Priorities

My priorities:

1. Couples match (obviously changed my list)
2. OR experience - quantity and variety
3. Whether or not I liked the residents

Reputation, academic vs. community, research, even location (to a certain extent), were not as important to me personally. My significant other is a different situation.

proximity to my mother-in-law in chemo was the exclusive priority. essentially went out in concentric circles from there, more or less, with cost of living tossed in to make it confusing.

i don't think of work as work and play as play. it's all living.

cheers

I really tried not to make location a factor. I picked places that had a good reputation for operative experience (not necessarily the most academic) and an overall group of people that I felt I could spend the next 5 years with. I agree with jazz fan in that there were some programs that just turned me off based on either the PD or Chair.

For me, formulating my ROL was based on a number of things. First and foremost on my list was location. I had to choose places where my wife would be happy, and I would feel my kids were safe. Cost of living was also a large factor in that there are plenty of programs in this country that I could not be in based solely on inability to support my family. After that, I ranked based according to the characteristics of the program and the people involved.

As far as the characteristics of each program go, my No. 1 priority was operating experience. When I finish residency, I want to be a competent, operative orthopod. As far as "reputation" of the program and research, I really couldn't care less. Some of the places I interviewed don't necessarily have an outstanding reputation, but I felt that I would receive very good surgical experience. Also, I took into serious consideration the impression I got of the various attendings and program directors. A couple of programs I really liked, but the PD's soured me a bit, whereas 2 others made serious jumps on the list based on their faculty.

Hope this provides some insight.
Good luck y'all, only 17 days until match! Holy S*&#!

For all those couples matching, as I am, this is a difficult question. In the end our vision of what we wanted our careers to become took precedence. My list would be slightly different if I was single matching.

Reputation of program, not only names involved- but ability to launch my career was number one priority. I dig trauma. I want academics. I want world class opportunities to learn. I like research.

As has been previously listed, the art of couples matching is compromise, not sacrifice.

Combination of location and reputation/training. There were programs that I thought weren't as good in the region where I might wanna settle down in the future, so I ended up ranking them further down my list behind the better program in the area. My No. 1 was an outstanding program in a decent location, while number 2 was based mostly on location.

Top priority was location, but the No. 1 rank ended up being an outstanding program that is in an ok location.