Hosp of the Univ of PA (Dermatology/3 yr)

<Harvard for baller academic/research connections and opportunities, lots of med derm, less clinically heavy; NYU tons of clinics/Bellevue which you'll get baller, academics also good, UCSF work hard af but has a bit of everything and is great; Stanford is like the most supportive of the top 5 and will likely have the most good-feeling experience ... idk I'm a PGY1 that interviewed some of these so I don't actually know anything <<thanks for your insight! what do you mean harvard is less clinically heavy? like more inpatient experience? <<there's less resident clinic autonomy, you work a lot with attendings in specialty clinic and it's less ownership of your own patients, but it's like that anyways at the top academic programs as opposed to a small community program, just heard it's more accentuated at Harvard<<interesting, so are residents mostly just presenting patients and writing notes rather than coming up with management plans? <i imagine yes since you're seeing super complex patients at a tertiary care center<dang, fair enough. thank you! << "just present and write notes instead of coming up with management plans"? Is that an actual, serious comment? You think the residents just present the patient then stand there looking blankly at the attending waiting for them to just hand them a treatment plan? If you see complex patients, you learn how to come up with complex plans

< thanks for the input! What about penn?

PGY1. Loved Penn program (didn't match there but had it ranked #1). Amazing faculty, good autonomy, everyone seemed happy. Great exposure to procedures as well (which I felt was a weakness at Harvard)

Stanford - happy residents, assume great clinical experience (although no one seems to emphasize this as much about Stanford); UCSF - one of best if not best clinical experience in the country for complex derm, work you very hard though. Others I don't know as well. Go with your gut and where you felt like the personalities of the residents were most similar to yours.

Penn is the best all-round plus the procedural skill > Harvard. Stanford would be my #2 for the supportive vibe and innovation.

UCSF and Penn are definitly the two best/most well-rounded programs in the country. All the other "top" programs have significnt weaknesses (i.e stanford and harvard have weak derm surg, etc). NYU residents seem to work the hardest and seemed to me to be the least happy.

Out of curiousity do you consider those programs comparable. I've been at both departments and feel like they are very different (both good/amazing, but totally different imo)<very different yes, but each amazing in their own respective way. Im near the area of both and would be very happy at either

anyone care to elaborate on how they're different?

The cities are very different, faculty size and resources. While Hopkins is great and better than most places, Penn is in another league with a lot more going on in regards to clinic, research, etc. Very few places can compare to Penn. I personally would also be ecstatic to match at either if I'm lucky enough to get interviews. << Philly & Baltimore tho... <lol<<theyre both great cities that get a lot of bad rep. if you havent actually lived in either of them I wouldnt be so quick to talk. << I'm good never going back to Baltimore thx<good it doesnt want you there anyway

<<agreed that was brutal to make a new row with that nonsense. Heart is still racing lol x2

fml looks like my parents should have had more kids

LOL same. But I'm just saying this to say that you REALLY shouldn't feel bad / wonder why you're not getting an interview to top programs. There is SO much backdoor dealings etc that go on behind the scene that in reality almost none of the slots are open to just a good applicant without any STRONG connections of some sort. <- another example: one of the UCSF residents has an uncle who is a dermatologist at UCSF

LMAOOOO this is too good

But I thikn the IN ADDITION point is important, having a connection but being mediocre doesnt work as far as I can tell.

<so if we got an interview to a top program without being internal or rotator, do we assume someone had a connection or said something on your behalf?

no, assume you just got an invite, but know chances are low you won't match :)

That's not nice >:(. OP, you've earned that interview, especially without obvious connections. You should go rock it and show everyone what you're made of.

sometimes the truth isn't nice :/

Or maybe you shouldn't take out your frustriations on random people online.<<with that mindset, people wouldnt match from external schools then

not true, the girl who matched penn whose brother is a derm resident at harvard went to northwestern. and to the other person, that's pretty presumptous of you - I'm just being honest. How you decide to take that honesty is on you, not me.<<well thats exactly what im saying, barring no other "real connections" how do people match at a program they are not from.

to be clear, outside of the top 10 programs it's a whole different world. This level of neoptism is almost unique to these programs. <- equivalent of legacy status for undergrad

I knew an applicant who's father-in-law was the chair of a derm department....so needless to say they got an interview at that institution. Other "ties" are research. Some programs really favor their research fellows....who can spend one year or MORE doing research for the department. Often unpaid or super low pay. There's a lot of politics. I'm sure other fields are similar but because derm is small, the effects feel (and probably are amplified).

to add another great story, my friend told me that one of the people who matched to cornell last year? her mom is derm at cornell. connections are everything!

even when it says x2 or x3 it could be a random fake post from 1 person

Exactly

Yale might not do R2M but they are known to make it very clear that they want you so if there's been no correspondence, that's definitely a sign - also Stanford and Penn has indeed sent out calls

Yale won't get everyone they want, so don't worry if there is no correspondence from any of these programs

If a place has sent out RTM calls and you didn't get one... would it be unusual for you to still match there? x2 << not impossible, but your chances are much lower

<Not really. The applicants who are getting r2m calls at these locations are getting r2m calls from all the others that do them as well, and everyone can only go to one program.

I think you will have to feel it out, but pretty sure it is good. In the top ~5 I don't think any programs is known to have a particularly bad culture.

thank you for expanding! For the person who said toxic, why?

I was joking. People there seem happy

No idea what that person is talking about (edit: they were joking. I'll leave what I typed). Culture at Penn is great. Residents are really happy and faculty are as well. I think the number of hospitals and amount of complex med-derm means that residents work a little more than average (for derm lol) but I've been very impressed with how they maintain that family/community vibe despite the appartent reputation as just a machinistic academic powerhouse. Mentorship is also second-to-none. Lots of opportunity to tailor things to whatever you want to do.

< amazing, thank you!!

you got it! <3

Harvard and Penn are very similar academic programs with strong emphasis on research and inpatient derm. NYU has better clinical volume/training. << NYU has probably the most "different" vibe of those - great clinical training...but a very large program with MANY facult, long hours, and historically not the happiest residents. Penn is great - probably a bit more "supportive" and "coddling" than UCSF or Harvard.

<<Correction 99% of us don't care about Penn one way or another x3

we have the screenshots, let's move on

<< Coronavirus is raging, people are stuck at home, the economy is falling apart, doctors and nurses are dying.... LITERALLY every problem is much more important right now, so if your feelings were hurt this cycle, suck it up and MOVE ON

~30 << not true

more? less?

def more. they have 8ish spots. << wahhhhh I wanted this one!!!

probably closer to 60 invitations

seems like a lot. their yield is probably high <lol no WAY is it 60

It's probably the same as most other programs, ~40. But if you look at the match list from last year, for example, not a single person on that list wasn't connected in some strong way. So likely applicants are ranked before interviews and it doesn't change much after interviews.

Fake news. Not everyone last year was connected to the program

Who wasn't? x2

Even the non-Harvard rotators had gone to Harvard for undergrad << This.

This also applies to Penn. x2 << Basically applies to every top program in the country

Based on my extensive sleuthing, it 100% applies to Harvard, Penn, and Yale. As in you're SOL if you don't have a strong connection of some kind. To a much lesser degree, it applies to Stanford and UCSF

Definitely less with UCSF since they don't have an undergraduate college :)

but you have to have CA ties

Stanford and UCSF to a much lesser degree yes, but CA ties are almost required

disagree no california ties and got UCSF

aren't you a special cookie? We're talking about people who matched, not interview invites you snowflake

I was going to say what this person to the left said, but not as rudely. Yes I'm talking about people who MATCH, not get invited for an interview.

lol got it. thanks for the non-rudeness person #2 i get what ur saying<<what exactly do strong connections mean for these top programs? Like regional, rotating there etc?

reposting from edit history:

congrats superstars!!! are any of you external without any connection/away?

myself x5

that's so awesome, congrats friend!

thank you amigo/a!

Are you guys from other top schools though or have 260+ Step scores? There must be some method to this madness, it can feel so random sometimes x2

I think if it were just 260+ they would still have a lot of work to do to pick candidates. Doubt a place like HMS has to go just based off stats to pick their bunch.

Not true, there's only around 40 applicants with step 1 scores > 260 and they likely interview around 40 candidates" >> as an interviewee, I can tell you the assumptions above are not true x4

what assumption? x2<<needing 260+ step scores.

<hey guys is harvard a good program; first time hearing about it

I think they’re relatively new, I wouldn’t rank personally

yeah my PD asked if its a community program when I mentioned it

My PD didn't recognize the name, is it DO? << I thought it was in the Caribbean, I didn't apply for that reason.

oh SHIT it was spelled with an H in the front; been calling it ARVARD

either way, I think the program is low on brand recognition. who would go there?

yeah the interview date conflicted with a race in my city (which I organized, for just myself) so I declined it

yeah probably not worth the money of flights and hotels, tbh. good call. <I've seen ads for this school inbetween my youtube vids I think

:'D >> Heard Harvard is on probation and might not get accredited next year :/ Pretty poor reputation

LOLOL

Rotated at Harvard. They have overall good breadth of training with MGH, Brigham, BIDMC, few other sites. Lots of research opportunities and seems supported by the department. I found the resident surgical skills, dermatoscopy skills, and skin cancer screening skills were subpar at least in comparison to my home program. The department is great and has lots of leaders in derm - but it has a bit of of a very "old-school" feel with lots of white-haired, Caucasian males at the top of the leadership chain. It definitely has an old-school, East Coast medicine feel. This was sort of a turn off for me. Some of the faculty are primarily research clinicians who work 1/2 day a week in cinic - some of these attendings have really not maintained good clinical skills / not particularly interested in clinical medicine and it clearly showed. The number of faculty is huge - which means many residents don't get a lot of exposure to working 1:1 with a smaller group of faculty (there a few expections - for instance, Kroshinky who runs the inpatient service and is just overall the best person ever). Overall, my take home from my experience there was that Harvard has good training and great research opportunities, but that "prestigious" programs aren't necessarily everyone's preference / despite Harvard's own self-perception as "the holy grail of medicine", you can get similar high-quality of training at other less prestigious institutions.

did you get an interview?

no

oh no! you seem really nice, I'm sorry. thanks for the write up! x 2

< Is Kroshinsky nice? I've heard not as positive comments about her, but I much prefer to believe she's as nice as some people have said. Did you interact with Mostaghimi or Chen while you were there? I thought they are both big on inpatient? Were they nice? << Kroshinsky is a superstar x3

are you 3 internals?

not me. Did a research year with her

oh so you're matching Harvard? ;)

<-- Korshinsky is nice. So is Mostaghimi. I didn't work with Chen.

thank you!

Dr Chen is seriously the nicest person on the planet, encourages even med student autonomy in clinic/inpatient

Have heard conflicting things about Mostaghimi though. Heard he can be hard to get along with from an external rotator there

Are you serious?? Hard to get along with in what way? He seems like he'd be so nice and funny! << seemed judgmental and not very friendly << maybe he just has RBF (resting bitch face lol)?? I really don't want to believe he's not as nice as seems :(

< did your friend who was a rotator recieve an interview? << yup

<< white-haired white dude leadership is a thing at a lot of derm programs.... suprised it's still a thing I thought we were in more modern times

Which Derm programs offer free hotel? Henry Ford, Mayo-Rochester, Mayo-AZ... others? Penn State, I'm there this week.

Nice

Geisinger pays fo hotel as well

Mayo-Jacksonville too

Southern Illinois university as well

Amazing program. Absolute favorite hands down.

best program in the country. hands down. A tier above the other 4 in the top 5

People with other top 5 interviews outside penn really trying hard to reduce the competition... x3

or ppl being honest... crazy right?

California resident is doing all the trolling

Did your school have grades or P/HP/H for preclinicals? I feel that schools with a more emphasis for grades end up with more serious students. I don't know whether that's associative or causative.

nah we're P/F. maybe we're just boring

< don't get me started on the bullshit that is grading. my school has restricted honors for the top ten percent of the clerkship overall, while other schools have a set number you have to score above. talking to other students on away rotations really opened my eyes to how much each school is different and how little programs care besides seeing the "H" next to the subject.

I went to a school with unrestricted honors. After getting some of my feedbacks, such as ([Name] was one of X students getting honors for this rotation), I realized that in the end, only 15-20% of students ended up getting honors anyway. They set the goalpost (specificed ahead of time) knowing that anyone could meet that standard, but very few people would actually make it. Ultimately, I think this was the right approach because people could still work hard for themselves, regardless of whether or not they met the challenge. << yep this is a great attitude to take to it if the goalposts are properly set! someone's schools had to get 90% on evals, 80% on shelf, unrestricted number. i was like....lol what.

Thoughts on UCSF testing straight P/F grading for clinical clerkships?

In general, I don't think UCSF has an amazing match list compared to Harvard, Penn, and Stanford if we remove the in-home matches. I do think that it will make things harder for the PDs << it might also skew towards the name. P from Harvard? Who even cares, it's Harvard. No H from MidTierStateU? LOL what a pleb. So i dont think UCSF policy will really change anything in the MSPE. << also would reduce the stress level for clinical clerkships. << P/F curriculums may have shifted pressure onto Step 1, could P/F clerkships put more pressure on Step 2?

possibly. Or more pressure on the LORs

Maybe they will move us over to EM's standardized letters of evaluation. I know that some admins in dermatology wanted to do that this year but they were not able to do so. >> 2 cells over in E

I understand that most derm PD's or people reading apps have a sense of individual schools and what the typical grade distributions are << it was made better this year by including graphs in the MSPE

really? I hate those graphs. fucks over half the people in the class << i mean im the OP in the cell to the left. it clearly shows <20 people in my class getting honors directly next to the text for my evaluations so IF, and big IF, the person actually reads why i didn't get honors, they can see that it was only a select few who did. idk, from the underachiever pov, it looks good. << Point taken

i think it'll start depending more on school prestige and LOR maybe like you said, and of course step scores. good school prestige begets good LOR so it's a trickle-down system all the way to the interviews haha. holy shit i forgot about SLOE, imagine that in Derm! hell no, fuck SLOEs. Hate being reduced to a single number/grade as if I were a cow << lol look at the charting outcomes and step score distribution, or like filters that exist already. i hate it too but sometimes its gotta be done

I'd rather be evaluated on the quality of my LORs than another hoop to jump through. Step 1 (and to a lesser extent, Step 2) is enough of an objective measure.

But still, you'd be surprised. In the state of California, Stanford and UCSF had middling average Step I scores compared to places UCLA and UCSD, probably because the students knew that Step I wouldn't matter as much for them in the perspective of other program directors would be happy to have some Stanford/UCSF students as part of the program.

do we have official numbers on these? I don't doubt that it exists, but it'd be nice to know the extent of the disparity of avg Step 1 scores of accepted derm applicants from top vs mid schools

I don't know, I go to a top 3 school. I got a slightly above average score for derm, and my Dean and PD told me that I should be "competitive anywhere" although they did warn me that the places that I'd get interviews may seem random and that I may not get all the interviews that I wanted (and I didn't)

Also at a top 3 with derm average step and don't have many interviews (but others here do). maybe trickles will come

<< prestige man, prestige. its exactly what you said, they'd love to have a person from x program on their resident and potentially staff roster. for us mid-low tier schools, we gotta kick ass on step 1 and etc to have a shadow of your position, potentially with not as good LORs << do we need more hoops to jump through, though? I don't think the answer to leveling the playing field for students not from the top tier schools is to create yet another metric. We have to do so much already, from getting a good Step 1 score, to kicking ass on clerkships, doing research, etc << true man. someone down the sheet suggested having a set number of programs to apply to, like 20 or so, i think that might really be playing with fire and lead to a LOT of people unmatched or SOAPing, both applicants and programs << for sure. we'd need a transition period or something. couldn't ERAS spend a fraction of their $$$ to hire a data scientist to study the optimal number of programs to apply to? << they did that, for derm it was high 30s. let me see if i can find link

https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-residency/filteredresult/apply-smart-data-consider-when-applying-residency/ i think that is what we are discussing - meme

Anybody know if multiple batches of invites went out for them in prior years or just one?

I bet only 1 day WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF< damn wanted this so bad Are dates confirmed 1/9 and 1/16?

yes <are people wanting the 9th ? No one has heard back re their date yet right (i will lose my mind if I can't go)

have not heard back yet

Just heard back <eek im scared. what time did you reply, I think I emailed in five min.

responded in ~3min< are you ninth or sixteenth? <anyone not hear back yet...? <just heard back for 1/9. responded in 3 min<still haven't heard back for the ninth and responded in four wahhh

also 1/9

pretty sure we all asked for 1/9 lol 1/16 is a shitshow< just got the 9th

same! 1/9

why would 1/16 be a shitshow??? Penn and Harvard ???

just that week has a lot going on on both coasts and midwest

Congrats! San Diego is so incredible x 1

Got skunked by the top 10, but got my top choice! << same here! x3

any rotators get an invite?

yes i did

wooooot San Diegoooooooo

Doubled my derm invite total today!

congrats!! x2

Yeah I feel like we would see the same people at a lot of the top programs. It feels so strange to be invited to Harvard but not Penn - does anyone else feel the same?<invites from Harvard, UCSF, NYU...but not penn. I do not understand

Minus UCSF, same. So weird! I wonder why, especially in your case with 3 of the other top 5!<<im not sure tbh. I expected Penn more than UCSF considering i have no ties to the west coast. My only rationale is that my step isnt the absolute highest for these top places, and idk if penn considers step score more than some of the other top programs.

You know what, I too have a sneaking suspiscion Penn values high step scores more than any of the other top 5. I'm around a 255 so maybe they really want that 260+? I really wanted this one :(<<yea im in the low 250 range as well. oh well cant win em all.

True. And sounds like it's Penn's loss in your case :)<<best of luck to you in your interviews kind stranger, and congrats on your well deserved merits!

haha thank you!! :') you too!!

I was fortuante to top 5 IVs with step >260 soI think they just have a really good applicant pool and we missed out because they look for different things?

Congrats on the impressive score and interviews!! Yeah, could be! I think the person who commented in 14D explains well some one the inherent and unavoidable randomness in the process. <- do you guys remember what your responses to the penn supplmemt was at the beginning of the cycle? my step scores weren't as high as yours and i got penn but my response was interest in epidemiology

Congrats!! And that's strange about the tracks, do you think that mattered? And I just selected the 3 year track and combined clinical and research training. Maybe Dr. Gefland was the person who reviewed your app lol <- step 1 was mid 240s

i doubt a 250ish step 1 score would be the disqualifying factor in an otherwise outstanding candidate?

No it's not that it's disqualifying, it's that there's SO MANY qualified applicants with a 250ish step score, you just can't interview them all. <i guess my point is i feel like they would look at some other aspect to try to differentiate applicants rather than just a few points on a standardized test (at least that's the hope lol)

Yes one'd hope lol

On the bright side, I appreciated that the subject started with, “unable to offer interview” x6

There is no bright side. Nothing is bright anymore.

lol, I didn't get an invitation or a rejection so i don't know if I have sheer joy or more disappointment headed my way. ::shrug::

<< That sounds terrible. Anybody with experience at Harvard or UCSF? Even Upenn but that would hard for my SO << I have had several friends at Harvard who swear by their expeirences there << wherever you go, def pick clinical research over basic science research (more pubs). also don't just go for the fancy names, look into places that would actually match you after spending a research year there (not to say that you're not good enough for harvard/ucsf/penn, but also top programs historically don't give a crap if you spent time with them)

I don't know if I agree about a place that takes their fellows. It's not a bad strategy but also a mentor who fights for you can go really far!

Are there any specific people or groups that are worth reaching out to? How did you guys find where to go? << I have heard of people having success with Kroshinsky at Harvard, Koo at UCSF, Rosenbach at Penn, and Mostaghimi at Brigham

I did research with Mostaghimi. He wasn't around most of the time and I didn't find the experience that fulfilling tbh << Not sure why comment was deleted. Seems like someone has an agenda. I worked with Mostaghimi and thought he was really dedicated to me and his other students. If you are thinking about working with him he will put you in touch with people who have actually worked with him and you can get a sense of what their experience was like. Don't believe everything you read on these boards.

I found my research year by talking to just about every upperclassman who had done one in the 1-3 years before me. Really variable year to year and I agree that big name places can be a let down. There's just no way Harvard cares when they have so many research fellows. heck, they a least a few of their own med students didn't match last year so don't expect an interview.

<< Can't speak for insitution at large but both at Harvard and other institutions the specific individual that you work with is the most important part. Look at the people who have worked with these attendings in the past, they've genreally done well. Do your homework, find a person and talk to peple who have worked with them before

Upenn!! The oldest program in the nation, huge department under one umbrella (unlike Harvard), Philly is on the affordable side of NE cities and theres a reason its #1 on doximity, because residents love it there!

< Penn resident spotted< nah but I did an away :)

lol an "away" << ?? i know someone that did an away at UPenn.

LOL sure. "away" haha << do you really think that residens have the time or the interest to post here? Lol you are way over your heads

NYU would be a dream. Cant beat NYC, diverse population and exposure to private derm in the most competitive market << I hope you don't match with that kind of thought << OP- What kind of thought? Thankfully you dont decide my future lol

< that's why Columbia's my dream. :)

<Really excited about the Columbia interview! Any info about this program in terms of resident happiness, perception of the program, etc.?