Hi,
I'm having a bit of remorse over turning down multiple T15 offers for a full ride at a midwest state school (top 40 USNews and top 25 for NIH funding). The advice I received when making my decision (mostly from med school professors and a few program directors) was that school name is not a significant factor in residency selection and that if i work hard I will likely end up in the same place.
My state school, however, as recently made the curriculum entirely pass fail--including clerkships. My class is the first one for which there are no internal rankings or AOA. With step 1 also being pass fail, I'm starting to worry about what I could be doing to stand out to residency programs, as the current setup seems to offer very little incentive to perform above the bare minimum. I'm undecided on specialty, but I do know that I want to match to a major academic institution in a big city on the east coast or chicago (Boston, DC, NYC, etc.) and hope to pursue academic medicine.