My classmates and I can’t decide if it’s more likely that match day will end up with a lot of people in seemingly random programs or if everyone is more likely to just end up at their home institution if they have one at their school.
Not just NES but all of the competitive specialties that take super small numbers for new resident classes.
What do u all think
The name of your home program has mattered every year, and mediocre applicants with good home programs have always been at an advantage. There are plenty of applicants from no name places interviewing at strong programs this year, likely because they have exceptional scores and pursued research opportunities that made up for those perceived deficits. Stop whining and making excuses for having a subpar application
Covid or no covid, our program wants the best we can attract. If that’s a student from another school, that’s fine.
Yes, most are from brand name home programs, but the pandemic did not last four years and is not an excuse for why you were not able to make up for the shortcomings in your application and pursue a serious research program for the three other years you were in medical school. This is the case every year. Just because you came from a shitty school and had the opportunity to do a sub-i at Barrow in any normal year doesn't change the fact that you're still from a shitty school. We no longer live in a world when you can pick up and decide to match into neurosurgery the day after third year ends. This is obviously less relevant if you come from an institution with a track record of successfully matched applicants, but if you don't have that luxury, you will have to 1) work harder to prove your commitment to the field or 2) pick a different specialty. This fact is going to be amplified 1000-fold when Step 1 moves to P/F.
