what makes a "match list" good?

[qtpie055]

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Hi! Was wondering what makes a school's residency match "good?" Number of specialties? location? I'm checking out University of Maryland vs. Georgetown's 2005 list. In your opinion, who do you think has the better list?

University of Maryland 2005 Match List: http://medschool.umaryland.edu/osa/pdf/MATCH05.pdf

Georgetown University 2005 Match List:

School of Medicine Class of 2005 Residencies
Program
Specialty

Albany Med Ctr Hosp-NY
Emergency Medicine

Albert Einstein Med Ctr-PA
Emergency Medicine

Albert Einstein Med Ctr-PA
Orthopaedic Surgery

Arrowhead Reg Med Ctr-CA
Transitional

B I Deaconess Med Ctr-MA
Anesthesiology

Barnes-Jewish Hosp-MO
Radiology-Diagnostic

Baylor Coll Med
Neurology

Baylor Coll Med-Houston-TX
Internal Medicine

Baylor Coll Med-Houston-TX
Ophthalmology

Baylor U Med Ctr-Dallas-TX
Medicine-Preliminary

Bethesda Naval Medical Center
Anesthesiology

Bethesda Naval Medical Center
Pediatrics

Boston University Med Ctr
General Surgery

Brigham & Womens Hosp-MA
Anesthesiology

Brown U Int Med Res-RI
Internal Medicine

Brown U Int Med Res-RI
Medicine-Preliminary

Case Western/Univ Hosps
Neurosurgery

Case Western/Univ Hosps
Surgery-Preliminary

Childrens Hosp Boston-MA
Pediatrics

Cleveland Clinic Fdn-OH
Pediatrics

Einstein/Montefiore Med Ctr-NY
Anesthesiology

Emory Univ SOM-GA
General Surgery

Emory Univ SOM-GA
Internal Medicine

Frankford Hospital
Medicine-Preliminary

George Washington Univ-DC
Emergency Medicine

George Washington Univ-DC
Medicine-Preliminary

George Washington Univ-DC
Neurosurgery

George Washington Univ-DC
Psychiatry

George Washington Univ-DC
Surgery-Preliminary

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Anesthesiology

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
General Surgery

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Internal Medicine

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Medicine-Pediatrics

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Medicine-Preliminary

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Obstetrics-Gynecology

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Orthopaedic Surgery

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Pathology

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Plastic Surgery

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Surgery-Preliminary

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Transitional

Georgetown Univ Hosp-DC
Urology

Good Samaritan Reg Med Ctr-AZ
Family Practice

Harbor Hospital Ctr-MD
Transitional

Harbor-UCLA Med Ctr-CA
Family Practice

Harbor-UCLA Med Ctr-CA
Orthopaedic Surgery

Harbor-UCLA Med Ctr-CA
Transitional

Hershey/Penn State-PA
Orthopaedic Surgery

Hosp of the Univ of PA
Obstetrics-Gynecology

Jackson Memorial Hosp-FL
Pediatrics

Jacksonville Naval Base
Family Practice

Johns Hopkins Hosp-MD
Anesthesiology

Johns Hopkins Hosp-MD
Obstetrics-Gynecology

Johns Hopkins Hosp-MD
Pediatrics

Legacy Emanuel/Good Samaritan-OR
Medicine-Preliminary

Long Beach Mem Med Ctr-CA
Family Practice

Loyola University Med Ctr
Surgery-Preliminary

Madigan Air Force Base
Obstetrics-Gynecology

Maimonides Med Ctr-NY
Transitional

Maricopa Med Ctr-AZ
Emergency Medicine

Martin Luther King-Drew MC
Emergency Medicine

Massachusetts Gen Hosp
Internal Medicine

Massachusetts Gen Hosp
Pediatrics

Mayo Graduate SOM-AZ
Internal Medicine

Mayo Graduate SOM-FL
Anesthesiology

Mayo Graduate SOM-MN
Internal Medicine

Mayo Graduate SOM-MN
Otolaryngology

Mayo Graduate SOM-MN
Surgery-Preliminary

Monmouth Medical Ctr-NJ
Orthopaedic Surgery

Morristown Mem Hosp-NJ
Emergency Medicine

Morristown Mem Hosp-NJ
Surgery-Preliminary

Mt Sinai Hospital-NY
Internal Medicine

Mt Sinai Hospital-NY
Medicine-Preliminary

Mt Sinai Hospital-NY
Surgery-Preliminary

Mt Sinai SOM/Cabrini-NY
Medicine-Preliminary

New England Med Ctr-MA
Internal Medicine

New England Med Ctr-MA
Pediatrics

Northwestern McGaw/NMH/VA-IL
Anesthesiology

Northwestern McGaw/NMH/VA-IL
Internal Medicine

NYP Hosp-Colum Presby-NY
Anesthesiology

NYP Hosp-Colum Presby-NY
General Surgery

NYP Hosp-NY Cornell-NY
Anesthesiology

NYP Hosp-NY Cornell-NY
Pathology

NYP Hosp-NY Cornell-NY
Surgery-Preliminary

NYU School Of Medicine
Anesthesiology

NYU School Of Medicine
Internal Medicine

Oregon Health & Science Univ
Dermatology

Oregon Health & Science Univ
Emergency Medicine

Oregon Health & Science Univ
Radiation-Oncology

Oregon Health & Science Univ
Surgery-Preliminary

Providence Hospital-DC
Family Practice

Rhode Island Hosp/Brown U
General Surgery

Rhode Island Hosp/Brown U
Surgery-Preliminary

Rhode Island Hosp/Brown U
Urology

Riverside Reg Med Ctr-VA
Family Practice

Saint Louis University
Surgery-Preliminary

Scheie Eye Inst/Univ Penn
Ophthalmology

Scott Air Force Base
Family Practice

St Vincent Hosp-Worcester-MA
Medicine-Preliminary

St Vincent Hosp-Worcester-MA
Radiology-Diagnostic

St Vincents Hospital-NY
Anesthesiology

St Vincent's Med Ctr
Ophthalmology

Stanford Univ Progs-CA
Internal Medicine

Stanford Univ Progs-CA
Obstetrics-Gynecology

Stony Brook Teach Hosps-NY
Internal Medicine

Stony Brook Teach Hosps-NY
Orthopaedic Surgery

SUNY HSC Brooklyn-NY
Anesthesiology

SUNY HSC Brooklyn-NY
Radiology-Diagnostic

SUNY Upstate Medical University
Medicine-Preliminary

SUNY Upstate Medical University
Orthopaedic Surgery

Sutter Health-CA
Family Practice

Tripler Air Force Base
Internal Medicine

Tripler Air Force Base
Pediatrics

U Florida HSC-Jacksonville
Emergency Medicine

U Iowa Hosp/Clin-Iowa City
Orthopaedic Surgery

U Rochester/Strong Mem-NY
Orthopaedic Surgery

U Southern California
Anesthesiology

U Southern California
General Surgery

U Southern California
Internal Medicine

U Southern California
Surgery-Preliminary

U TX SW Med Sch-Dallas
General Surgery

U TX SW Med Sch-Dallas
Internal Medicine

U TX SW Med Sch-Dallas
Orthopaedic Surgery

U TX SW Med Sch-Dallas
Plastic Surgery

U Utah Affil Hospitals
Internal Medicine

U Utah Affil Hospitals
Medicine-Preliminary

UC Davis Med Ctr-Sac-CA
General Surgery

UC Irvine Med Ctr-CA
Family Practice

UC Irvine Med Ctr-CA
General Surgery

UC Irvine Med Ctr-CA
Internal Medicine

UC Irvine Med Ctr-CA
Pediatrics

UC San Diego Med Ctr-CA
Anesthesiology

UC San Diego Med Ctr-CA
Pediatrics

UC San Francisco-CA
Orthopaedic Surgery

UC San Francisco-CA
Plastic Surgery

UCLA Medical Center-CA
Anesthesiology

UCLA Medical Center-CA
Medicine-Pediatrics

UCLA Medical Center-CA
Radiology-Diagnostic

UMDNJ-New Jersey Med-Newark
Medicine-Preliminary

Univ Arizona Affil Hosps
Orthopaedic Surgery

Univ Buffalo Grad Med-NY
Emergency Medicine

Univ Louisville SOM-KY
Orthopaedic Surgery

Univ Mass Med School
Orthopaedic Surgery

Univ North Carolina Hosps
Internal Medicine

Univ North Carolina Hosps
Psychiatry

Univ Of Chicago Hosp-IL
Anesthesiology

Univ Of Chicago Hosp-IL
Emergency Medicine

Univ Of Chicago Hosp-IL
Orthopaedic Surgery

Univ of Connecticut
Emergency Medicine

Univ of Connecticut
Psychiatry

University of Pennsylvania
Neurology

University of Virginia
General Surgery

University of Virginia
Surgery-Preliminary

University of Virginia
Urology

Vanderbilt Univ Med-TN
Anesthesiology

Vanderbilt Univ Med-TN
Obstetrics-Gynecology

Virginia Commonwealth U Hlth Sys
General Surgery

Virginia Commonwealth U Hlth Sys
Pediatrics

Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Urology

Washington Hosp Ctr-DC
Medicine-Preliminary

Washington Hospital Center
Surgery-Preliminary

Wilford Hall
Orthopaedic Surgery

Wilson Mem Reg/UHS-NY
Medicine-Preliminary

Yale-New Haven Hosp-CT
Orthopaedic Surgery

 

[BKN]

I don't understand the question. Could you amplify?

 

[qtpie055]

i always hear people say "this school has a great match list!" and to attend a school that has a good match list. what makes a match list considered "good?" what are the standards? is it the good locations they place people? the number of specialties? sorry, not sure how to specify further.

 

[turtle md]

If the school matches someone into my residency program, it is a good match list. If not, then not. 😀

 

[(nicedream)]

A lot of competitive matches, competitive specialties or programs, makes a match list "good". Those are both good, but IMO Georgetown's looks better.

 

[BKN]

OK. Now I get it. Schools that get more competitive med students will have more competitive graduates. How you do in matching is probably affected little by what your school attended. For example I am a Baylor grad, fairly competitive school. I don't make any adjustments to my formula for rank based on school. I might have a little bias for my school's graduate in my subconcious, but I try to negate it. There's cream and whey everywhere.

Do a good job and you'll get a good residency.

 

[surg]

There is no real way to say what a "good" match list is. In some sense, the question is really, do the students get the interviews and residencies that they want? No way to tell from a match list. You could see 20 dermatology match at one school and none at another school, but not realize that 30 people wanted to go into dermatology at the first and none wanted to go derm in the second. Which is better? I think it is debatable, but I'd lean towards the second.

Things that I would look at in a match list are:
1) specialty: I know I just said that this isn't as important as people think, but you'd still like to see at least a few annually in the specialties you are interested in. A total lack *may* indicate either poor resources or few role models to aid you in your decision and residency search.
2) regionalism: most match lists are weighted more heavily towards programs in their region. Do they have a good number of matches in the areas of the country you want to live? This is most important if you are thinking about going to a medical school in an area you aren't interested in staying long term.
3) mix of type of residency: Ideally, you'd like to see in the larger specialties a good number getting into the type of program you think you'd be interested in (university style programs v. community style programs). This indicates that you will probably have the contacts you need to have success in obtaining the type of residency that you desire. Also keep in mind that what *you* think is stellar, isn't necessarily in every field. Every year I see people hear oohing and ahhing about "Harvard" or other similarly "big medical school name" residencies, which aren't the best in every field.

Finally, in small fields (e.g. derm, surgical subspecialties, etc.) don't put stock in small differences between places. The numbers fluctuate year to year on what people want. At my "big name" medical school the years I was there I saw interest in general surgery range from as low as 4 to as high as 18 in one year. Nothing changed about the school, just the students aspirations.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

This is really funny. You're not really deciding on what medical school to attend based on a match list are you?

Here is how to decide which school to attend:

Go to the website of school A. Go to the tuition and fees page and add them together and multiply by 4. Then, go to the website of school B and repeat the process. Barring severe extenuating circumstances, if said number of school A < school B, go to school A, and vice versa.

As far as matching, chances are good you'll go into a field where the residency match is nowhere near as competitive as going to medical school. Even if it is, being the big fish in a small pond is just as good, if not better, than being an average fish in the big pond. Go where you want to live and where you can afford and skip analyzing stuff like this. Trust me. In 5 years no one will give a damn what school you went to, but you'll still owe the cash.

 

[rugtrousers]

A repost of something I wrote for the premeds:

"I realized as I apply for residency that you only get limited information from the match list that med schools give you when you apply. Specifically, people only match at the places that they get interviewed. Case scenario:

-I apply to residency programs A through M
-Only programs D, G, K and L offer me an interview
-I rank the programs that interviewed me: G, D, L, K
-I match at program D.

Now my med school can say that I matched at one of my top three programs. Maybe program D is even some high-falutin' fancy-schmancy place with a big name, but what if my real first choice had been program B?

So take those match lists with a grain of salt, y'all. And good luck."

 

[(nicedream)]

I don't know, maybe it's because I come from DO school, but for us at least match lists are a big deal. Some schools don't match anyone at respectable places or in competitive fields, and one has to think it has something to do with bias on the part of the residency programs and not self-selection among the students. Conversely, seeing students matching at certain programs or in certain specialties tells you it is possible for you to do the same and that those programs are DO-friendly, a question that often comes up for DOs. But that's the DO POV.

 

[14022]

When I was going through the medical school application process, match list was important to me but now as a fourth year medical student going through the residency application process, I now know it doesnt mean poop.

1) Some people grade match lists based on the number of "competitive" specialties their students match into. Competitive being rad onc, rads, derm, ortho, neurosurg, ENT, urology, and ophtho. This year for some reason most of the people in my class have chosen to go into primary care residencies (although many plan on doing fellowship). Therefore we will have like 25 going into peds, 10 into OB, 12 into psych, 15 into family med, etc. Our match list may look "poor" based on the lack of interst in the surgical subspecialties, when in reality out of the 8 people who were AOA their junior year, one is going into psych, one into peds, one into family med, and two into path. These people could have matched into radiology or uruology at top places but they chose not to.

2) Some people grade match lists based on the quality of places they match. Again, just because people do not match into Harvard and Hopkins doesnt mean they couldn't have. There are several people in my class interviewing at the best places in the country in their fields. However, just because they are "highly ranked" places doesnt mean they want to go there. People often choose residency based on where they think they would be happy, which may or may not be Harvard or Hopkins.

For these reasons, match list doesnt mean much in my opinion. Choose medical school based on quality of education and where you think you will be happy. Putting so much effort in meticulously browsing through rankings lists and match lists is a waste of time and energy.

 

[robotsonic]

The biggest problem with judging a school by their match list (in my humble opinion) is that as a pre-med you really have no idea which programs are the best/most competitive for each specialty. For example, right now I am applying for surgery residency, so I sort of know what the top programs in surgery are, but for other areas like neurology or ob/gyn, I have no idea. How am I supposed to judge whether people at a certain med school got into great neuro programs if I don't even know what those are? And what others have said is true - having a "big name" school on a match list doesn't mean that those big names are the best in whatever field the person matched.

I'm having this problem now with looking at match lists for fellowship at residency programs. While I can recognize the "great matches" sometimes (like surg-onc at MSKCC), I often don't know which places are the most competitive.

But the match list isn't useless. If you see that almost everyone went into primary care, then there is a good chance that that is what the school focuses on and you might have a harder time doing a specialty. Or if you see that no one matched in the field you are interested in for several years straight, that could be a sign that the school doesn't have great teaching or mentors in that area. When looking at fellowship matches, I like to see a variety placements in different specialties. For example, one program I saw is very strong in vascular and matches a lot of people into vascular surgery fellowships, but almost none into certain other areas. This seems suspicious. Then again, maybe the residents went there because they were interested in vascular to begin with. Who knows.

 

[CameronFrye]

Is the pre-allo forum full of threads like this? I've never visited that forum, but maybe I should head over there when I want a good laugh.