The Lore of Admissions Policies: Contrasting Formal and Informal Understandings of the Residency Selection Process

PURPOSE: The selection process for residency positions is sometimes seen as being "opaque" and unfair by students, and can be a significant source of student stress. Yet efforts to clarify the process may not have helped reduce student stress for a number of reasons. This paper examines the nature of the knowledge that students possess and describes the implications for future efforts at addressing this knowledge. METHODS: The current study assessed the perceptions of three groups (selection committee members, faculty advisors, and students) at a single institution using two evaluation methods (ranking of a context-free list of variables, and an assessment of the legitimacy of 20 "common language" opinion statements comparing the variables). RESULTS: For the context-free ranking of variables, ICC's were moderately high for all three groups (0.479-0.584) and the disattenuated correlations were very high (0.872 to 0.946). By contrast, when more contextually relevant opinion statements were evaluated, the ICC's were much more variable (less than 0 to 0.279), the correlations (where calculable) were lower (0.449 to 0.547), and inconsistencies of opinion regarding particular variables became apparent. CONCLUSIONS: To properly understand the true nature of the opinions that are being held by the various groups it is necessary to use statements that reflect the vernacular of the "rumour mills" that are the common source of student information.