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in general do people prefer prestigious programs like Johns Hopkins/Yale in poor locations, or decent programs in great locations like UCSD/UCLA? thinking about my aways..
UCLA Med Ctr-CA
UCLALos Angeles, CA
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- www.derm.med.ucla.edu/
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- 1956080A0
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- 0800521017
Applicant sentiment — from 132 anonymous posts, 2017–2027
5.3 / 10
What anonymous posters said
Several posts described frustration with delayed and unpredictable interview invite timing. Commenters offered mixed views on program quality, with some describing solid clinical and surgical training and competitive pay, while others called it lower or middle tier and mentioned faculty turnover.
AI-generated summary of opinions expressed in anonymous, unverified posts. It describes what posters wrote, not verified facts about this program. Based on these 132 posts · Updated Aug 2026 · Contest or respond to this entry · Takedown & right of reply
Match termsdavid geffendavid geffen dermlos angeles dermuc los angelesuclaucla dermucla med ctr
Fame & Shame
2025–2026 Derm
1 entry💬1. Interview was relatively conversational and nice compared to other interviews. Nice faculty, seem to be getting several new attendings who just completed residency (good culture?). Residents seem chill and nice. Amazing place to live, but high COL. > residents cold and awkward
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Page 6 of 18
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can someone please comments on Why I didn't rank higher for Kaiser, Loma Linda, UC Davis, UCLA, UCLA Harbor?
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does anyone know who matched to Harbor UCLA? < yes
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Thoughts on doing aways at USC or UCLA? < USC hardly interviews their away rotators<USC has 4 spots. 2/4 on average go to internals+research fellows. you are ranked higher as an internal if they like you even if grades or some other academics are not up to par compared to external interviewees. so difficulty mode is legendary doing an away there with no prior connections hoping to match there < If you want to match there
how will they know if you do more thn 2 aways lol>they know people who find these things out. even if theres no letter not on a transcript
Mar 21
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yea but by the time you've submitted ERAS and programs are sending out interviews, how will they find out and how will it negatively affect you at specific programs? unless they all get together and start doing investigation work to piece together where you flew out for each away> if it were any other specialty i wouldnt worry but some of these academic derm people are quite strange people in past years they would take one minor thing you wrote about somewhere as a hobby and for fun try to get you to mess up and see if you were telling the truth by having a guitar set up (in person) because obviously you lied about that on purpose when you put all the effort into thousands of hours of everything else on your app that was gonna get you in to derm. some people in academic derm seriously frighten me from the many stories ive heard from trainees over the years and i wouldnt put it past them
Mar 21
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Thoughts on doing aways at USC or UCLA? < USC hardly interviews their away rotators<USC has 4 spots. 2/4 on average go to internals+research fellows. you are ranked higher as an internal if they like you even if grades or some other academics are not up to par compared to external interviewees. so difficulty mode is legendary doing an away there with no prior connections hoping to match there < If you want to match there, I'd do an away!
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did anyone like their aways at usc, ucla, ucsd?< they are all shitty<emory is better
Is it worth even bothering applying to these cali aways with no regional ties?
Mar 21
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lol no not at all waste of $$ and a month of your time < + 10000x < if you have no geographic ties, it's even more worth it to do an away < I'd add to this by suggesting an away and securing a letter as well < only one worth doing is Loma Linda. They match an appreciable number of away rotators< Idk about this, I recieved interviews in states I have never been to, you never know who knows your letter writers and/or what a program is looking for
Mar 21
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Anyone with UCLA this week know if there's a resident social the evening before? Don't think I've seen any emails about it
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congrats to the UCLA people for finally getting the interview invites, tufts people.. I hope we're next. Congrats!!
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I'm guessing no one knows the exact answer to this, but if I signaled Yale and they seemed to have offered interviews only to signals on 11/7 (according to the spreadsheet) and I didn't get one, then I can assume they certainly won't want me compared to other applicants who didn't signal come 11/21? < lots of commens aobut yale, how is New Haven? would it be worth going to like Yale over UCLA? < I think it comes down to personal preferences like location, support systems nearby, etc. at that point, both are great programs
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So did someone actually SOAP into UCLA? I thought they had 2 STAR positions and 3 regular but it looks like they matched 4 regular and 1 STAR. Did they convert it?
yes
Mar 21
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how far down your list are you still okay with falling to? < very last and i'd still be thrilled honestly < my last is harbor ucla. i feel like that program may not exist by the time we start lol < but hey if u matched even if your program closes you'll be a derm!!! < true true. may even get to transfer to a better program lol
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Anyone hear from UCLA or Larkin yet?
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You would need to make a compelling case that you'll be an investigative dermatologist doing 80/20 (research/clinical). 1st author basic science pubs help. The alumns are top-notcth : Dr. Roger Lo (Current director), Dr. Jenny Kim (Mohs Fellowship Director), Dr. Rajan Kalkarni (2 PI at OHSU), Dr. Delphine Lee (Chair at Harbor-UCLA) and more. < thank you. is there a way to look up the current STAR residents? Is STAR only for UCLA David Geffen?< STAR is only for UCLA David Geffen < https://www.uclahealth.org/dermatology/our-expert-team (search STAR) < thank you! < out of curiosity, what's the difference in overall culture and mission for UCLA David Geffen v. Harbor-UCLA? < Harbor UCLA is LA County and you mostly see county patients (underserved). There 5 residents total. Lots of autonomy. UCLA is typical academic program (5 residents/yr), collegial residents, great faculty who love teaching. UCLA has sites in very affluent areas (Santa Monica and Westwood) but you also get training at Olive-View county, Venice Family Clinic (underserved, underinsured, and unsheltered), and at West LA VA (in Brentwood). You'll see everything under the sun. Schedule is really chill. The faculty are well connected. The graduates do very well (no problems getting into competitive fellowships). Some graduates stay on as faculty; even though, UCLA pays VERY well for the region (https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/), many of those faculty get poached.The residents are unionized so you get great benefits including 12k housing stipend. < But what about recent alumn? Seems like there are no records of any recent alumns. Where did they go??? < Fellowships and private practice.
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So the only 3 Derm spots in the soap are 2 at larkin and 1 at UCLA or was there more than that jc
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Is the UCLA medstar program only available for MD/PhDs? < https://www.uclahealth.org/dermatology/residency-program: "The STAR program provides physician-scientists entering our program with combined M.D./Ph.D. degrees a comprehensive clinical training integrated with a post-doctoral opportunity." In the Derm residency program itself, it seems to be the case, yes.
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programs will find out, whether it hurts you or not is not known, it is a risk you have to decide if you are willing to take>i dont have skin in the game but the APD, a relatively weak organization in the grand scheme of things in academic derm politics is playing with fire if they think they can try to selectively enforce it by outing random applicants after a cycle of a new policy like this for violating it given not all programs even listen to APD guidelines to begin with for choosing residents and they need to look in the mirror when it comes to them actually fairly enforcing policies that affect applicants across the board historically. it would probably descend into people pointing out hypocrisy in the past that they have committed with selectively ignoring cases of their own past students that they knew likely were not even following their own guidelines they wrote. something similar happened or at least accusations of hypocritcal ignoring of some standardized letter of rec thing in the past for derm apps when it was new on online forums, something something about new things get pushed but when theres nepotism it all goes out the window then people saying well you cant prove its nepotism in that case etc etc. not a good look for all involved. they know that, especially in the first year of implementing a new policy there will be lots of people not abiding by it so no one is going to specifically out and punish trainees who dont follow it for various reasons since itll descend into a chaotic mud slinging finger pointing game thatll get ugly online. and then people will blame the APD for trying something new knowing full well lots of people wont follow the rules anyways and claim its not fair etc etc