speaking of all these top programs....is it, in theory, harder to match or are you more likely to go lower on your rank list if the majority of your interviews are from top programs? Or is it the opposite, where if you've gotten these interviews you're probably a really strong candidate and wouldnt fall too low on the rank list
x2 you never know what people want. Most people at the top end up fitting in somewhere.
< okay so there are something like a few hundred seats though right? Like so the top 40 take the top 5-10 programs, and then everywhere else is regional or what? like its not like only even the top 100 people would match
regional and totally random. And heavily influenced by rotators, connections, compelling reasons someone wants to move.
<the top programs also happen to be some of the larger ones, so chances go up. Top programs end up interviewing many of the same people ... so think about it if there's like 40 ppl interviewing at all the tops, they can only go to 1 program ultimately, so those spots open up ... and people have family/geographic ties that bind them ... so your chances end up being better than you think if you're in the group interviewing at all the tops since you never know if like e.g. Penn is your top choice, some people might choose UCSF or Stanford over it since they have to be in SF for their spouse's finance job etc