Philadelphia, PA
Applicant sentiment — from 23 anonymous posts, 2022-2023 Derm
5.2 / 10
AI-generated summary of opinions expressed in anonymous, unverified posts. It describes what posters wrote, not verified facts about this program. · Updated Aug 2026 · Full program summary · Contest or respond to this entry · Takedown & right of reply
Do people without a RY or additional degree (PhD, MPH, whatever) have any chance at the top programs anymore? Harvard, Penn, and UCSF all didn't take a single person who didnt... < theres no chance honestly with the amount of people doing RY year, it almost hurts you if you dont.
Is it still helpful to take a RY if it's not connected with an academic program? < is it paid? , my guess is probably not a good idea < Definitely not. The whole point of a RY isn't even the publications it's literally ALL about connecting with a department in the hopes that they'll like you enough to rank you highly. I know finances are difficult but also wouldn't suggest you let the pay distract you from this-- in the end it's a whole year of your life that you might be giving up if the RY doesn't pan out<most people dont match at the research institution they do the research year at...in fact the most powerhouse institutions that have the most number of people they match year in and year out to derm and most publications etc dont even give much consideration to their research fellows for ranking them (harvard, northwestern, ucsf, upenn etc) unlike USC and others. at these places they still try to match you well but youre just a hamster on a wheel and shouldnt get your hopes up of getting ranked at all there. they wont even remember you if you matched or not the following year there will be more people to try to match, more people they are recruiting to their RY and so on. i wouldnt take it personally their research-matching machine depends on people continuing to match so its easier to imagine yourself as insignificant and not likely to get ranked there to set expectations low. dont let this fear of being afraid of crashing like all the waves before you get to your head at the same time - remember that you're not just a wave - youre part of the ocean << OP here, appreciate these responses and yes it's paid and has a good track record of matching ppl and the PI is well known but this is primarily about working in a private clinic and also doing research (may speak with previous fellows to get a better idea) < Yeah maybe institutions don't always match their own fellows but every RY mentor has connections in multiple places... doing research in a private clinic doesn't really help you build connections at academic institutions. But it's your life you do you!
For those that just went through the match, would you say step scores still matter? I have a 26x step 1 and 27x step 2 but ive heard many times now from faculty both in my department and others that it doesnt matter anymore and its all about "holistic review." Kinda sucks when I practically killed myself for these scores. < they matter to a certain extent to get your foot in the door. Once you're in the don't matter
doesn't matter. my scores were very low. < echo this. I have your scores did not match twice < I think scores matter up to a point but then other parts of your app come into consideration, largely your personality and if they'd like working with you. << This. To the OP, your USMLE scores matter when it comes to that first door of still being in the running to apply to Derm as an MS-4 (unless you're URM, where that rule isn't hardline followed), but it's not the only thing that determines whether you get interviews or whether you match into Derm. This is where having a "story" or a "brand" matters to sell yourself, both in your personal statement and during your interview. I empathize with you, as I have no doubt you worked REALLY hard for those scores, and I'd say like 10 years ago, you would have easily matched with that academic record and a few Derm case reports with your home Derm faculty, but with this more "holistic" review (and not all programs do holistic review or even if they do it, they don't necessarily do it in the exact same way), the things that are emphasized now are different.
a lot of derm programs think 240=260 now supposedly. i dont think its a true statement but whatever << I think after a certain point like a 245, the distinction isn't made between someone who is a 245 vs. a 260 in terms of ranking placements. The entire point of the USMLE scores in the Derm match process is to give academic Derm faculty solace that you will pass your Derm Boards written by the ABD. So once you achieve that, you've checked of that box and they move on to other things. <nah bro i heard faculty say even a 240 flat is sometimes considered as valuable as a 260 with no added value for having a good score at a range of top programs to community ones. like "back in the day" it used to be that on advising guides from top schools that you can find online (upenn etc, they would say that a 240 is good enough if you go to a top school with that as a cavaet but i even heard DO applicants now told that past a 240 is fine so i might extrapolate a 250 is good enough for all the points for a step 2 but idk if this is true yet)
I matched with a 26x and 27x with only 1 derm publication on my app. Had 15 interviews. Not URM and from mid-tier med school. It's definitely doable if you do well clinically (especially on aways) and can get good letters >> OP here, thanks everyone for the input on both sides.. see this is interesting to me because in this situation clearly your step scores seemed to matter.. obviously i would agree that away performance and letters are more important but the scores clearly had weight << yeah it definitely gets you in the door. I had a lot of publications in non-derm + some ongoing derm projects including an AAD oral presentation, so my original post may have been misleading saying I only had 1 publication < Did you match at home or an away or somewhere where you had connections?
I don't understand why we value rankings so much on this sheet> because people have revolved their lives around acadmics and medicine and have nothing else in their lives.
Because med student derm applicants have no idea what metrics to use to evaluate derm residencies, so they just go by rankings to make themselves feel better. Some really great programs get skipped over, but that's good for everyone else.
Because it feels good to tell people you went to Yale or Penn. <ppl want to compare sizes of their Pennis
I wonder with things being virtual in terms of interviews, whether derm residency programs are now looking inwards and thus mainly recruiting from internal candidates (who they have known for a longer period of time over 4-5 years), unlike when you got to meet external candidates face to face in formal interviews. Case Western Derm matching mainly their own students at Case is very unusual and not at all in line with how they have matched Derm applicants in previous years and in the last two decades. Or maybe it's just possible they're being nicer and better to their home students.
people are just here to find echochamber to reinforce their bias without any evidence. << Probably true, although it doesn't really answer why certain derm residency programs that never used to recruit heavily from their internal home candidates are now suddenly doing that a lot more. < they could just be better candidates.... << And you think that wasn't the case in the past? I've matched so it's not really an issue for me, but I do think that future medical students (especially those who are maybe of lower income and don't have as many resources at their particular medical school) applying to Derm should be able to know if it's really worth taking the time to rotate at a particular place or applying to a particular program if they really don't have a chance of getting an interview or matching there.
Case western taking their own students is like an NFL scout picking students from LSU... why wouldn't top med schools feed into their own home programs? < Why the FUCK would you say LSU and not Alabama in this example? < What's the difference between the two? <<< To the OP, I guarantee you in past match cycles Case Western has gotten students from top tier med schools, so to use your analogy, they're actually dropping down, compared to before when they were clawing their way up in terms of matched Derm applicants.> Wayne state and UIC are not top med schools, maybe in the midwest << Case Western is a much higher ranked Derm residency program compared to UIC and Wayne State, due to their clinical & basic science research base. < what the fuck is the point of this comment. of course this is a true statement that has nothing to do with this discussion. im waiting on someone to tell me which harvard or yale student case western has matched recently. << Why are you so salty?<because someone is lying, distracting, and or all of the above to hide up observations about the case western match list and likely rank list that are not only true. but useful for future applicants. so obvious when this happens. << I have no idea why UIC and Wayne State were brought into the discussion.<those are med schools the residents from case western the last 4 years have come from. midwest schools. they take residents from midwest state schools they dont have harvard students interviewing there and ranking them high very often. that is useful to know. < Again, that's not been Case Western's recruiting process previously. They're not a state flagship. They've matched people coming from USC, Pitt, Harvard, Penn, etc. but stay salty and mad.
no one has shown proof of recent yale or harvard to case western residents. its not hard to pull up a link of someone online if this actually exists. if it exists it is a rare phenomenon and they probably had family in the area or something. why the heck else would you want to go to cleveland <<< This isn't criminal court. You can either believe it or not. No one cares.>again, just showing this spreadsheet is full of bad faith actors who dont really care to point out things that are helpful to most future applicants. if you are a midwest area student with strong credentials for dermatology application case western is probably a good target program for you. no one seriously looks at case western when they interview there and think shit do i not have a shot here because the 5 harvard and yale people are going to end up here over me. you do feel that way, however at other midwest programs sometimes.
What are the top 10 derm programs? Is there a clear consensus on this?
Penn UCSF Harvard NYU Stanford Yale Mount Sinai Northwestern UTSW etc.
It matters for people who want to go into academics/do research... << LOL, no it doesn't. Academia is in need of dermatologists. Beggars can't be choosers.
Love that a bunch of people are dragging yale for having over 12 derm applicants on tik tok. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was messed up < i dont think 12 from yale is nearly as outrageous as 15 from harvard that one year. harvard is still on another level. people from yale and upenn who are otherwise academically strong candidates dont match often. harvard is the true problem, not yale < Yale literally only had 2 people go into FM < links to tiktok?
is it still possible to match well in derm without having to do a research year??? seems like everyone does one nowadays << Depends what you consider "match well." < Top programs, nearly all people took research years. <it is definitely definitely possible to do. Please don't feel this pressure to do a research year < you can definitely match top 5/top 10 without a RY. some top-top programs (like UPenn) seem to have favored RY/PhD candidates heavily but that doesn't mean you can't go somewhere good without one<every single UCSF match is a RY or PhD. same with Harvard...
Does anyone know how many residents Penn and Yale are taking for their normal 3 year tracks?
Interesting that 20 people that interviewed at Penn have filled out the rank lists (out of 29 people), 8 ranked it first, and 20 ranked it top 3?
Reposting because deleters: I compiled the percentages of residents from top programs who also came from top medical schools. Data is from residency websites on 10/23: Residents from T20 med schools: Stanford: 24/31 (77%) NYU: 18/25 (72%) UCSF: 14/22 (64%) Penn 13/21 (62%) Harvard: 17/32 (53%) Residents from T10 med schools: NYU: 15/25 (64%) Stanford: 19/31 (61%) Penn: 10/21 (48%) Harvard: 14/32 (44%) UCSF: 9/22 (41%)
I compiled the percentages of residents from top programs who came from top medical schools. Data is from residency websites on 10/23: Residents from T10 med schools: NYU: 15/25 (64%) Stanford: 19/31 (61%) Penn: 10/21 (48%) Harvard: 14/32 (44%) UCSF: 9/22 (41%) Residents from T20 med schools: Stanford: 24/31 (77%)
Those who rotated at Uab, why do you think they didn't interview a lot of away rotators? Spill the tea. << Well for starters, UAB is a really strong Dermatology program. They don't need to interview all rotators. Good candidates come to them in the application process. << this sounds like something written by an attending or resident < what makes Uab strong? why would you want to be a derm faculty there vs at Northwestern or UMich or UTSW or UMiami or UPenn or Yale even << You're shifting the goalposts and asking a different question w/regards to the caliber of Dermatology residency programs (how you choose residency programs when it comes to training you vs. how you choose residency programs where you want to go to be an academic faculty member are totally different questions). And to the person who wrote directly after me above, yes, I'm actually a PGY-4 Derm resident, but I wanted to give some perspective as someone now on the other side of the match process. It's somewhat hard to understand for Derm applicants while you'going through it, to see and evaluate derm programs in a methodical way until they get to the other side, where it makes a lot more sense. I'll admit that it's not ideal, when you're trying to decide as an MS-3 student, where exactly to rotate in Derm in MS-4 to maximize your chances of matching into Derm or at least receiving interviews from places that you have rotated.
Penn actually has a fair number of non-Ivy < Penn is not in the top tier because of this< penn is top tier because if you took the 5 most famous/well funded derms and they took their talents elsewhere the dept would still be a top dept. if you did the same to utsw, yale, hopkins, northwestern etc those dept rankings would take a huge dip
What mentors at UPenn do you think are exceptional?
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its becoming more typical from what ive heard from faculty. phd doesnt carry all that weight as it used to for derm regular track or 2 matching more about what you can do. its the rare applicant but there are some studs out there that can go toe to toe with phd applicants for 2 without the phd usually research year people