Northwestern McGaw/NMH/VA-IL

which has better culture/vibes between Northwestern v UMiami>> Do you like passive aggressive/fake toxic or blunt/aggro toxic?

What do you guys think about research fellows getting interview invites at their programs?, What programs are fellow "friendly", at least to give them an interview opportunity?

Although Northwestern is an away mill, were people still able to get a strong LOR? <ive never heard about this program on the spreadsheet much, also curious there isnt much about it on the tabs from last years cohort

Anyone do a rotation at Uchicago? How was it? I did one. They had four rotators at the same time as me. I spent a month there, mornings clinic with different providers usually had derm path in the afternoons. Interviewed during the rotation. It was alright. They took a prelim and ry this year.

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!

Hey guys, so I was going through this book that I used during the match, The Successful Match: 200 Rules to Succeed in the Residency Match by Dr. Rajani Katta and Dr. Samir Desai. It was published back in 2009, so some things may be dated, but according to the first page, in the 2007 NRMP match, 38.8% of U.S. seniors (MD) applying to Dermatology failed to match. To give you an idea of how competitive it was even back then, in 2004/2005/2006/2007/2008 there were 263/288/276/288/297 Derm PGY-2 residency spots, respectively.

What are the top 10 derm programs? Is there a clear consensus on this?

Love seeing nepotism pull through strongly this year. <wtf are you talking about yale matched like none of its people to yale < not talking about Yale <all im seeing is tons of people who did research years matched. like look at northwestern for example most of their class is internals and research year people just like it always has been. miami's class has exactly 3 umiami internals just as i had predicted < no, some people have parents in high positions < you mean cronyism and not nepotism…<where is the nepotism. please point it out i dont see a single nepotism that happened this cycle <which one of her parents is an academic dermatologist who ranks applicants for residency. i think a reasonable definition of nepotism in this context is a familial connection of the first degree who is an academic dermatologist and they are involved in ranking the accused of using nepotism in their application cohort and they wouldnt have matched/been ranked high enough to match without that. everything else you can argue is just connections many of which dont involve familial connections especially in a field like this where connection building is rampant. you wouldnt call it nepotism if your neighbor is the chair of a derm dept and you happened to live there and got exposure and then decided to use that after becoming interested to secure a chance to rotate in their clinic/do research/ get a letter would you? by going to yale med school you are essentially now neighbors with lots of influential people who can help you match into derm. but thats not nepotism because you didnt use family connections to get into yale med school on that alone < when you get connections/family to both the med school and residency, call it nepotism or whatever you call it, it's not fair <its actually hard to argue that connections by family alone in most cases is the sole reason why someone gets into a us medical school since its a very stochastic process and almost all the people you would be accusing of nepotism usually have the grades/scores anyways. no one is saying it doesnt help you get noticed but im trying to say that we should draw the line for nepotism accusations at cases where you wouldnt have gotten in without that < lol there are alot of people with great scores who don't get into derm or get into med school. Then you look at a school like mine with about 30% kids of people who studied here..sure with great scores...but it is still nepotism.

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

why is this sheet still so chaotic lmfao i just came to peep that match list> why do people see this discourse as a bad thing? It's better to let people get this stuff out, challenge each other, and learn from each other than hold these thoughts in?? People are thinking this stuff, I'd rather know it than not

Sadly did not match derm, but matched into my backup specialty of Pathology at a T5 program on the East Coast. Feelings are all over the place. If I decided later to reapply to derm... is that even an option? Please send encouragement lol < in the same boat, we can do it!!

its weird that schools that took a lot of their own last year didn't seem to again this year? or is that just me? <- guess zoom format makes it safer to take home/away candidates < Look at Northwestern, basically their entire class are home students. I feel bad for the 15+ research years who wasted there time there expecting to be ranked LMAO < but like baylor houston had a shit ton of home students too but didn't take any of them...? but took all home students last year i think??? make it make sense < I think northwestern was trying to protect their match rate for derm by taking a few home students who didn't get many interviews or weren't competitive applicants. That's what happened at my home program so I'm assuming its the same for Northwestern <sometimes its just a numbers game... < why would they match not-that-competitive applicants instead of who they really want to protect their match rate (unless they just really like them as people)? do programs really care about their match rate? not arguing, just genuinely curious. I would pay to watch a tv show about the inner workings of PD's minds LOL < i really don't think they matched people who were weak LOL they probably honestly liked them the best < all of this is speculation can't say for sure it's one thing or another. That is, unless we know what interviews the other people got < Not true; i got highly ranked email and weren't home student < Highly ranked does not mean ranked to match. The distinction matters. < highly ranked doesn't mean jack most of the time lmao. Most of the people at NU RY understand that the chances of NU ranking them are low. Most get spots somewhere. <the super enlightened ones might not have ranekd NW high whatsoever. the corollary to a courtesy interview is that you give too many away and suddenly you cant rank all the people you gave interviews to which is why some programs dont do that (umiami) but yall dont want to hear these facts and rather go on spreadsheets to drag programs based on your opinion of how complex systems things should be run and this culture of dragging leads to less transparency to future generations of applicants

Name and Fame RY programs that got you to match today? < University of Washington for the win! Paid too. < Northwestern! Big name PI reached out for me! <- how helpful is it to have "Big name PI" reach out for you? < Incredibly. I got interviews at good programs I otherwise wouldn't have. On my interviews, no one talked about ANY of my other LOR besides my PI's. Pretty much you can go two routes (or a combination), younger more hungry PIs that are looking to pump out pubs, or more well known senior PIs that that carry you with connections and LOR (assuming they really like you). [Protected because someone deleted] 🙄 < HF

Can we now openly share which programs sent out RTM communications? I've had radio silence so just want to know which programs have passed me over < please do we all want to hear this < NYU, Stanford, Emory < NYU and Stanford said RTM??? No way < what about sinai? < I must be hallucinating these emails in front of me then < you got it from sinai? sigh < Not Sinai. I heard nothing from them. Just NYU, Stanford, Emory, and Northwestern < What did the NYU/Stanford emails say roughly? < RIPPPP I thought I did well at NYU and Stanford... < That they were impressed with the interview and reiterated the goodness of fit and how well the programs will help me accomplish my goals. < this isnt rtm though < this does not sound like RTM they use pretty suggestive language usually < They said "ranked to match" after all the preamble. It's uncanny how similar the emails were. < lmao i got multiple 'goodness of fit' emails that means nothing < Well I interviewed at some of the above places and have not even received the said "goodness of fit" email sooooooo < Stanford said multiple times they weren't reaching out to applicants directly < “As we mentioned on interview day, in an effort to respect your decision making and personal time, we will not be reaching out to any applicants prior to match day this year. That said, we want to be a resource to each of you as you make this important decision, so please do not hesitate to reach out if there is any more information we can provide about our program that will help you feel more confident in making your decision about where you would feel best supported and prepared to launch your career in our wonderful field. We feel very lucky that each of you has chosen dermatology, and we are so excited to see the way you will brighten the future of our specialty!” < this is not a rtm email. rtm email literally says ranked to match that is why it is called rtm email < How abt NYU? What does the RTM email say? < yo this cell is like watching a court case be solved LOL < NYU sent an email to applicants last year saying they weren't doing RTM call. How come they flipped this year? < they didn't this person is a troll and doesnt realize how many people ahve access to top 5 program info and receipts < tea 💅🏻. < We'll find out in 2 weeks < we literally won't ever get confirmation about RTM rumors but ok < i mean you may still match there and clearly they liked you as not everyone got it but just saying that these are not rtm emails.