From last year's perspective - BWH did call some people and almost all of them matched at the Brigham, if I remember correctly. MGH-wise, a good number of us got calls/outreach from the committee chairs and others - not everyone who did matched there, however. Neither program did second looks - but hey, things could change in a year.
For those of you to whom this applies...MGH categorical calls are made by the committee chair. MGH PC will reach out in more diffuse ways (residents, etc.). BWH, on the other hand, does both no matter whether PC or categorical.
As for points 3 and 4...
3) This 1/2 quote may not be true - almost EVERYONE I know who interviewed at BWH (east coat perspective, at least) ranked it one unless they had a compelling geographic/partner issue or preferred UCSF due to location. Of all my colleagues who ranked BWH one, only a few matched there, and they were ALL either HMS or Yale kids. (Admittedly, I know of at least one from both of those schools who got a call, ranked BWH #1 and didn't match, but those may be outliers...).
4) BWH will not take a Harvard class entirely but does show a preference - two years ago, they took something like 11. BWH also tends to show a very strong preference for specific schools, as evidenced by their classes - when we applied, a ton of Yale kids ended up there. The year before, Penn sent something like 6-8, etc. MGH is a bit more egalitarian - people are coming from everywhere (including strong state schools) with good representation from the top schools as well but fewer HMSers than BWH.
What I found interesting last year was the prediliction that BWH and MGH have for certain schools. Looking at match lists from the past couple of years, BWH always had consistent representation from Yale, Penn, UCSF, Cornell, Chicago, Emory and Stanford in particular. MGH, meanwhile, tends to have a broader spread but with a consistent showing from Columbia, Sinai, Duke, Vanderbilt and the other Southern schools. Hopkins sends to both liberally.
Not sure how this works out but it does - in Virginia, for example, UVA kids tend to match at BWH and not at MGH, whereas VCU kids traditionally interview/match en masse at MGH but not at BWH.
Anyway, enough digression. Bottom line: both programs are exceptional. BWH's crowd is a little more Ivy heavy; MGH's is a bit more diverse.
Best of luck y'all, it's a great dilemma to have.
🙂
1) I thought rules of match precluded contact too, so I was very surprised when I received a call. People have previously posted about receiving these calls as an opportunity "to answer anymore questions they may have." Mine essentially told me I would be there next year if I chose to be. Again, I don't put any stock in this, as I've seen old posts indicating that they heard of "someone/some people" receiving a call of interest, ranked it 1, and did not match there. I remember an old MGH resident defending this by saying that they look historically at how many people it takes to fill there class, and one year they did this but had to go much less farther down the list...hence, some people that received calls got screwed. Apparently they are more conservative about it now, but who knows. Anyways, I don't think they call everyone, but I also don't put too much stock in the call.
2) Also, I didn't receive a second look invitation.
3) Unless they only said this at one interview day (that the other poster happened and I both happened to be at), BWH definitely said that 1/2 of us would end up there if we chose to rank it 1.
4) I'm not sure why MGH does this (makes calls). I do know that Brigham has previously made calls too come February (per a resident). I also received an out of the blue email from the PD at UCSF essentially saying they would love to have me there, so I don't think post-interview contact from an institution is abnormal.
In terms of the HMS student thing, neither nor MGH/BWH is going to select an "HMS-heavy" student class. Lack of institutional diversity just makes them look bad. I think on average based on a quick glance, 10 people a year are from HMS at BWH (about 20%?). MGH is a little more diverse.
