Weight of medical program attended in matching to a competitive residency?

[alpinism]

There's no specific point where school reputation begins to matter, it's more of a continuum.

To answer your question, yes, there is a difference between #22 Emory and #42 UC Davis (according to US News).

That being said, once you leave the top 1/3 of research schools (roughly 1-40) entering class statistics (MCAT/GPA) start to level off and reputation plays much less of a role. Because of this, some people divide schools into upper tier, middle tier, and lower tier.

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[Acosi]

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[CyberMaxx]

Would it be a legitimate way to determine how medical school reputation translates into residency application advantage by comparing the residency director ranking of medical schools as reported by USN&WR?

 

[alpinism]

Just taking those schools as an example, let's say you'd like to pursue a very competitive residency in California, not the East Coast or the South. Would it be wise to pick Davis in this case?

Going to school in CA gives you a leg up in applying for CA residencies bc of 2 main reasons:

1. Its easier to match at your home school, thus if you go to UCD it would be easier to match at UCD and stay in CA.
2. LORs from CA faculty will be better known by CA residency programs due to personal and professional connections.

It depends on what you mean by competitive.

Many residencies are competitive mostly due to location, not bc they provide the best training. For example, its often easier to match in St. Louis or Ann Arbor even though they have great programs bc most people don't want to live there.

If you're talking about average programs in a competitive location like CA, then UCD would give you the advantage due to the above 2 reasons.

If you're talking about top programs in CA such as IM or Anesthesiology at UCSF, then Emory would give you the advantage due to the fact that its easier to get into top residencies from top med schools.

 

[alpinism]

Would it be a legitimate way to determine how medical school reputation translates into residency application advantage by comparing the residency director ranking of medical schools as reported by USN&WR?

The PD ranking should be very similar to the research ranking. A few schools may move up or down the list based on research strength vs. reputation. The only problem with the PD survey is that it suffers from a very low response rate.