Medical School Reputation in Match Outcome

Probably won't help you with matching based on the name, but Northwestern has a much higher regarded ortho program and as such will likely offer better connections. Not too mention that Chicago is a tough area to break into if you don't rotate there or go to school there.

If you're a Georgia resident and able to pay the super cheap tuition to stay in-state, I would go with that, unless you really want to leave the south. With a good academic performance at MCG, you can go anywhere for ortho.

I would argue that reputation of medical is very important in matching into competitive specialties such as ortho. Nothing replaces doing well in your course/rotations and getting a great board score, no matter the reputation of your school. However, holding those things equal, you would be better off going to a bigger name program. Having gone to a "top ten med school" with top tier ortho program, I know they definitely use med school reputation as an important criteria for selecting candidates. Connections can make your life alot easier as well. Its not all about the pedigree, but in some ways it is. In the end, you should make your decision taking all factors into account, including personal reasons.

I would advise you, and all people looking at medical schools, to carefully evaluate tuition, cost of living, financial aid, and expected debt load you will incur. A private medical school may cost you $250K while a state school may be as little as 30K. Being in a lot of debt is stressful (as if medical school isn't already) and will hurt you as you have to start paying it back in residency. You will easily pay back double the amount of your loan over 30 years.

While a "top tier" medical school will open some doors it is by far not the biggest factor in obtaining a good orthopaedic residency. If you look at any top residency program you will see that residents come from a wide variety of medical schools both in terms of "ranking" and geography. USMLE scores are meant to normalize students from different schools and away rotations, AOA, LOR, and research are more important as well.

Choosing a medical school should be a cost vs. benefit analysis and is subjective so only you can do this. Personally, I would choose a good state school anyday over a private school if it meant I would be saving half a million dollars in the long run. Additionally, it's nice to be close to home during medical school as you have a better support system. On the other hand, there's a lot to be said living in a cool city for 4 years. Hope this helps.

Best of luck and congrats!

I agree.

Also, I forget the exact document, but there was an NRMP document that polled the residency directors in each specialty and had them rank the importance of about 15 different criteria, one of which was medical school prestige. You may try to find that.

lakerfan: how did you decide on NWU and Georgia? Do you just want to get to chi or is there some other reason? If its just because of the city I recommend trying out programs which are a bit easier to get into like Rush and UIC unless your a well above average candidate.

As a senior picking schools, i have a few options but the crux of my decision is Northwestern and Medical College of Georgia. I realize that many switch preferences of speciality but I'm strongly leaning towards orthopedics.

Since most of you guys are further down the line in terms of applying and going through the match, I wondered what you guys thought about the merits of attending a more reputable medical school.

I realize that an academic superstar is going to do well regardless but I might not be one of those few students.

lakerfan]


Rush is NOT easier to get into than NW.

Medical school reputation means very little. I went to an average state school with no faculty connections to other major ortho programs and was told I was ranked to match at 4 out of the top 10 ortho residency programs.

Your merit will be largely based on grades, board scores, aways, and LORs. That's what will get you the interviews, period. Getting to know attendings during medical school and having someone who will go to bat for you is also immensely important when it comes time for programs to make their lists.

I completely agree with the above comment's about the importance of tuition. It may not seem as significant now if you haven't even started medical school, but I will personally say how much better of a feeling it is knowing I easily saved $100k+ by going to a state school.

If you have the drive and the capabilities, you will be successful wherever you are.

There was a JBJS article that polled 100+ ortho PDs and had them rank 25 or so items based on the importance for matching. Med school reputation was 9 I believe, below obvious things like Step 1, class rank, AOA, and ortho LOR. But it was above things like PS, Dean's Letter, non-ortho LOR, most ECs, research, and publications.

So is it important? Yes
Is it as important as the obvious things? No

Another thing to remember to is, although med school reputation and ortho program reputation has some correlation, it is no where near 100%.

While places like Iowa, Rochester, or Utah won't wow people for going to med school there like Harvard or Hopkins, they all have amazing ortho departments that will probably set you up better than going to some "Top Tier" med school for getting into ortho residency.

Also, some schools regardless of reputation, have an excellent track record of getting people into ortho. I don't know if MCG just has a ton of people that want to do ortho, but when I was looking through residency web pages, MCG alums seemed to be everywhere, from academic to community, north to south, east to west, and everything in between. Having experienced faculty mentors known for getting their students to match is more important that reputation in my opinion.

It seems like there are at least 10 MCG students going into ortho every year and they have a good track record of matching. I would go with MCG since the tuition is going to be a lot cheaper than NW. Seriously, who knows if you're going to be an orthopod in 4 years or you might fall in love with FP. Seriously, it is a huge burden to have $250K in debt when you come out of med school.

mcg did not match all ortho students this year

And? ~200 US seniors who actually got interviews, didn't match into ortho this year. Who knows how many applied and didn't get any interviews, or gave up and didn't even apply. I would go as far as to say, most med schools have people that didn't match into ortho that wanted to.

indeed, I actually graduated from Northwestern last year (2009) and there were 3 guys from my class who did not match into orthopaedics.

PM if you want more info

As a senior picking schools, i have a few options but the crux of my decision is Northwestern and Medical College of Georgia. I realize that many switch preferences of speciality but I'm strongly leaning towards orthopedics.

Since most of you guys are further down the line in terms of applying and going through the match, I wondered what you guys thought about the merits of attending a more reputable medical school.

I realize that an academic superstar is going to do well regardless but I might not be one of those few students.

lakerfan]

I'm a senior and college and I have been accepted into MCG and Northwestern among other schools. I have it narrowed down to these two. For what it's worth, MCG's cost of attendence is ~35K and NW's is probably upwards of ~65K but i am itching to leave GA

4 years ago, I faced a similar decision as you. I was weighing my midwestern state school against a top 20 school that was way more expensive. I chose the state school and don't regret it one bit. Times are somewhat uncertain regarding the financial future for medicine, so I think costs should be an even more important factor now.

I worked my ass off for the last 4 years and got AOA, top class rank, step 1/2 >250, several 1st and 2nd author pubs, etc. and was offered interviews by every top tier program to which I applied including HSS, Mayo, Harvard, Rush, Duke, Campbell Clinic, Iowa, UCSF, UW and got phone calls from >8 programs saying I was either ranked to match or similar love notes.

My undergrad advisor put it to me like this: the cream will always rise to the top. My advice is to go to MCG, bust your tail, and you will be able to do whatever you want.

A good name can carry a lot of weight, but the bottom line is go somewhere you think you'd be happy and work your ass off.

This may be true, but for what it's worth, many "top" med schools have students who don't get into ortho either. For example, I know for sure that Harvard had students not match in ortho this year. Yes, students - plural. I've heard the figure is at least four, but I can't verify the actual number.

One more reason to not trust what you read on a message board. I know for a fact that Harvard went 8/8 into Ortho this year. 4 matched at the Harvard program, 4 went to programs elsewhere.

Wow, looks like someone is a little upset they didn't match this year.
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Harvard always matches all students applying to orthopaedics.

That being said, I agree with the above posters that a student could likely match anywhere no matter where they went to school if they work hard and take some chances. I'm not the only medical student at HMS from an unknown state school...

This year: 4 Harvard, 1 Columbia, 1 UCSF, 1 UW, 1 Emory (8 applicants)

Best of luck with your decision.

By now everyone is the school they have chosen. From talking to multiple program directors some take the medical school into account and some brush it off. Obviously Yale vs St. Georges is one where the PG willl choose the lesser Yale applicant. On the other hand, I believe that Caribbean programs have on occasion matched an applicant. Thus, if this is your only choice you should still apply to Ortho and maybe you will match.

Remember the other factors (grades, Step I/II, LORs, Sub I, research, and who is pulling for you). Do not focus on the reputation too much.

I believe that the "reputation" of the school will be a lower factor now as more candidates have matched from lesser programs (that may have better training).

If your program has matched people in the past at a specific program, it gives you the leg up.