I don't think the playing field is level once you secure an interview. I think good grades, boards, etc stil play a major role on the final ranking. As for personality, I think programs are just looking for people who can fit in, not necesarily the best personality or something like that. My two cents, for whatever it's worth- I am no expert in this.

I agree with what orthopaedics said. in addition, my feeling about the interviews was that they will not help you all that much but they can definitely hurt you. The field is NOT level on interview day. All programs have their favorites. Fortunately you can rotate at a few places and if you fit in then you are that much more attractive to the program. Good luck.

I talked to a chief who was an interviewer at my program. First, they eliminate the social misfits...the ones with no social skills, the "weirdos", "geeks", "nerds", "tools", "dorks", you know...your typical med student types. They eliminate them regardless of scores or grades.

Then you have a bunch of people who seem normal, but there's a few you like a lot. They get moved up in the ranking if their grades and scores warrant this. If they REALLY liked someone and their scores cannot compete with the top of the list, they get moved up to but only so much. It all depends on many factors.

But if someone seems like a reasonably normal individual and has stellar grades and scores, they will be near the top of the list...unless they made a bad impression for whatever reason.

i agree with what has been said so far. you may be the nicest guy in the world, but you are not gonna be at the top of many rank list of programs with a step one score of 215 or something. You will move up the list vs the guy with somewhat better scores with no personality. Remember guys, ITS THE WHOLE PACKAGE programs are looking at, so while deficits in one area can be made up for by strengths in another, usually not totally so. The variable is that different programs will place more or less emphasis on certain criteria than a different program might. A place very into numbers might still like the pasty-white-from-no-sunlight guy with a 260 over you, even though you have tons more personality and have decent numbers, like 230-240. Another factor is how much of a say residents have in the ranking process. At a friend of mines program the residents are asked if there were any glaring flaws with anyone, otherwise it all the attendings, and even then mostly the chairman. We have more input at my place. We sit down after all the interviews are done and assign a rough ranking of our gut feelings (A,B,C, Dont rank) How much weight our opinion carries i dont know, and we dont know the final rank list, which i think is good. I would not want to know if i was way down on the list of the place i matched at. It might give me a complex or something.