What are my chances of getting into a top 10 psych program?

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Poit

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I'm curious about my chances at programs like Harvard, Yale, UCLA, Stanford ect. I'm guessing my step score may hold me back? What Step 2 score should I aim for?

US MD mid-tier state school
Step 1: 233
Solid research experience with lots of abstracts and presentations (in cardiology)
Top 1/3 clinical grades (with honors in psych)
Will have "excellent student" designation on MSPE
Good LORs
ECs do NOT show interest in psych (I developed that late in the game), but good volunteering blah blah
No red flags
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I was not that dissimilar from you when I applied in terms of step I score and general gestalt of my application. I came from a top 10 school. I had no interest in going to New England so I didn't apply to any of the Ivy programs, but I did interview at a couple of "prestigious" programs out in California (including Stanford) as well as other well-known programs. I ended up ranking a relatively non-prestigious program in my home city first and that's where I matched, so who knows how things would have ended up.

Even at "prestigious" institutions (which doesn't necessarily predict a good psychiatry program by the way), the standards are lower than in many other specialties. My guess is that you'd have a good shot at getting interviews at several of those places. I have no idea how you would do with respect to the match - that will probably depend largely on your ability to perform in an interview.
 
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NickNaylor said:
I was not that dissimilar from you when I applied in terms of step I score and general gestalt of my application. I came from a top 10 school. I had no interest in going to New England so I didn't apply to any of the Ivy programs, but I did interview at a couple of "prestigious" programs out in California (including Stanford) as well as other well-known programs. I ended up ranking a relatively non-prestigious program in my home city first and that's where I matched, so who knows how things would have ended up.

Even at "prestigious" institutions (which doesn't necessarily predict a good psychiatry program by the way), the standards are lower than in many other specialties. My guess is that you'd have a good shot at getting interviews at several of those places. I have no idea how you would do with respect to the match - that will probably depend largely on your ability to perform in an interview.
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But I think that the prestige of your home institution matters a lot here. At our school, we had a student who remediated part of a core rotation match into a tippy-top psych residency.
 
Poit said:
Why is it repulsive that I'd prefer to have a higher salary? Maybe it's to free up some time for pro-bono work or to donate more to charity. You may need to shout, it might be hard to hear you when you're up so high on that horse.
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If you have to ask....
 
Don't hate the player, hate the game. Most students asking what are my chances for [insert competitive (i.e., high paying) specialty] are asking the same thing in a less direct manner.

OP be careful what you wish for. The patient population you are aiming for will want their pound of flesh in return for your rates.
 
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Goro said:
If you have to ask....
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I'm guessing you "don't have to ask" why applicants to your DO school yammer on about practicing FM for the underserved, but by the end of med school, your charting outcomes reflect a more-or-less direct relationship between board score and income/hour for that specialty. Miraculous.
 
Poit said:
I'm guessing you "don't have to ask" why applicants to your DO school yammer on about practicing FM for the underserved, but by the end of med school, your charting outcomes reflect a more-or-less direct relationship between board score and income/hour for that specialty. Miraculous.
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You're not wrong, but you also shouldn't be surprised by people's reaction to that motivation.
 
Love when people get so mad about someone contemplating a career decision that is based off of making more money. Sorry not all of us think that medicine is a "calling". I'm more concerned finding a specialty that will provide me with the work/type of life I want to live rather than saving all the underserved people in our world
 
Frogger27 said:
Love when people get so mad about someone contemplating a career decision that is based off of making more money. Sorry not all of us think that medicine is a "calling". I'm more concerned finding a specialty that will provide me with the work/type of life I want to live rather than saving all the underserved people in our world
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I'm not getting mad. Making bank is the baseline. We expect that.

But there are easier ways to make bank without having to kill yourself for 10+ years and go > $250K into debt. We're not expecting you to be the reincarnation of St Francis, but to just have something more than the mere love of lucre.
 
Goro said:
I'm not getting mad. Making bank is the baseline. We expect that.

But there are easier ways to make bank without having to kill yourself for 10+ years and go > $250K into debt. We're not expecting you to be the reincarnation of St Francis, but to just have something more than the mere love of lucre.
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Agreed but that is something you tell a pre-med student, not a rising 4th year who is assessing is odds for top residency programs/his career options.

Edit: There are also a good number of med students who come from well off families who pay for the majority of their school. There aren't many better career options for people like this who will make a guaranteed 250k+ salary around the age 30 all for staying on board the educational train that they have been on since parents enrolled them in private schools at age 7
 
Poit said:
I don't lol. I've heard you can charge more for private practice if you advertise that you went to one of them.
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Literally no one cares about where you went to medical school. Hell, a good number of our patients don't even understand the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist and don't realize we went through the same basic training as a surgeon or an oncologist. The people that will actually care that you went to Harvard Med are few and far between. Most will probably only care that you listen to them, speak English well, and seem to have an interest in their care and well-being. That is going to be worth infinitely more than your credentials, which most people simply aren't going to look up, and will lead to word-of-mouth referrals and the creation of a reputation that really drives the growth of a practice.

You sure as hell aren't going to get to charge more because you went to a "top 10 program" (whatever that means). I mean, you could, but the overwhelming majority of patients will simply go to the cheaper doc. Some won't and will mistakenly think that training at Harvard means you're the best doctor ever and you'll successfully capture that market, but I'm not so sure that's going to be enough to fill up and sustain a practice. This is especially true depending on the geographic area in which you end up.
 
Frogger27 said:
Love when people get so mad about someone contemplating a career decision that is based off of making more money. Sorry not all of us think that medicine is a "calling". I'm more concerned finding a specialty that will provide me with the work/type of life I want to live rather than saving all the underserved people in our world
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Why would I be mad? I said I find it repulsive and distasteful or off-putting. I'm entitled to my opinion. If you need to look up what each word means...use google...not hard.
 
NickNaylor said:
Literally no one cares about where you went to medical school. Hell, a good number of our patients don't even understand the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist and don't realize we went through the same basic training as a surgeon or an oncologist. The people that will actually care that you went to Harvard Med are few and far between. Most will probably only care that you listen to them, speak English well, and seem to have an interest in their care and well-being. That is going to be worth infinitely more than your credentials, which most people simply aren't going to look up, and will lead to word-of-mouth referrals and the creation of a reputation that really drives the growth of a practice.

You sure as hell aren't going to get to charge more because you went to a "top 10 program" (whatever that means). I mean, you could, but the overwhelming majority of patients will simply go to the cheaper doc. Some won't and will mistakenly think that training at Harvard means you're the best doctor ever and you'll successfully capture that market, but I'm not so sure that's going to be enough to fill up and sustain a practice. This is especially true depending on the geographic area in which you end up.
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To be fair to @Poit, I think s/he was asking if they could get into a top Psych residency. Now that all the bickering is hopefully over, I suggest that we ask some of our Psych colleagues (like you) and @WingedOx etc.

Also, Poit, have you inquired here?
Psychiatry
 
7331poas said:
"I dislike black people. [...] What? You are repulsed by honesty?"
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Objecting to somebody's repulsion from the statements, "I dislike black people" and "I'd like to have a higher salary" isn't even close to being the same.
 
michaelrack said:
a top psych residence won't matter unless possibly you want to do a high end cash pay practice on the east coast
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That's actually what I would like to do, but apparently that's repulsive to the self-righteous finger waggers on here.
 
Poit said:
That's actually what I would like to do, but apparently that's repulsive to the self-righteous finger waggers on here.
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I think that the more salient point is that graduating from a top program is very unlikely to have a significant impact on your ability to run a successful private practice. More important are the quality of your clinical skills and your ability to feel like the patient got something from the time and money they just spent to see you. These things have little to nothing to do with the program that you trained at. In the larger cities, competition is tight and perhaps there may be a small advantage to being trained at a "prestigious" program with name recognition. In just about any other setting, however, it's such a minor issue as to be entirely irrelevant.
 
Poit said:
Objecting to somebody's repulsion from the statements, "I dislike black people" and "I'd like to have a higher salary" isn't even close to being the same.
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Of course it isn't the same. The statement was an analogy
 
Poit said:
Right, so the analogy doesn't have much of a place in this discussion, does it.
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Sure it does.

Person A is appalled at the substance of comment 1. Person B then asserts that Person A cannot be appalled by the comment because "it is truthful".

How does that make sense?
 
7331poas said:
Sure it does.

Person A is appalled at the substance of comment 1. Person B then asserts that Person A cannot be appalled by the comment because "it is truthful".

How does that make sense?
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Because person B wasn't asserting that all objections to true statements are repulsive. It was a claim about objecting to honesty in this particular situation. I'm sure that you can think of an example where it would be silly for somebody to object to an honest confession? Does that mean that it's always silly for somebody to object to an honest confession? Of course not.
 
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Poit said:
I'm sure that you can think of an example where it would be silly for somebody to object to an honest confession?
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I can think of plenty of statements that are objectionable. I cannot think of a single instance where the statement's status of being objectionable changes because it is an "honest confession".
 
OP, didn't you know that one of the SDN circlejerks is that you should never go to a prestigous program, only whats cheapest

also if you care how much $ you make you're literally a Nazi
 
In my non-medical school specific experience (~6 years of consulting with private practice physicians prior to starting med school this year), medicine is 95% about your abilities and 5% about where you went when it comes to your success.. give or take a few percentage points here and there. Bragging about going to a top 10 residency is probably a solid foot in the door for certain people, but psych above all other specialties is all about connection with your patients. No one cares if you went to Harvard if they dislike or didn't connect with you after the first meeting.

In my own anecdotal experience, the busiest/most successful doc I worked with at my previous job was a DO from DMU. The man absolutely cleaned up, heads above every other MD/DO in the area. He was very sharp, good business sense, and affable. Going to a DO school and a very mediocre AOA residency didn't impede him at all.

Another doc I worked with also had a busy patient roster and charges literally $500/hr for the initial consult and then something like 350-375/hour after that. Keep in mind this is for a family med doctor. I was reading her bio one day and found it kind of odd that she specified exactly where she went for undergrad and residency, but no name of her med school and merely said she "completed her medical training at so and so". I looked her up and she was a carrib grad from Ross. Again, very nice woman and she was obviously doing right by her patients, and they paid the big bucks for those results.
 
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