<p>Hi,
I have asked many people about this, and have not gotten a concrete answer.</p>
<p>Only considering US residencies, and MD schools, does the name of your medical school have a significant impact on your chances of landing a residency in plastic surgery or dermatology? </p>
<p>Check the residents list at several of the programs and then decide for yourself. The lists with actual pictures of residents are easily available on internet. They show the Medical School name foreach resident. I have checked several residencies and based on that could not decide since I seen a mixture of Med. Schools at each. You are researching in incorrect place. We are not experts here.<br>
On the other hand, you need to determine (again it is YOUR determination, not others), which Med. School out of the ones that you have been accepted fits YOU the best. Some crucial factors are location, differences in the student body and one of the most important is the program itself. Sometime decision is not easy. It was not for my D. However, after comparing primarily the program and location, she happen to choose the lower ranked out of the 2 finalists and the most expansive Med. School on her list. So far she is done well there (3rd year Med. Student). One of the reasons is a good student/school match.
I strongly believe, that despite the fact that Med. School name may be somewhat important, what you personally accomplish there is the most important.<br>
That is why you will NOT get a concrete answer to your question…it simply does not exist. You will not find it even if you personally research many selective residencies which will take you just a few minutes. </p>
<p>One data point this year:</p>
<p><a href=“Match Day 2014 Reveals, Celebrates Med Students’ Next Steps - Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences - University at Buffalo”>Match Day 2014 Reveals, Celebrates Med Students’ Next Steps - Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences - University at Buffalo;
<p>There are likely (I do not read it carefully) 1 plastic surgery, 1 ortho, and 4(?) dermatology from this "typical " med school (which is cited randomly, for no particular reason.)</p>
<p>Another random data point:</p>
<p><a href=“http://ps.columbia.edu/education/edu-news-archive/match-day-2013”>http://ps.columbia.edu/education/edu-news-archive/match-day-2013</a></p>
<p>It appears to me that, for a typical medical school, the chance of getting into one of these few very competitive specialties is like 5%, which may be smaller than the admission rate to Harvard College, from high school. This may be true for the graduates from the majority of med schools, likely including most "top (in terms of US News & Report research school ranking) med schools, I think. (There are exceptions.) </p>
<p>Not directly related as this is about getting into “well-recognized name” programs (in any specialty), rather than competitive specialties, I think:</p>
<p><a href=“Match lists at top 5 schools – Anastomosed”>http://anastomosed.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2012/01/03/match-lists-in-top-5-schools/</a></p>
<p>Another thought: It is well-known that connections are important for breaking into i-banking. Is “old-boy-network” also an important factor for breaking into a competitive specialty?</p>
<p>It definitely doesn’t matter. Be careful of drawing conclusions from the residency lists. Many students choose their residencies within 150 miles of their hometown or states where they went to college. Also, some residency programs may be prestigious but much more research oriented and draw residents who are interested in that opportunity. Other residencies recruit predominantly from their affiliated medical schools. Lastly, dermatology is a tough specialty to match into. Students are happy to match anywhere.</p>
<p>Look for yourself: <a href=“http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/programresultsbyspecialty2012.pdf”>http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/programresultsbyspecialty2012.pdf</a>
Short answer: yes it matters (not a 0 impact), no it is certainly not significant.</p>
<p>
I heard that, unlike college, the majority of “best” med school students on the coast choose to not go to the residency program on the other coast (unless their hometown is on the other coast.
If this is true, “inbreed” and “incest” may be more common than we would expect. It could be the case that many positions for the many “highly sought-after” specialties are often taken by these local students. This may be the reason why some students choose to do away rotations – in order to get the “semi-affiliation” status.</p>
<p>The “better” way to see is to go to the lists of the residents at the program of your personal interests. We have done it to see where residents came from. They list information and even have pictures. They were a nice looking bunch at the ones that we have checked. Attaching any percentage to the specialty might be misleading. In most cases applicants match, sometime they do not.<br>
Applying “regionally” was an advice given to my D. by a person in the very high position. She had planned doing it anyway. She is lucky this way as a huge percentage in her class is from CA where many will apply. Also, many are after “popular” places and locations. She knows that one should not rely on the “lighter” competition, but it makes her breathe a tiny bit easier. Seh will be ecstatic to match anywhere. If she match to the program at the top of her list, then it is an icing on the cake. </p>
<p>It’s more important to do really well in any medical school than average at “the best”. In other words, being top 10% in the class at LSU-Shreveport or the University of New Mexico (no offense to those schools) is better than being middle of the pack at Harvard, Penn or WashUSTL. </p>
<p>As Brown said though, the impact of your medical school is not zero. So there is some benefit, but it’s just nowhere near as important as many other factors. Depending on your ultimate specialty, you can actually do pretty poorly on class rank, have very average USMLE scores, still end up at a very quality mid tier academic residency program, become board certified and progress to an extremely well thought of/highly competitive fellowship program (which may or may not my the story of my academic career). </p>
<p>The Match is far more complex than just your stats vs some other random applicants. Students are looking for specific things from residency programs (ie, I was looking for a residency program that had a very strong division in the field I expected to do fellowship in, but that would also give me a quality broad based clinical experience), and residency programs are often looking for “fit” which can’t be measured by test scores and class ranks. It also varies extensively on specialty as you can imagine that psychiatry programs are looking for a very different set of characteristics than a neurosurgery program. </p>
<p>^Well it is also very good to know what is YOUR own top criteria.<br>
There is surprize for us that D’s is LOCATION. It has been her top priteria is choosing ALL of her places. That is why she has been landing in places where she personally feels comfortable. This will not be a top criteria for everybody else. And this fact is also being evaluated by my D. as a positive. People are usually going for popular and presitigios palces with recognizable names. D. has never been part of this crowd. We just hope that it will work for her this time around also. We do not know about ranking, top 10% in class,…etc. D. listens to the feedback from her dean and others and plans accordingly. How anybody knows their standing in a class? You can estimate your standing with your USMLE score based on info from internet.</p>
<p>
At my school at least, when it’s time to actually apply to residency you get to see your MSPE letter (to make sure there isn’t a factual inaccuracy or something missing) which indicates which quintile you’re in.</p>
<p>Med school matters for residency in a couple of ways: Boardscores are very important, so the school that will motivate you to study hard will be good. Frankly, most of it comes from you, not the teachers. Classmates can help you be motivated. </p>
<p>The most important way med school matters is the connections you make to those who can help you get into your residency of choice - for example, if your medschool has few if any faculty in a small competitive specialty you need to find a mentor in that specialty in another medschool who can help you with research (and presenting at the societies), choosing away rotations, a research year, a gap plan if you don’t match the first time through, etc. Residency selection can depend a LOT on who writes your letter, who they know, and how they help you. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the useful information, this was mostly geared toward landing a residency in plastic surgery, not necessarily the best residency program within a specialty </p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“Residency Data & Reports | NRMP”>http://www.nrmp.org/match-data/main-residency-match-data/</a></p>
<p>The most recent NRMP program director’s (PD) survey lists 35-40 factors that are used by plastic surgery PDs in selecting which applicants to interview and in ranking applicants. In both offering interviews and in ranking applicants, the surveyed plastic surgery PDs indicated that graduating from any US med school is a more important factor than graduating from a highly regarded US med school. So based on the responses from the plastic surgery PDs, the answer to your question (as to plastic surgery) appears to be it has an impact but not to the degree that graduating from any US med school has on their decision making process.</p>
<p>I suspect that the many people you have asked have given you many different answers with the answers tending to lean towards the med school’s name as having a significant impact. However the fact that you don’t get a concrete answer is because nobody outside of the world of PDs actually knows. How any one PD would assign importance to any one of 35- 40 factors in both interview and ranking at any one plastic surgery program is impossible to know with any level of “concreteness.” To my knowledge the NRMP data provides the best available answer for your question.</p>
<p>As an example of importance of factors: at one interview S went on (not plastic surgery), the PD indicated that applicants who received interview offers were tentatively ranked A, B, C. After interviews, the applicants could be moved up or down on this list. Some were moved to the D column (D equaled “do not rank”). Sometimes applicants can look pretty on paper but not so much in person. Poor interview skills can sink any applicant even from a well known med school and make one’s chance of “landing a residency” in any specialty zero.</p>
<p>Getting into any US med school gives one the opportunity to get into plastic surgery somewhere if one has the complete package (high Step 1/ 2 score, AOA, strong LORs, strong third year clerkships, research etc) and some luck as plastic surgery is highly competitive. If you add the fact that you in a well known med school, congrats. However, it’s just one of many factors, many of which seem to have a more significant impact in the eyes of PDs according to the NRMP.</p>
<p>"At my school at least, when it’s time to actually apply to residency you get to see your MSPE letter (to make sure there isn’t a factual inaccuracy or something missing) which indicates which quintile you’re in. "
-It might be the case at D’s school. But it is way way too late. You got to get your electives and other requirments covered, otherwise you do not stand a chance. At that time it is way too late to switch as your electives and your research will not match to residencies that you have applied.</p>
<p><<<
How anybody knows their standing in a class?</p>
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<p>at my son’s med school, the students are told their quartile standing after every module exam. staying in the top quartile is my son’s goal since he wants a competitive residency.</p>
<p>In that link that I wanna be brown includes, I keep seeing the words: graduate of a highly regarded medical school…which ones would those be other than the obvious tippy top ones? How far in the rankings would that include? seems to me that there are a good number of highly regarded med schools. </p>
<p>are they talking about rankings for research? primary care? both? something else?</p>
<p>“at my son’s med school, the students are told their quartile standing after every module exam.” -
-What are "module exam"s? End of block exams at D’s Med. School were p/f. Nobody can fail, so my guess is that who fails, have to retake (do not have experience, cannot tell for sure). but in this case, everybody has exactly the same standing - they passed. Then, during rotations. shelf exams have very little effect on the grade. At most, it is about 25%, but at some places, they cannot bring the grade up at all, they can bring it only down. My D. has meetings with her dean. They are giving feedback at these meetings, but she never was told about her standing in a class. She is almost done with her 3rd year. No grades in first 2 years, no grades (and NO exams, except Step 2) in 4th year. 3rd year is the only one that has grades, but they are mostly determined by evals, exams have very little or no effect on the grades in 3rd year.
Check the match list at ANY Medical school. Every single one (including DO) places some number of students into very competitive MD residency. Specifically, we have checked on the other side, at several residency programs. Specifically, one in very competitive specialty accepts 4 - 6 from Med. Schools and 2 from DO every year. </p>
<h2>Only considering US residencies, and MD schools, does the name of your medical school have a significant impact on your chances of landing a residency in plastic surgery or dermatology?</h2>
<p>Of course. Anyone who tells you otherwise has an affiliation with a lower tier medical school, period. If where you went to med school didn’t matter then why are people gunning for the best? I mean why bother? People gun for the best because they know the score. A few reasons why were already mentioned in this thread, e.g., best & brightest push you to your highest potential, connections, resources, and there’s traits in those at the very elite schools that are intrinsic and make those applicants highly sought after.</p>
<p>Check out the match list at several Med. Schools. You will discover that every Med. School (I did not check every single one, I will let you do it) places some number of students into plastics and derm. If you are asking us to do it, you may wait forever.</p>
<p><<<
“at my son’s med school, the students are told their quartile standing after every module exam.” -
-What are "module exam"s? End of block exams at D’s Med. School were p/f. Nobody can fail, so my guess is that who fails, have to retake (do not have experience, cannot tell for sure). but in this case, everybody has exactly the same standing - they passed.
<<<<</p>
<p>I am guessing that modules are the same as blocks???<br>
anyway…the students are told what quartile they are in after each exam.</p>
<p>What probably matters is who writes your letters of recommendation, and how they are connected in the field. So a med school with a strong derm or plastics program, where you have rotated and done considerable research, should be actively promoting you as a candidate to your mentor’s connections. Phone calls happen. Discussions happen. You may be invited to national meetings to present, or snag great away rotations. Who your mentors are matters a lot. The actual name of the med school matters much less. This is why many derm applicants spend a year doing research with a mentor, and it strengthens their application in numerous ways. </p>