^^^ My understanding for the matching processing is the same as what stated above. The name of the med school is actually less important for the residency matching than the name of the college for med school admissions since getting into a medical school itself is a big filter and the “rankings” of med schools are just crap . Well, I guess in terms of “prestige”, the gap can’t be too big. I have recently read that Odette Harris was named America’s second female African-American neurosurgery professor at Stanford (https://www.stanforddaily.com/2018/03/09/odette-harris-named-americas-first-female-african-american-neurosurgery-professor-at-stanford/) (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/27/how-stanford-neurosurgeon-odette-harris-promotion-just-made-history.html). I guess without her Dartmouth credential, it is probably hard for her to get into Stanford Med. Medicine is “family” business. We are not within the “family”. If you go to UMKC thread, you would read a kid there boasts he got into the 6 year program with pretty low stats. (his “family” is there) I have no doubt that plays a big role in med school admissions. However, enough spots still open for the rest of us.