I've read it. It just doesnt compute in my mind.
1) Iowa is ONE program out of many. They're not all that important in the grand scheme of things.
2) I'll take any program that gives me comfort at night instead of playing a game of ranking a program 1st and them ranking me last because they are playing the game to have everyone rank them #1.
3) Most of what you learn in ortho comes from work experience, not necessarily residency. I don't know any job ads that are looking for SLU grads... Just like dental schools. No one cares about where just that you have that degree.
4) Just because a few schools do match doesn't mean that will be the trend in the future.
I've read a lot on here and the conclusion is when people get admitted to non match they go. They want be an orthodontist!
I am going to spend another time trying to rationalize this for you.
1. Iowa is one program who is deciding to eliminate having people double dipping, as I said before. If everyone participated in the match, we would not have this issue. You should ask this question: What does this say about the small percentage of schools that try to go non-match? What are they trying to achieve. They are trying to do a few things and I will name a few. You keep making this opinion on what is and is not important.
i) Try to get the good applicants before they go to match, giving them 24 hours to commit to their program
ii) Uncertainty. They don't want to not know who they are getting, some schools get really good match lists (they get their top picks) and other schools get really bad ones (they move down their match list); so if a school only interviews 28 people, for 7 spots, and out of the 28 people, many of the top ranked students matched elsewhere, they will get their bottom of their match list, and it becomes a "fill the seats" game. You will notice a lot of schools with non-match also have an internship. People from the internship usually (not always) get into the program next year. People who did an internship usually did not match first time around.
iii) allow the selection of candidates themselves, and not hope for the match algorithm to run in their favor. You will see the timing of non-match interviews is important. These programs have the publish this information, because say you interview at 3 non-match schools, they can ensure you are not committing to more than one non-match program (hence the 24 hour commitment period).
2. You should not apply to any program in the match that you do not intend to go to. It is a binding contract. If you feel the school is going to rank you last, that says something about you not the program. There are going to be programs that everyone dislikes a particular applicant, only to find out they matched (you soon later find out that the applicant walks the program director's dog). Like I said, if you think you are too good for any program, believe me, you are the issue. If you want comfort at night, go be a GP and do invisalign and convince yourself you can do orthodontics like a specialist.
3. This is the old trend. Residencies should provide you with the tools to diagnose and treatment plan, using sound evidence-based clinical decision making. Obviously the real world is different, there are many compromises. So considering the real world has more compromises (time, money, etc) how does this affect the way you practice? You take shortcuts. If you are a student who didn't learn well from your residency, and then went into the real world with shortcuts, you are in trouble when these shortcuts dont work. There are many fundamentals that still hold true, and gluing brackets on teeth and sticking in a NiTi wire just doesn't cut it.
Most of what you learn in orthodontics should be from a residency. If this were not the case, why is there a need for residency to become a specialist? Maybe you are talking to people from crappy residencies, who go into private practice saying they learned nothing from their residency.
BTW, good practices don't need job ads to attract candidates. They have more than 100 CVs sent to their office for potential employment opportunities, annually. I think you are reading too many corporate ADs.
Yes, they do care where. I do not know who you are referring to when you keep saying "they". Have you ever thought that someone in orthodontics wants to do more than just practice? Academia? Lecturing? Research? How are you going to do this from programs that have 18 residents per year, have no NIH funding, and claim they are a clinical school. The difference is, when you go to a program, they give you the foundation and didactics, and the clinical. Clinical schools have what, only clinical? If you want to learn to bend wires, go to Tweed.
4. Match is a new trend. Non-match (collect and select) is the old trend. Just FYI.
You've read a lot on here and I think there is one conclusion you can draw from this. Don't believe everything you read.
When you go to interview at match programs, many of the applicants you see you be chit chatting about getting the phone call from non-match programs that they declined.
So for all the misinformed people like you, who believe everything they read, listen to the orthodontists around them, think the program doesn't matter, wow.
I have some advice for you when you go to your interview(s) based on your "computations".
1. Tell the match programs its not fair that they are not doing non-match because you can't sleep at night because of the game they are playing.
2. Tell the good programs that it doesn't matter where you go for residency because you learn everything afterwards and job ads dont care where you went and that their program is just as good as any other and that they should be happy they can collect your tuition money
3. I am desperate to be an orthodontist and I will take anything that comes my way.
. But she does at least have an interesting perspective so it does help to hear it.
