Originally posted by adude
Looking at a school's match list is probably a waste of time. Especially if you only look at 1 or 2 years. The sample sizes are just too small. If you look at a list for say pediatrics and see that no one went to Boston children's or CHOP or whatever it may be that no one from that class wanted to go to those places, or ranked other less prestigious programs higher because of location or whatnot. Or maybe the people going into pediatrics from that year at that school were just dopes and wouldn't have gotten a good program no matter what school they were from.
True, although knowing firsthand that many Tufts students in all fields are concerned with prestige and that a decent proportion of students are from Massachusetts or the Boston area by state mandate (yes, TUSM gets state funding), I did find it a bit surprising that no one matched at Boston Children's or CHOP. Also, when I said that geography was a big deal, I believe that is almost 100% determined by where people choose to interview, match, etc., more than what school you go to. People choose the programs they want to match at for various reasons like proximity to family, prestige, impressions on their interview day, etc.; sound familiar anyone?😉
Also what sounds prestigious may not necessarily be the case for certain fields, for example in PM&R NJMS is much more highly regarded than Harvard or Columbia, or in ER UNC is much better than Duke.
Agreed, but were these types of comparisons directly made on this thread?? i must have missed it..
I guess my point is that your chances of matching somewhere are almost exclusively determined by your own work and not by your medical school.
yes, and pretty much everyone in the US MD schools matches somewhere, and if they don't they can always "scramble". The one person I know who didn't match in Radiation Oncology coming out of Maryland med would have been a fine candidate with no trouble getting a residency in something less competitive.. In fact, he ended up getting a prelim year in IM at Maryland and got a place at EVMS for rad.onc. without having to reapply. Come to think of it, his scores on USMLE I and II were around the national average and his pre-clinical grades were fine but not spectacular. point there is that there is definitely hope for those of us who didn't Honor everything and/or score in the 99th percentile on USMLE I. just keep your head up and try your best and things will work out in the end (KOW🙂)