Will a lower class rank at a good school hurt you?

[JuliaMDinSD]

Ok, so a lot of people have asked about the prestige factor of top-tier med schools and whether that is factored into residency placement. The general consensus, correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be that Step 1 scores, grades from clinical years, and AOA and class rank are important factors in the match, followed by grades from pre-clinical years, whereas extracurriculars, where you go to school, etc, are less important.

Does this mean that having a lower class rank will hurt you, even if it's at a better school? Obviously there is a difference between Harvard and Podunk Med that I am sure program directors take into account, but the distinction between, say, a top 20 and a top 70 school might not look like a huge difference to PD's but actually make a huge difference in where you'd stand in the class, AOA, etc. Would this make going to the lower ranked school preferable in terms of improving your luck in the match?

I may soon have to make a decision between a mid-tier public school (where I am OOS) and a top 15-20 private school. I'm wondering if what I assume will be a drop in my class rank if I go to the better (rankings-wise) school is going to hurt me in the match. Obviously, I'm disregarding factors such as cost, location, quality of life and happiness/fit at a given school, which I believe to be most important of course, but they are pretty much a wash in my case.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[baby methuselah]

oops.. misunderstood your q

 

[TheRealMD]

His question in a nutshell:

Go to either:

1) Higher ranked school / lower rank in class

OR

2) Lower ranked school / higher rank in class

Personally, I feel this question is flawed. People at "top tier" schools are not better than people at "lower ranked" schools. Now, in terms of well-roundedness maybe, but just because you went on a mission to save people from third-world countries and that got you into Harvard, Yale, JHU or did research DOES NOT TRANSLATE INTO DOING BETTER IN MED SCHOOL. PERIOD.

In other words, go to the higher ranked school because there is absolutely no guarantee that you'll get a higher rank at your state school. That fallacy should be bludgeoned with a stick for implying that people at state schools are "idiots" in any sense of the word.