come across.
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I just find it strange he neglected to show any objective proof in terms of personal/class shelf exam scores. If they don't take shelf exams then he really has no basis for his statements - reputation and MCAT don't mean much while actually in med school, performance does.
yes our step 1 score is above the national average. i dont actually know the exact score off-hand, since those numbers have meant little to me until recently.
our shelf exam scores, im not sure. ive actually never heard that discussed.
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My school has our average step 1 score above the national average. We aren't top 20. It has to do more with the curriculum than the student. Like others said, the difference between students in different schools is very minor. There are many other factors that play a greater role (IMO) at determining the board scores (how the curriculum is structured, how much prep time is given, etc..).
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So what makes you and your classmates think that your school is so much harder? Reputation? The fact people have high MCATs? It's just really hard so you can't imagine "lower" schools being as hard?
What if I told you my "lower" school has an above avg Step 1 avg and is above avg on the Path and Micro shelf exams and avg for the Pharm shelf. What that change your mind on how you and your classmates would perform at a "lower" school?
Med school is very competitive now and because of that competitiveness, financial concerns (students that are competitive anywhere can get great scholarship offers from schools with lesser reputations), and regional concerns many excellent students who did not want to or could not want to go top 20 programs are being spread out all over the country.
My school has graduates from Stanford, Duke, Cornell, Emory etc. Half our class may not be Ivy and undegrad rep doesn't matter much once in med school but it is just to illustrate the point that top students are going everywhere - some because they have to, some because of scholarship, and some because they want to.
This has been a solid convo and I apologize if I have shown any animosity but me and some other posters here just want you to see the other side of the story. For the most part med students everywhere work just as hard and the best students anywhere would succeed everywhere - we all learn the same stuff.
i think we all understand that med school is difficult everywhere. i agree, that really bright students go everywhere, often because of the financial incentive. i would have taken a full scholarship to a lower-ranked school in a heart beat. i'd take $0 debt to $150,000 debt any day.
just to clarify: i do understand med school is tough everywhere and that extremely intelligent students are at un-ranked universities. also agree that a med student anywhere is probably a pretty smart and hard-working individual.
i never said a 4th quarter student would rise to AOA level at another university. we do have slackers and generally intelligent people who struggle -- for whatever reason.
the mentality that ive described, seems pretty straight-forward to me. but, clearly you all don't agree. that's fine, i can accept that.
it only stems from the notion that because admission here is highly competitive, the average student is in some ways (possibly just smarter or harder-working) than the average med student at lower-ranked universities.
we are graded and ranked at my university--- therefore if there is a greater density of steller-students, it will be that more difficult to rise to the top. if there is a lower density of steller-students (as one might find at a lower ranked school ), then it would be relatively easy (not easy in the absolute sense) to do better---this is deduced simply from the level of competitiveness of admission.
just to clarify: i do understand med school is tough everywhere and that extremely intelligent students are at un-ranked universities. also agree that a med student anywhere is probably a pretty smart and hard-working individual.
i never said a 4th quarter student would rise to AOA level at another university. we do have slackers and generally intelligent people who struggle -- for whatever reason.
the mentality that ive described, seems pretty straight-forward to me. but, clearly you all don't agree. that's fine, i can accept that.
it only stems from the notion that because admission here is highly competitive, the average student is in some ways (possibly just smarter or harder-working) than the average med student at lower-ranked universities.
we are graded and ranked at my university--- therefore if there is a greater density of steller-students, it will be that more difficult to rise to the top. if there is a lower density of steller-students (as one might find at a lower ranked school ), then it would be relatively easy (not easy in the absolute sense) to do better---this is deduced simply from the level of competitiveness of admission.
