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<p>MiamiDAP</p>
<p>You’re correct. S’s med school was not “top tier” but he and his classmates last year matched in a wide variety of specialties at residencies including at Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern, Michigan, U Wash (Seattle), UTSW, WUSL, UCSF, Mayo Clinic, USC, UCSD, Cedars (LA)… What got them matched were their med school/interview performances, not the name on top of diploma. I’m not saying that graduating from a “well known” med school isn’t a plus, it can be the cherry on the cake. But it’s the personal achievements or the more bread/butter factors (Step 1,2, GPA, third year performance/evals, LORs, MSPE, AOA (bread/butter??), etc) that are going to get a student an interview.</p>
<p>In addition, S indicated that many fellow classmates with very strong med school performances choose not to apply to selective programs because of personal reasons such as a desire to stay/return to areas where their families (or significant other’s families) lived; or that significant other was either a lower level med student (e.g. MS2/MS3) or a PhD student with a year or more remaining in their program. You have to remember that you’re not dealing with wide eyed 17 year old HS students trying to get into a “top “ colleges, but with adults who are in their late 20s, 30s, maybe even 40s. You can’t just automatically jump to a conclusion solely based on the med school’s name and whether/where a med student can match without knowing the student’s back stories (e.g. personal achievements, families/kids, etc). </p>