Do the criteria of resident selection committees predict residents' performances?

PURPOSE: To further the understanding of what factors residency selection committees consider when rating candidates and how well these ratings predict residents' performances.
METHOD: The authors analyzed the application and residency files of 123 physicians who completed the internal medicine residency at the University of Michigan from 1989 through 1992; they also reviewed all 308 applications for 1993-94. Applications to the residency were reviewed by an intern selection committee (ISC) and given scores ranging from 0 (best) to 450 (worst). Multivariate analyses were used to evaluate the influences on ISC scores of seven factors: gender, internal medicine clerkship grade, number of honors in non-medicine clerkships, Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) status, number of publications, score on the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Part I examination, and medical school reputation. Each resident's performance was evaluated using the final overall evaluation score submitted by the program to the American Board of Internal Medicine.
RESULTS: The most significant predictors of ISC score were internal medicine clerkship grade, AOA status, medical school reputation, and NBME I score (all four at p < .01; R2 = .66 for the full model of seven factors). The residents' final evaluation scores were moderately correlated with ISC scores at the time of application (r = -.52). In a multivariate analysis, the final scores were significantly associated only with internal medicine clerkship honors (p < .01) and graduation from the University of Michigan Medical School (p < .05), and there was a trend associating them with junior-year AOA election.
CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that the intern selection committee overemphasized the predictive value of AOA election in the senior year, NBME I scores, and medical school reputation.