Medical School Reputation in Match Outcome

comparing Yale to a carribean school isn't the same as comparing Yale to a state school. Carribean schools are in a completely different ballgame

it matters very little. go where you will be happiest.

but, consider debt load in these uncertain times.

not sure who you talked to at harvard, but that statement is unfortunately quite false.

i am graduating from hms in a couple weeks, going into ortho, and all 8 of our students matched into ortho, and i think all at our top choice.

bottom line - school name DEFINITELY matters and DEFINITELY helps. that being said, you will be compared against your peers, so name alone won't help. you will have to rise to the top no matter where you go to school to maximize your chances of getting in, but big name schools (esp if there are associated big name ortho programs) help open some doors a bit easier than from other places. that being said, if you bust your tail and are a shining star, you can get access to almost any program, especially if you rotate.

but - take it for what its worth - our applicants got a lot of interviews based on name of school alone... or at least that helped quite a bit......

ha ha looks like my peers already addressed the matching question....ha ha

[/quote]. . . if you bust your tail and are a shining star, you can get access to almost any program, especially if you rotate. . . [/quote]

This is great advice -- encouraging. Thanks.

If anyone follows my posts here.. they'll note that I am biased about the whole medical school thing.

If you just 'want to get into ortho' yes, it probably doesn't matter what your med school reputation is, as long as you're a strong candidate.

the most important thing is that you have someone to advocate for you at your home program. Period.

If you're looking for an academic place, or a top notch place, you best go to a place that has a good name.. it will help you in the long run.

Although cnH aluded to that factor being #9.. the truth is, once you hit those major factors.. everyone looks the same

At that point, the medical school is king (unless you have a steller personality). I'm sorry it is.

I know we want to be idealists and such, but it just doesn't happen that way.

Think about looking at two identical applicants.. you have 5 minutes to gauge their personality.. now what.. oh, well, one went to cornell, the other, outer mangolia U.. well, which one are you going to choose?

If you don't think the rank lists come down to splitting hairs like this, then you are foolish.

I went to a state school, which had tuition of 17k, private schools go up to what, 40k? Another 80k for 4 years? (which translates to like, 160 after interest.. roughly)..

When you're making 400k/year (that's the average ortho salary), you'll take home about 200k/year. Can you afford to pay out an additional 10k/year for 16 years? I think so.

*shrug*, having not matched for a year, and dealing with that, I wish I would have chosen a better medical school instead of going the 'cheap' route.. because I have a feeling I would have matched otherwise.. but hey, that's my bias.

Interesting -- define "stellar personality".

Just throwing this out there, but the guys I graduated with who didn't match into ortho took full responsibility for their lack of success. They didn't place the blame on extrinsic factors like what their medical school diploma said.

Plenty of people from obscure medical schools and "just OK" personalities match ortho. I'm happy the two of you found spots but neither of you know what happens in rank meetings so maybe the two of you should refrain from acting like you do...because you sound ridiculous.

By "you two", are you referring to me?

Please don't say anyone sounds ridiculous.. that's just a rude, offensive comment.

I'm simply commenting on the psychology of it all and how whatever happens in these rank meetings, goes down to splitting of hairs, and if you don't think med school is one of those hairs, then you're mistaken.


Matching involves a lot of factors, and everything counts for something.. I don't think it's unfair for me to say that I feel had I gone to a better school, it may have tipped my rank 1 or 2 spots in the upward direction at a variety of places, and that may have allowed me to match. You want to have the best positioning as possible, and guess what, where you went to school counts.

And by saying that, doesn't discount that my actions may have contributed to not matching..Perhaps had I worked harder doing X Y Z, or done this on X rotation I would have matched...

And mind you, I also pointed out that *I* made the choice to goto the state school. Hence, I was said it was *my* choice that contributed to that, and was an intrinsic factor, in that sense.

It's the total package.. everything helps.

You can blame yourself, you can blame others, whatever, but in the end, it's a combination of a lot of things.. and of course, you're also forgetting that you may have not been a 'match' or someone was a better match. In that case, was it something you did that made you less of a match, or something you didn't do, or something someone else did? Can you really account for everything in yourself? No, absolutely not.

I matched at a place I interviewed at last year. so what was it? Did I look better as a candidate this year? Did the other candidates like another place more? Or, perhaps I just was lucky enough to interview with people that jived with me?

At the end of the day, a good part of this process is outside of your control, I'm sorry, it is.

And a little bit of advice my rude friend: Unfortunately, a good part of life is often outside of your control. You can't control everything, and that includes the match. It's difficult to grasp, and I've struggled, and continue to struggle with that my whole life. Sometimes things just happen, and it's what you do with it that counts, not the fact that it happened.

Iliz,

Sorry to be so blunt, but you aren't exactly qualified on this subject. You failed to match the first time around, which if anything should disqualify you from answering this question.

The only objective information on the subject is that study that CalvinNHobbes referenced, which showed that medical school reputation wasn't all that critical.

I didn't see this post; I don't know why I lumped you in with Iliz.

Please don't say anyone sounds ridiculous.. that's just a rude, offensive comment.

I'm simply commenting on the psychology of it all and how whatever happens in these rank meetings, goes down to splitting of hairs, and if you don't think med school is one of those hairs, then you're mistaken.


Matching involves a lot of factors, and everything counts for something.. I don't think it's unfair for me to say that I feel had I gone to a better school, it may have tipped my rank 1 or 2 spots in the upward direction at a variety of places, and that may have allowed me to match. You want to have the best positioning as possible, and guess what, where you went to school counts.

And by saying that, doesn't discount that my actions may have contributed to not matching..Perhaps had I worked harder doing X Y Z, or done this on X rotation I would have matched...

And mind you, I also pointed out that *I* made the choice to goto the state school. Hence, I was said it was *my* choice that contributed to that, and was an intrinsic factor, in that sense.

It's the total package.. everything helps.

You can blame yourself, you can blame others, whatever, but in the end, it's a combination of a lot of things.. and of course, you're also forgetting that you may have not been a 'match' or someone was a better match. In that case, was it something you did that made you less of a match, or something you didn't do, or something someone else did? Can you really account for everything in yourself? No, absolutely not.

I matched at a place I interviewed at last year. so what was it? Did I look better as a candidate this year? Did the other candidates like another place more? Or, perhaps I just was lucky enough to interview with people that jived with me?

At the end of the day, a good part of this process is outside of your control, I'm sorry, it is.

And a little bit of advice my rude friend]


Like Denis Miller "I don't mean to go on a rant here but"...
I think this is good information, and though I haven't applied this year, I really feel like anyone that feels where you went to school doesn't make a difference is really trying to convince themselves of that more so than convincing anyone on this forum. It may not even be a matter of a school that is ranked higher, but more a factor of PD's being familiar with a specific school and how they prepare students for residency. This whole thread is a whole lot of stress and aggravation about nothing. Trying to sweat about which school you're coming from is like sweating about your shoe size, or your hair color, there is nothing you can do about it at this point. A lot more could be learned by discussing things that can be affected by your own efforts and not things that are unchangeable components of your application.

There's a freakin JBJS study from PDs that say it isn't that important. What else do you need and why isn't this argument over?

I went to a state school that isn't well known for ortho but on MY AWAY, an attending who was a member of ASES made calls for me.

My advice: Go cheap, rock Step 1, do be abrasive, arrogant or annoying during your interviews, and you're much more likely to match than not.

While all 8 HMS students matched at their first choices this year, one must realize that all these kids were likely at the top of their undergrad classes and likely at the top of their med school classes. I interviewed 3 of them this year and all 3 seemed stellar. I would've been happy with any of the 3 of them. With that said, the one applicant that stood out to me this year was from UIC.

Did you take him out for a nice seafood dinner and get your bromance on?

Y'all are fools if you think medical school name doesn't matter. 95 of the 100 PDs who responded weren't at the top elite programs that we're all vying for, but those top 5 do care where you went to medical school. Don't be a dummy.
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"Y'all are fools if you think medical school name doesn't matter. 95 of the 100 PDs who responded weren't at the top elite programs that we're all vying for, but those top 5 do care where you went to medical school. Don't be a dummy. Laughing"

Ok Ilizarovian.

Seriously why won't this shit thread die.

lol..this is awesome!

we're all having fun mentally masturbating over this
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ROL.. no one is 'qualified' to talk about anything
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We're all pontificating on nothingness. And uhh, having not matched the first time around, done this twice, and having spoken to a LOT of attendings and people about why you don't match, I would think, at the very least, does not 'disqualify' me from having an educated opinion on the matter
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A commentary about that jbjs article, since everyone seems to grip onto that..

That was based on a 'rank' list.. Okay, so it was #9 or whatever on the list.. but guess what

IT WAS STILL ON THE LIST.

There's really nothing else to say about that.

No one said it has no bearing, just very little. I find it hard to believe that 18 schools ruled you out because you went to a decent state school.

My take is that everything probably has some degree of importance and should at least be considered. But as far as Medical School reputation goes it probably only matters at the fringes. Might really help you if you attend a school that is viewed particularly well by a PD or vice versa but for those 95% in the middle it has little bearing.

LOL, its funny that people all "want" the thread to die, yet they keep posting this fact, which actually keeps it very much alive and the reason why i stumbled on to it in the first place!! So i can't help but share my thoughts...

Having also been on the same boat as CnH and Iliz (although a year earlier), I've had the experience of going through the process twice and am of the opinion that rather than disqualifying me from objectively commenting, it would make me/us MORE qualified, because we have had to analyze the process more than those that matched the first time around. What I learned during my analysis was that most programs actually use a scoring system to preliminarily rank applicants based on a study done by the Mayo guys (you can look up the article, i believe its in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research). I know for a fact that Mayo uses this scoring system, Marshall uses a scoring system based on this article, UTSW has a scoring system of sorts, the program I matched at uses a scoring system (not sure if its based on the mayo article or not, but I know the major factors are the same, i.e. step 1/2 scores, clinical grades, reasearch, etc). Basically, they take all these factors and assign weights to them based on how important it is to the program (different programs weigh the aspects differently), and come up with a score. Then, depending on the program, their list may or may not change based on your interview, how you did on your away, being blacklisted by the residents/completely revered by them, phone calls by mentors, etc. From all the PDs that I spoke to its seems that a majority of programs that I interviewed at in my 2 years are using some sort of scoring system in order to objectify an otherwise extremely difficult and highly subjective process. I haven't looked at the article in quite some time, but i think med school reputation was part of the calculation in the proposed scoring system and so it may or may not be a part of other programs scoring systems...

On a side note, the major result of the article was that only 3rd year clinical grades closely correlated with resident outcome...

AS

PS the article's name is "A quantitative composite scoring tool for orthopaedic residency screening and selection."