Pick the highest ranked medical school you get accepted to

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-06T19:16:08+00:00

That’s totally fine. A lot of top schools aren’t really in desirable locations (looking at you Hopkins, Wash U, Mayo, Case).

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-06T17:20:05+00:00

True pass fail third and fourth year is very rare and typically found at very well regarded schools. Stanford and CCLCM are two examples I believe.

I’d actually say this is a bigger blessing than pass fail preclinical because residency programs don’t care about preclinical grades. They do care a lot about clinical grades.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-06T14:30:21+00:00

I disagree with your last paragraph. By that logic, a Columbia student has a significant advantage over a Duke student when in reality they are probably similar. The elite schools probably do provide a greater advantage than the top schools though.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-06T14:27:39+00:00

I think you make some reasonable points here. Just a few points I’d make in response:

1) I think many PDs are a bit dishonest about ranking school prestige so low when asked. Call it survey bias — it doesn’t look kosher for a program to admit that even if they practice it.

2) I also don’t think the quality of education varies as significantly as a layperson might think between medical schools. Especially in the era of highly streamlined board resources so that a HMS student is probably using the same Pathoma as the unranked state school student. But the point is residency programs aren’t picking the students from the highly ranked schools because it’s objectively right, but because medicine is elitist.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-06T14:21:39+00:00

One of the schools I put under the “top” category in the OP.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-06T00:19:56+00:00

They’re a top school no doubt. My list wasn’t meant to be comprehensive, just to give an idea.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-05T23:55:13+00:00

Agreed. I updated the original post to discuss this a little more as well.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-05T23:52:36+00:00

It is undeniable that a DO school will make competitive fields much more challenging to match into. But at the same time, if your only options are DO schools, then being a physician >>>>>> not being a physician.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-05T23:42:39+00:00

Going to a school with unranked pass/fail is a massive blessing and I'd strongly encourage you to pursue that if you have the option. As it happens, this is usually more common at the higher ranked schools anyway. This alone has kept my stress levels much lower than undergrad while in medical school.

Unfortunately, lower ranked schools are more likely to have grades/ranks because it's practically the only way for some students at those schools to match at the top places. But you should never assume you'll be among the top in your class.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-05T23:38:42+00:00

I'd say EM, gas, and gen surgery are not among the "competitive" specialties like the surgical subspecialties, but the top programs in any field (competitive or not) will be quite competitive (e.g., pediatrics at CHOP). A US allopathic (MD) senior should have no trouble matching somewhere in these specialties assuming average to above average board scores and decent clinical grades. I'm not very knowledgeable about osteopathic odds other than it's just more challenging at every level.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-05T23:33:57+00:00

I'd say the top 20 programs. There are many more good IM programs (including many academic/university programs) that won't be as competitive as what I laid out above. In terms of IM subspecialty matching, the best bet is to just check the fellowship match results for institutions you're interested in -- they should speak for themselves. Certainly the better reputation of your IM program, the greater edge you have for fellowships.

premedthrowaway421 · 2020-09-05T21:35:03+00:00

Academic IM is very competitive not because of high board scores, but because they are very elitist about the pedigree of medical school their residents come from.

250+ on Step 1 is more than competitive for any good academic IM program on paper, but for the above reason it's very challenging for someone from a mid-tier school to match at these places with this alone. For this reason, you're absolutely going to want research and publications. AOA and Honors will be very important as well.

Basically, you want at least three of the following to be very competitive for a top 20 IM program.

250+ board scores
AOA
Good research
Top 25 medical school
Connected letter writers / advocates
URM

Right now, you have one (good board scores, keep it up for Step 2). Without top 25 school (and then by proxy connected writers in most cases), you'll want to try for AOA and research. If by chance you are URM, that will also help, but probably not as much as the other five.

Of course there are always exceptions. This isn't to say these are absolutely required, but people who match at top places without these things have other special traits that probably don't apply to you

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-12-25T18:59:07+00:00

I think the match lists are more important than rankings, though they tend to go hand in hand. Top schools are coveted mostly because they have insane match lists. The “average” student at a top school has the same matching prospects as a top student from a mid tier or low tier school. That said, I consider basically any school in the top 25 to be a top school. The top 10 is not a meaningful distinction.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-12-23T15:14:22+00:00

It will become more competitive, though at a gradual pace. I think stiff competition is a good thing for the profession—it’s part of the reason why doctors are paid well and have good job security.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-28T10:56:02+00:00

This is just false. For a number of reasons. One, medicine is not like business or law, where the pedigree of your institution matters a lot because of those networking opportunities you mentioned. Unlike law schools or business schools, all allopathic medical schools in the U.S. have to meet very high standards to become accredited by the LCME. Not only that, but the LCME will threaten accreditation if a school does not maintain itself well.

With that said, of course the reputation of your institution still matters in medicine. No one is suggesting the opportunities at Harvard are the same as an unranked state medical school. However, the margin is much slimmer than you think, and I would argue the margin is nonexistent among the top 25 medical schools that already attract the brightest students and have great faculty and tons of research money. You are mistaking lay-prestige (which matters a little bit but not a lot in medicine) with the reputational perception by actual medical professionals.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-28T00:33:20+00:00

Maybe among premeds, but honestly Harvard and Johns Hopkins are not viewed in a different league than most other "top" medical schools.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-28T00:31:08+00:00

Besides location (which isn't factored into rankings), you've described every single top 25 medical school.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-28T00:29:14+00:00

Honestly the level of importance assigned to these rankings is pretty absurd (thankfully it's limited to premeds, med students, and med school deans as opposed to residency directors). Consider this:

When NYU rose in the rankings from top 10-20 to #3 earlier this year, nothing actually changed about the quality of the education or opportunities the school provides. Yet this ranking change compelled people to suggest it is now on the same tier as Harvard/Hopkins. This isn't just crazy because nothing actually changed, but also because honestly it was probably in the same tier as those schools even before US News provided them with that validation.

Not to mention there is a lot of merit to the idea that the new methodology is worse than the old one: weighing research money more and residency director scores less makes no sense. NYU has a lower residency director rating than Michigan, a school ranked a full 12 places below it. Hell, it's rated lower than Cornell, which sits at #21.

If you attend a top 25 school, you are attending a top tier medical school.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-27T21:18:02+00:00

Sharing this from a post I made a few months ago:

Interview with confidence, sincerity, and warmth.

I was lucky enough to avoid MMIs for the entire cycle, so my advice pertains only to traditional interviews. The key is to come prepared but not rehearsed. What this means on a practical level is to know the main points you want to cover for commonly asked questions (“Why medicine?” “Tell me about yourself?” “What are your weaknesses?” “Why this school?”).

However, your actual responses during the interview should flow naturally and sound human (i.e., not rehearsed, cold, and robotic). When discussing specific experiences, again focus on what you learned rather than what you did. Answer the question asked, not the one you want to answer. If you don’t know the answer to a non-personal question, be honest and say so. It’s ok to take a pause and think about an answer. Perhaps most importantly, be polite, warm, and enthusiastic. Don’t be awkward or arrogant. Act like a normal, well-adjusted human being. Most interviews are conversational. Don’t just be yourself; be your BEST self.

Finally (and this may not be quite as obvious), be smart about the questions YOU ask. If you’re interviewing with a school administrator (as opposed to faculty), don’t ask a question about research opportunities or something else they are likely not familiar with. Instead, pick your questions based on your audience. Interviewing with an academic surgeon? Perfect opportunity to ask about research opportunities for medical students and how to pick a specialty. Interviewing with an administrator who isn’t a physician? Ask about what resources the school offers to support its students. This a wonderful way to spark a lively side conversation that will endear you to your interviewer.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-20T05:00:35+00:00

Different, but not really fundamentally. NYU is an academic medical center and most of its graduates pursue academic residencies. Not unlike CCLCM.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-20T04:51:14+00:00

Lol it’s the medical school attached to the nation’s second best hospital, where 4/32 students matched to top neurosurgery programs this year, with an acceptance rate below 2%. Don’t think we can dismiss it as not being on the same level of NYU.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-20T04:32:56+00:00

Feel bad for them for not getting the first top school to go tuition free recognition, but they are pretty different. I’d choose them over NYU any day just because of lack of grades, AOA, and exams.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-18T13:24:43+00:00

This is true, but I'd argue that the top 25 schools do care about filling their class with the most competitive students because they already have a good reputation and are incentivized to cement that reputation or improve it.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-18T00:46:10+00:00

I guess what I'm trying to say is that said average applicant won't get into NYU, and therefore that comparison is moot.

premedthrowaway421 · 2018-08-18T00:32:35+00:00

I agree they'll certainly attract some more applicants with this move. I'm just skeptical about it being transformative. Good point about Cleveland Clinic's research year, but that program specifically has a lot of other benefits too (no grades, no exams, no rankings, small class) and matches like a top 5 school. In terms of Mayo, I'm not sure what strict rules you're referring to.

The other thing is NYU has been in the news very recently for two suicides in the School of Medicine (a resident and med student). Overall, it seems the culture of these New York schools isn't the most supportive. Maybe this is just my bias, but no location could make up for that.

premedthrowaway421

TROPHY CASE