Why? Because they are Penn. And I would say the strength of an institution - and I know this will be really, really, really hard for some of you wrap your mind around - but there is much more to factor in than cardiology fellowship matches. Fellowship matches by themselves are not as good an indicator as you might think because it varies much from year to year how many people do apply and where they want to apply. When most of you animals looks at match lists and then compare you make the incorrect assumption that because not many people matched at CCF, Mayo, or Duke for cards that this means that the places can't march someone there. This is largely horse**** sloppy thinking. It probably means that people in the last few years from that program had their reasons for NOT wanting to go to those places, location, family, mentors, research interests may have no coincided.
So ultimately are you going to not be able to match to the exact same places from Sanford as Penn? No. But that's not where Im coming from. And you did ask for anonymous opinions on a web forum and it my opinion but Penn's clinical training simply has a reputation for being rather rigorous so. Between name brand and what I think will be better clinical training Penn wins in my mind. It's not magic. It's not that nuanced. If you want us all to cosign a Stanford rank above Penn then don't ask the question. If you already have ranked the way you like? Great. We always so go with your gut. But you're not going to convince me my opinion on this one is wrong.
Good luck.
