The match is in the favor of you. There is no reason not to rank in the order of your preference. Watch the video on the website.

They can teach you the clinic parts. They can't teach you how to be you. If you feel a personal fit, rank them.

If you love the program, rank it highly! You want to spend a year enjoying where you are

I wonder how I should rank my one and only interview.....1 or....1 lol. Just rank on what you want. If you feel that's where you're suppose to be then go 100%

Rank in order of your preference.

The system puts you in your #1 unless someone who the program ranked higher than you is also placed in the slot.

The programs ranking of candidates is irrelevant from a standpoint of how you should rank.

I think there a few questions you should answer:

1. What do you want to do? If you know what part of psychiatry you’re interested in, you should pick a program with good training in that. You want to be set up for success, so don’t go to a place without your preferred fellowship. You also don’t want to go to a community program if you want to do research, for example.

2. Is the lifestyle and culture a good fit? Consider personalities, vibes, work-life balance, etc.

3. Where do you want to live? Consider your ideal location.

I would go in that order personally, but there are reasons to change the order of the list and prioritize what you think is most important. Psych program training can vary a lot. People who are happiest are in programs that aligned with their desired professional opportunities, culture (friends, work-life balance), and location.

For me I knew work life was my top value. I also knew good training was #2. I ranked accordingly, was fortunate enough to get my number one, and couldn’t be happier. I would also just be entirely yourself in your interviews; you want to work somewhere that values your personality as much as your intellect I think! I would just rank based on values and what’s important to you, you won’t go wrong! Also, there’s no “perfect” choice, you’ll have compromises of some form, that was hard for me to accept as a perfectionist lol.

I chose based off how happy/friendly the residents seemed. I had an acquaintance at the program, too, who could vouch for that.

If you can, try to find programs with full day didactics - it really was huge for resident WLB and cohesion. We would all either hang out the night before didactics or after.

I still feel I got satisfactory/good training - we didn't get some of the most specialized training (geri and addiction could have been a little better) but def had satisfactory C/L. We got above average CAP exposure, too.

Biggest mindset change was not being afraid to ask questions if you don't know. You're no longer in that stupid situation in med school where you have to feign knowledge to get a good clerkship grade. It's all about your training now. Ask about this during interviews.

You want to be at a program that at least has supervision and attendings willing to teach. I've talked to residents at other programs who felt they didn't get supervision.

I had a generally positive experience intern year at a land grant/safety net hospital. I asked residents directly how much they work at every program I interviewed at. You can't have everything with the current medical system so if more chill schedule is important to you rank those programs higher. You can message me to and I can answer more questions.

Location, lifestyle, opportunities in that order

My best piece of advice would be to think about your life as a resident. What are your must haves? What would you like to have? What would make life a little more pleasant, but isn’t a must? Come up with a list and score your locations based on that.

I’m in the same position and that’s what I’ve been doing. If the rotations and culture of two institutions are similar, I’ll start thinking about longitudinal requirements. Ex: how often is weekend staffing? Are there weeknight staffing requirements? Do on-call and staffing weekends overlap? If this still doesn’t break the tie, I’ll think about things that are nice to have. Ex: facilities, good coffee/food nearby, etc. Anything that might make my life more enjoyable if all other criteria are equal.

Kind people, good location (you can get an affordable apartment) and IMO a less intense program so it's not miserable for you. Staffing would be big to me as well as I have seen residents staff so much because they are cheap labor. Also potential if you staff do you get pharmacist money

This is a copy of the original post in case of edit or deletion: Hi everyone. I just completed my residency interviews and I’m trying to finalize my rank list. I’m having a hard time deciding who I should rank #2, 3, and 4. I’m between two pretty big programs who would provide me with really great opportunities, plus another program that is smaller (but a part of a larger system) and all there were incredible during the interview process.

What factors did you consider/help you break the tie between multiple programs?

Also, two of the programs I’m interested in are located close to my boyfriend and ideally I want to be closer to him. He is a huge support system for me, but I don’t want to base my rankings solely based on him.

Any advice???

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It's definitely a bit of a neurotic question, but like one that most people have.

For internal medicine, the best programs are the Big 4 (MGH, JHU, UCSF, and BWH). Most of the other top medical schools also have great internal medicine residencies, but those are widely regarded as the best.

The water is muddier for other specialties, because different hospitals/medical school are good at different specialties. For example, going to MGH/Hopkins for pediatrics is honestly not as impressive as Cincinnati Children's. That being said, I think that generally if the students are going to a T10 medical school's residency, then that's probably a fine litmus for what you're looking for.

To be entirely honest though, for most specialties the ranking really doesn't matter, it's the program design. When you actually get into medical school, you'll be able to figure out your specialty of interest and then talk to doctors at your school about the pros and cons of different programs. Like for some surgical fields if you want to do research as a career there are programs with a built-in research year, but if you don't then you should look at shorter residencies. There's a lot of things that make a residency a good fit, and you'll think more about it when the time comes. Focus on getting into med school for now, don't worry about all this!!

it is the best resource but you must keep in mind that a candidate who is interested in SCI would be better off ranking a program who has robust SCI training higher than a program without it. Ergo you must analyze which programs align with your career goals

https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/pm-r-advice-to-applicants.1114792/

Scroll down to see the ranking of competitiveness based on signals received

it is not, doximity is ranked by peer voting so there are always going to be biases. I really like US news & world report.

But the correct answer is that program rank is what fits you best!

I think every specialty has its own ways. But in ours, psychiatry, they are pre-ranked before the interview based on stats, the interview can bump you up or down, it's mainly to weed out any bad applicants. The rank list is adjusted every week obv after a set of interviews and its unlikely to be moved after unless something really bad is found out to remove you completely from the rank list or move to the last spot. At some programs, every interaction counts, lunch, second looks etc ( so avoid doing anything bad to be moved down). if you network ie had someone reach out to the PD whom the PD also knows or trusts, that also helps your rank bc they trust someone who vouched for you etc. There's a ton of bad applicants (that you can't see just based solely on stats) that are out there, so anything to reassure the PD you are a good human being is good, (ie team player, hard worker, professional).

Resident at an academic surgery program here. Definitely varies between programs but can share my programs process.

The starting point for the list is each applicant gets a numeric score based on their application and interviews based on a standard rubric (includes things like leadership, teamwork, academic performance, intellectual curiosity, perseverance, etc). This is sorted in total score descending and is the basis for discussion and then applicants are moved up/down during the rank list meeting. For example, if there’s a prelim we want to keep, strong performance on a SubI, or more generally if members of the ranking committee/program leadership want to advocate for applicants to be higher/lower based on other things not factored into the score.

Historically whether an applicant has indicated they are “ranking us #1” hasn’t been an explicit concern in the meetings, but if someone who is a highly competitive applicant has made it clear we are their top choice (eg they are a top student at a top school in another region and they tell us they want to come here because they/their partner have family nearby) it can factor into how strongly people advocate for them to stay at the top.

Residents are included in interviewing and rank meetings but the ultimate order is confidential and at the discretion of the PD/APD.

by penis size

Rank in the order that you want to be at. If you can't be accommodated at your top choices, the algorithm will move down your list until it identifies a match.

The only advantage of ranking a "safe" program at the top is that you can claim to have matched at your #1 (provided that program also ranks you high enough for you to match there at all). If that same program was your #10 and you couldn't be matched to preferences 1 to 9, you would still match at this safe program.

You should rank in order of preference too. Ranking safer programs first does not increase your overall chance of matching.

There's really no such thing as "safe" programs. You should rank programs in your order of preference; doing so makes it more likely you'll Match at one of your top choices and does NOT decrease the chance that you'll Match into a program lower on your list.

Here's a helpful video on the topic.

Hope this helps!
r/EmpoweringIMGs

Having the same problem 😞

Rank according to where you would be happiest. Or whatever is most important to you.

Residencyexplorer.org is a website run by AAMC that will show a lot about stats for residency programs. It has info on board scores, extracurriculars and other perks/benefits of the program. Some programs even have a board score cutoff on there (although not sure if verified by the program or not). Can also see where there residents went to medical school to check for regional bias. Hope this helps.

Lol no man. There are so many variables to consider there is no actual ranking of any type and things like location, perks become increasingly important when it comes time for applicants to actually rank programs. Sounds like you’re looking for a prestige ranking - might as well use doximity though that’s just a popularity contest

ENT is competitive so just apply broadly & worry about prestige later, once you get the interviews. However, I would caution you that there is much more to finding a perfect "match" than prestige (i.e. does the program have the opportunities you are looking for and will you be supported).

Rank lists, even if they were accurate, would only be helpful when you are making your final rank list. There is no reason for them when you are in the interview process.

Apply to any program that you would consider going to. Now is not the time to cheap out.

You can try perusing the otomatch spreadsheet for this cycle and get a sense of the feel/pros/cons of each program, as told subjectively by those who’ve rotated/interviewed. There is also a comparison tab comparing similar programs (with regards to prestige, location, research prowess, etc.) that may fit the bill for what you’re looking for.

Editing to add: ENT is very competitive. The match rate is abysmal, but does fluctuate widely from year to year because it’s a small specialty and there are only like 350 spots/year. My advice to you is to apply broadly and, as much as it pains me to say, start thinking about contingency plans if you don’t receive as many interviews as you’re comfortable with in November. Best of luck to you!