Confused about ranking...

[BaffledENTstud]

I've been very fortunate this interview process and have been to amazing programs. However, I am at a loss about how to rank them. During interview day, all programs look great and everyone is on their best behavior. Location is no issue to me and I do want to keep the possibility of academics open to me (although private is something I would consider equally).

Here is my top 10 programs:

Hopkins
MEEI
Penn
Michigan
Vanderbilt
UCLA
Columbia/Cornell
UWash
Jefferson
Mt. Sinai

What order would you choose and why? I also don't know how I feel about the programs that require a year or more of research (although I loved all three of those programs and would not mind doing the time but I'm wondering about benefit of those years). Something that is important to me is to also be happy as a resident so programs that historically have very happy residents matters to me a lot.

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[forbin]

Those are all excellent programs. You will be well trained at any of them. There will probably be subtle (or not so subtle) pressure to do academic ENT at most of them. If you really have no preference among any of them, just draw the names out of a hat for ranking order and be done with it. Seriously.

If it were me, I'd rank based on 1. gut feeling at the interview and 2. location.