http://comdo-wcnlb.uc.edu/PDFDocuments/StudentAffairs/MatchDay/matchday2011location.pdf
It seems like most of the students stayed in Ohio, at least half. Is this a bad sign? I wanted to do MD/MS Nutrition here, because it's like one of the two schools that actually have the program. But, I don't want to jeopardize my chances of getting into a good fellowship. But, maybe I'm just not understanding how all of it works. Does the match list have anything to do with how good the students did/how good the medical school is?
No. Match lists can't be interpreted that simplistically, because people take many other factors besides program prestige into consideration when deciding where to apply, interview, and rank residency programs.
First, as someone else pointed out, a lot of Cinci students are probably from OH, and they have family and friends there. These folks are likely to want to stay in OH regardless, because it's where they're from. Also, four years is a long time, and people's priorities have a tendency to change as they hit their late 20s and early 30s. So, even the students who came to Cinci from OOS may have gotten married, bought houses, and/or had children while in medical school. It's not easy to pick up and move to Cali when you have bought your dream house; your spouse loves their job; and you have great day care for the kids all in Cincinnati.
Here's an example that should make what I'm saying very clear. In my case, I'm from FL. So, say I wanted to match in Orlando for personal reasons like the ones I gave above. I list all of the other FL programs as my subsequent choices, radiating out away from Orlando (i.e., Tampa or Gainesville would be preferable to Tallahassee or Miami). However, I wind up matching at Duke, a well-known program in another state that I ranked near the bottom of my list based on geography. In this situation, from *my* perspective, it wouldn't be a very good match, even though it would look very good to you from the outside.
One other reason why match lists are difficult to interpret is that there is also no guarantee that people have even matched into the specialty they wanted. So, say I really wanted to go into plastic surgery, which is very competitive. My advisor says to me, "Q, you only got a 190 on your Step 1, your surgery rotation grades were only "passes" and not "honors," and you don't have any plastics research. You might want to reconsider your specialty choice." So instead, I decide to apply in general surgery, which is much less competitive. I wind up matching to a solid gen surg program at a well-known school, and it's one that I ranked near the top of my list. But remember, gen surg was not the specialty I actually wanted. So again, you have the situation where it looks like a good match from your perspective, but it's not the ideal match from mine.
Unfortunately, the information that really would be helpful to get from a match list (i.e., where the graduates *wanted* to go, and what specialty they *wanted* to go into) is not available. This is why many people (including me) will tell you that reading a match list is actually not very helpful in terms of telling you where you will be able or not able to go for residency. And again, what you think you want as a new med school freshman may be very different from what you want (or are able to get) as a graduating med school senior.
Hope this helps.
