Hi!
I'm very glad to see some activity in this forum, too.
OK, well..I think to be confident about matching, 10-12 programs is plenty. I'm interviewing at 14, but I'm paranoid. If I'm to be honest, I think that there's around a 95% chance you'll match into one of your top 5 that you interview at, so it's not too tough. However, to get into a CHOP or JHU, you should be AOA, with step 1 scores, say >235 or so to be competitive.
Secondly, regarding subspecialties (which you didn't really ask about, but maybe it's implied somewhere), I think one reason that few people really harp on getting into big programs to get into competitive pediatric fellowships, like they do with internal medicine fellowships, is that....well....there are very few pediatric specialties that are competitive. Only Peds Emergency Medicine is seen as REALLY competitive. I've heard some say that Peds Cardiology is kinda competitive, but not too much so. The reason? Based on several salary surveys, the average general pediatrician's salary is 140-150K. The average pediatric specialist's salary is only from 140-210K, and that includes (usually) three extra years of training. That's because, unlike adult medicine, most peds specialists are in academic centers because of the relatively low volume of really sick kids. In other words, most of us will need a cardiologist one day, but how many 6 year-olds do? Therefore, there's little room for, say, peds GI or cardiology in the private setting. Therefore, while around 50% or greater internal medicine folk go into well-paying specialties, only around 20% of peds people bother with extra training.
Hope that helps.
