<p>This was just released yesterday. Contains a lot of information that I'm not sure I've come anywhere close to determining the significance of yet.</p>
<p>The one thing that stood out, at least initially, in terms of being useful for College Confidential in particular and the population it tends to see (as compared to SDN) is the information on going to a highly regarded medical school. There is certainly a fair share of kids who come here saying "I absolutely must go to Harvard/UCSF/Hopkins for medical school or else I'm a failure" as though they'd rather be able to say they graduated from those places rather than being able to say they're a physician. We of course also get a lot of people coming in advocating that going oversees is the smartest possible choice (though we seemed to have done a decent job of curtailing that).</p>
<p>Anyways, here's the key data that relates: Surveys were sent out to all the program directors whose residency program participated in the 2008 regular match (so fields like Urology, Optho and Neurosurgery that had their own match are not included...Neurosurg has left the San Francisco match and will be going through the main NRMP match in 2009 by the by). With the exception of Transitional Year programs, the response rate was greater than 45% for all specialties, up to a high of 70% by Emergency Medicine PD's. For each specialty I've included 6 pieces of data: The percentages are the percent of program directors who replied that the particular criterion was used as part of their decision to INTERVIEW a candidate. The second number, in parentheses, is the importance, on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being "not at all important" to 5 being "very important" that program directors said they used the criterion when determining the RANK of a candidate on their match lists. The number listed is the mean.</p>
<p>What stands out, at least in my interpretation, in most specialties, is that it appears far more important that you go to a US medical school. More programs site that as a factor for getting an interview, and it has a greater importance when determining your rank than going does going to a highly regarded (which I do not believe was defined) US medical school. There are a few exceptions to this rule: Plastics, Radiation Oncology and surprisingly, Pathology. </p>
<p>The other thing, is that is of note is that these are 3 criteria out of 35 for interview selection, and 3 out of 43 for interview ranking that were asked about. There are complex interactions that are going on through this decision making process. Without a doubt, the interview is much, much, much more important when it comes to ranking decisions then anything else (there are 6 interview specific aspects on the list, all with mean importance >4).</p>
<p>So Bottom line: Going to a "highly regarded" US med school can make a slight difference, but certainly is no where near enough to get you an interview or make a program rank you significantly higher simply in and of itself...even in competitive residencies.</p>
<p>Anesthesia:
US Allopath Grad: 65% of PD's said it's used in determining interviews
Highly Regarded US allopath Grad: 58%
AOA membership:55%
Mean importance for US School for RANKING: 3.8 (out of 5)
Mean Importance for Highly regarded US school: 3.5</p>
<p>Derm:
US:76% (3.8)
HRUS:58% (3.2)
AOA:71% (3.4)</p>
<p>Diagnostic Radiology:
US:77% (3.9)
HRUS: 69% (3.5)
AOA: 78% (3.7)</p>
<p>Emergency:
US 72% (3.7)
HR: 62% (3.2)
AOA 70% (3.2)</p>
<p>Family:
US 60% (3.8)
HR 46% (3.1)
AOA 30% (2.6)</p>
<p>Gen Surg:
US 64% (4.0)
HR 57% (3.4)
AOA 61% (3.5)</p>
<p>Internal Med:
US: 61% (3.8)
HR 45% (3.4)
AOA 44% (3.2)</p>
<p>Neurology:
US:72% (4.1)
HR: 63% (3.8)
AOA: 54% (3.2)</p>
<p>OB/GYN
US: 62% (3.8)
HR: 52% (3.4)
AOA: 51% (3.3)</p>
<p>Ortho:
US: 66% (3.9)
HR: 51% (3.1)
AOA: 73% (3.6)</p>
<p>ENT/Head and Neck
US: 72% (3.9)
HR: 67% (3.4)
AOA: 87% (4.0)</p>
<p>Pathology:
US: 62% (3.6)
HR: 60% (3.6)
AOA: 50% (3.2)</p>
<p>Pediatrics:
US: 60% (3.9)
HR: 48% (3.3)
AOA: 51% (3.5)</p>
<p>Physical Medicine and Rehab
US: 47% (3.5)
HR: 42% (3.3)
AOA: 36% (3.1)</p>
<p>Plastics:
US: 47% (3.1)
HR: 63% (3.5)
AOA: 80% (3.4)</p>
<p>Psych
US: 67% (3.6)
HR: 53% (3.3)
AOA: 45% (2.8)</p>
<p>Rad Onc:
US: 56% (3.3)
HR: 58% (3.4)
AOA: 53% (3.1)</p>