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Inspired by a recent SDN article about maximizing second look Day, I wanted to contribute a few things you all should look for overall (not only on second look day). I’m an M4. This is all my opinion. These factors are NOT ordered by their importance. An additional factor is I have first hand experience at how curriculums work and expand on that below.
1.) School Prestige Matters Sometimes: Back when I was in pre-allo, the mantra was go to the cheapest school, medical school is medical school, etc. I mean that’s not terrible advice, but I also feel like SDN pre-allo has a large non-trad population too and that kind of becomes the mantra. I don’t think MD school matters if you’re just looking to match a terminal field (i.e. all you want to do is match something even moderately competitive EM/Derm/etc.). However, if you’re looking to match something like Peds/IM/Gen Surg and want a brand name fellowship, going to a better school makes a huge difference come application time if the difference is between top 25 and a mid tier school. Residency then becomes huge when it comes to fellowship.
2. Assess the quality of clinical education:
You will not get this at second look and you won’t get this from tour guides or third years you’ve just recently met. These people are incentivized to make their program or what they’re going through seem amazing. You should really compare the experience from anyone you really know from the school who’s gone through it. Clinical training can be surprisingly bad at some schools you would not suspect. I don’t know places this can be, but have heard stories and experienced my own place.
3. Match Lists: Look at the IM category and cross reference with Doximity for strength and don’t be impressed with unofficial programs (Cleveland Clinic in Florida and arguably Cleveland, Mayo in Arizona, Penn Hospital of UPenn, Mt. Sinai Affiliates, UCLA affiliates, UChicago affilites, etc). IM is a good gauge not just because it’s awesome, but because school reputation is a big factor in IM and there’s a large sample size as IM is one of the most commonly applied to fields.
4. Where you’ll be happy: Honestly it’s a lot of things and it’s hard to predict what will make you happy. It could be anything from how pre-clinical grades are done to the fact that there’s a high quality 24/7 gym situated between your future school and apartment. People like to say after the fact that they liked something and try to convince themselves they made a good prediction when in actuality things just worked out well. The only thing that can influence your happiness for certain is compatibility/proximity with family.
5. Pre-Clinical & Clinical Grading: This is really emphasized because it’s one of those things that you can ask and get a definitive answer to. That said, it’s impossible to predict what system will benefit you. People sometimes forget that if you do go to a P/F pre-clinical system, then your entire medical school performance will be based off subjective evaluations in third year. Also, how much of M3 is weighted on exams vs. evaluations is it’s own uncertainty. I didn’t anticipate honoring certain rotations the way that I did at certain times. One exception to this theme of uncertainty I’m painting is schools who refuse outright to rank students. I recommend that at your interview you ask all your interviewers, tour guides, and close friends (most important) how class rank is calculated because that’s the most important and if it’s 100% unranked that may be a good place to attend if it has a good reputation.
6. Patient population: This doesn’t matter that much, but it’s actually interesting nonetheless. I’m from a fairly well off suburb and had lived there and a pretty nice college town my whole life. I went to medical school and this was my first exposure to underserved patients whereas all my clinical experience had been with rich suburbanites. I will say both populations have their pros/cons. In general, the lower SES groups will be more respectful to medical students which allows you to take control of the patient encounter much easier. That said, you will also see that they require education and many are drug-seeking. While the “requiring education” part sounds great and I’m sure all of you wrote how you loved teaching patients in your PS, keep in mind that sometimes the teaching you’re used to may fall on deaf ears because of the health literacy (i.e. hearing something in the hospital once will not immediately educate the patient, larger health literacy campaigns are needed). On the other hand, suburban populations are nice in that they are easier to educate if they are willing to listen. On the other hand, many subscribe to quackery as a byproduct of their privileged upbringing and can be rude/disrespectful to medical students and you’ll really have to work hard to maintain control of the patient encounter and may sometimes not be allowed to contribute. So for the nth time, it’s really hard to envision what you’d like better until you experience it.
7. Mentorship: This is actually one of the important ones. If you can’t find a good mentor for your field, that’s going to make things more difficult. That being said, it’s hard to predict how good a school is at providing mentorship because everyone will advertise their mentorship and it will all seem the same. The good news is that being a US MD school means your school is likely an academic center with presence of all specialties. Another thing that’s a good sign of strong mentorship is a low class sizes s it allows a higher faculty mentor:student ratio. Lastly, if you have friends, ask them if they were able to find mentors. Try to gauge the consistency of their responses.
That’s about all I have. I’m happy to answer questions.
1.) School Prestige Matters Sometimes: Back when I was in pre-allo, the mantra was go to the cheapest school, medical school is medical school, etc. I mean that’s not terrible advice, but I also feel like SDN pre-allo has a large non-trad population too and that kind of becomes the mantra. I don’t think MD school matters if you’re just looking to match a terminal field (i.e. all you want to do is match something even moderately competitive EM/Derm/etc.). However, if you’re looking to match something like Peds/IM/Gen Surg and want a brand name fellowship, going to a better school makes a huge difference come application time if the difference is between top 25 and a mid tier school. Residency then becomes huge when it comes to fellowship.
2. Assess the quality of clinical education:
You will not get this at second look and you won’t get this from tour guides or third years you’ve just recently met. These people are incentivized to make their program or what they’re going through seem amazing. You should really compare the experience from anyone you really know from the school who’s gone through it. Clinical training can be surprisingly bad at some schools you would not suspect. I don’t know places this can be, but have heard stories and experienced my own place.
3. Match Lists: Look at the IM category and cross reference with Doximity for strength and don’t be impressed with unofficial programs (Cleveland Clinic in Florida and arguably Cleveland, Mayo in Arizona, Penn Hospital of UPenn, Mt. Sinai Affiliates, UCLA affiliates, UChicago affilites, etc). IM is a good gauge not just because it’s awesome, but because school reputation is a big factor in IM and there’s a large sample size as IM is one of the most commonly applied to fields.
4. Where you’ll be happy: Honestly it’s a lot of things and it’s hard to predict what will make you happy. It could be anything from how pre-clinical grades are done to the fact that there’s a high quality 24/7 gym situated between your future school and apartment. People like to say after the fact that they liked something and try to convince themselves they made a good prediction when in actuality things just worked out well. The only thing that can influence your happiness for certain is compatibility/proximity with family.
5. Pre-Clinical & Clinical Grading: This is really emphasized because it’s one of those things that you can ask and get a definitive answer to. That said, it’s impossible to predict what system will benefit you. People sometimes forget that if you do go to a P/F pre-clinical system, then your entire medical school performance will be based off subjective evaluations in third year. Also, how much of M3 is weighted on exams vs. evaluations is it’s own uncertainty. I didn’t anticipate honoring certain rotations the way that I did at certain times. One exception to this theme of uncertainty I’m painting is schools who refuse outright to rank students. I recommend that at your interview you ask all your interviewers, tour guides, and close friends (most important) how class rank is calculated because that’s the most important and if it’s 100% unranked that may be a good place to attend if it has a good reputation.
6. Patient population: This doesn’t matter that much, but it’s actually interesting nonetheless. I’m from a fairly well off suburb and had lived there and a pretty nice college town my whole life. I went to medical school and this was my first exposure to underserved patients whereas all my clinical experience had been with rich suburbanites. I will say both populations have their pros/cons. In general, the lower SES groups will be more respectful to medical students which allows you to take control of the patient encounter much easier. That said, you will also see that they require education and many are drug-seeking. While the “requiring education” part sounds great and I’m sure all of you wrote how you loved teaching patients in your PS, keep in mind that sometimes the teaching you’re used to may fall on deaf ears because of the health literacy (i.e. hearing something in the hospital once will not immediately educate the patient, larger health literacy campaigns are needed). On the other hand, suburban populations are nice in that they are easier to educate if they are willing to listen. On the other hand, many subscribe to quackery as a byproduct of their privileged upbringing and can be rude/disrespectful to medical students and you’ll really have to work hard to maintain control of the patient encounter and may sometimes not be allowed to contribute. So for the nth time, it’s really hard to envision what you’d like better until you experience it.
7. Mentorship: This is actually one of the important ones. If you can’t find a good mentor for your field, that’s going to make things more difficult. That being said, it’s hard to predict how good a school is at providing mentorship because everyone will advertise their mentorship and it will all seem the same. The good news is that being a US MD school means your school is likely an academic center with presence of all specialties. Another thing that’s a good sign of strong mentorship is a low class sizes s it allows a higher faculty mentor:student ratio. Lastly, if you have friends, ask them if they were able to find mentors. Try to gauge the consistency of their responses.
That’s about all I have. I’m happy to answer questions.
