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.
47% to mid 30% is not precipitous. it accounts for top schools changing and/or getting rid of AOA over the last two decades which, in line with other published sources about a big chunk of the applicant pool and matched pool coming from top schools makes sense that you would see that slight drop. getting rid of AOA along with lots of academically top quartile applicants no longer having AOA but matching absolutely accounts for a less than 10% drop << Most medical schools have not dropped their AOA chapters (although some schools like U of CT and Stanford historically did not have a chapter for the longest time). 47% AOA is for ALL Derm applicants who matched back in 2007, top tier prorgam or otherwise. A 17 point drop is pretty steep.<*changing. there are a lot of derm programs that can tell AOA is not absolutely based on academics. they would rather take someone who is top quartile than someone who just happened to get AOA because they sold out the right people to the deans of the med school. a derm program can tell from your MSPE << In order to be eligble for AOA, you have to be in the top quartile of the class based on academic standing. That has not changed at all. Most AOA chapters haven't become "woke" like Mt. Sinai & Northwestern.
regardless of what is behind this likely multifactorial drop in AOA% (again still among the highest in all the specialties in charting outcomes) literally every single med student who enters and exits medical school including those who match derm are objectively better in almost every single way than in 2009. you cant dispute those facts. the data about incoming scores, GPA of med students at every med school, USMLE exams, and # of research accomplished cant be handwaved away by some argument that you are trying to concoct that maybe fewer AOA people for whatever reason are either applying or being selected for. USMLE exams, as you may recall from having studied for them yourself, are not trivial exams you take in over a weekend like the SAT or MCAT either in content knowledge or sheer length by # of questions. the rise in all of these metrics whether partially due to availability and access of more refined resources geared towards the market of test takers does not take away from the actual achievement of theses newer generations studying and mastering the material and doing leagues better than previous generations << No one is actually making that argument but you. The only one concocting that argument is you. Stop projecting onto others and ASSuming just because you have a perpetual chip on your shoulder. You're not "special" just because you have more access to online resources that didn't even exist back then.
you dont have to look far to find old derm attendings on SDN being like wtf derm averages of step 1 are 250, something something grade inflation, some other logical fallacy. if every single person in a medical school wanted to get a 250 on step 1 and had the combination of resources+innate ability+dedication to carry out their study plan theres nothing preventing them from getting a 250 other than their ability to click the right answers on test day. its that kind of an exam. im not going to out boomers for their clearly not well researched takes that you can find very easily on internet blogs. if you dont think these fallacies about how exams that are used to select residents exist out in the wild even among pools of attendings who use these metrics to pick residents then you havent talked to enough boomer faculty in any specialty, derm included.
the average unmatched derm last cycle was a 244 step 1, >250 step 2, 30% were AOA and had something like 15 pubs/abstracts/presentations. they would absolutely demolish even the matched average cohort in 2009 in a head to head matchup. 2009 was when the matched average barely even hit 240 flat for step 1. there were probably more unmatched people last cycle with >250 step 1 than there were total people who applied with a >250 step 1 in 2009. so the old folks dont embarrass themselves i would also refer people interested in this comparison to blogs by JB Carmody who dispels the myth about the USMLE exams being re-normalized like the MCAT from questions correct to a percentile. the scores are comparable by percent correct on any given form between the two years despite later years having even harder forms < I mean that's not surprising as the USMLE Step 1 average score in 2007 was 218. The mean score of the matched dermatology applicant in 2007 was 238 (mean score of the unmatched Derm applicant was 226). 47% of U.S. seniors who matched into Dermatology in 2007 were AOA, so this figure seems to have gone down precipitously from then to now.