Match/Ranking question

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I don't have to worry about this yet as I am only a third year, but I when I rank programs I will have to take my boyfriend into consideration, as he is also in my class. We were planning on applying to programs in several big cities. I emailed the woman in charge of externships/residency applications at my school, asking if there is a strategy to this, and she nonchalantly responded to apply to programs in the same areas. Keyword being areas. Now I'm reading more about the match (MD programs, that is) and the websites I'm finding are making it sound like if you match a program, you HAVE to go to it and cannot go to any other program that you ranked even if they ranked you.

For example, Let's say we both put our #1 choice as 2 programs in Chicago. If we both get ranked by our #1 choices, that's great. But let's say I DON'T get ranked by my 1st choice, only my 2nd choice, and it's in Miami. Now I have to go Miami and he goes to Chicago? There's no way that he can choose a program that ranked him from Miami? If this is true, I feel very misled by this woman and it is hard for me to contain my anger.

I guess my question is, is it a binding agreement to go to the program that you are matched to? Is my only option here to apply to just ONE city to be on the safe side?

Originally Posted by AchillesGal

I don't have to worry about this yet as I am only a third year, but I when I rank programs I will have to take my boyfriend into consideration, as he is also in my class. We were planning on applying to programs in several big cities. I emailed the woman in charge of externships/residency applications at my school, asking if there is a strategy to this, and she nonchalantly responded to apply to programs in the same areas. Keyword being areas. Now I'm reading more about the match (MD programs, that is) and the websites I'm finding are making it sound like if you match a program, you HAVE to go to it and cannot go to any other program that you ranked even if they ranked you.

For example, Let's say we both put our #1 choice as 2 programs in Chicago. If we both get ranked by our #1 choices, that's great. But let's say I DON'T get ranked by my 1st choice, only my 2nd choice, and it's in Miami. Now I have to go Miami and he goes to Chicago? There's no way that he can choose a program that ranked him from Miami? If this is true, I feel very misled by this woman and it is hard for me to contain my anger.

I guess my question is, is it a binding agreement to go to the program that you are matched to? Is my only option here to apply to just ONE city to be on the safe side?

I'm just a P3 student as well but it's my understanding that you have to go to the program you matched with. A current attending or resident can further comment on this but I'm most certain that's how it works out with the match process.

If there was a way to get out of it I think a lot more students, who were displeased with where they matched, would attempt to switch over to a different program that had ranked them. In the end a lot of programs would lose out on students they thought they were getting as residents and a lot of programs would suffer. Hence why I think you most definitely have to go where you match unless you want to pull out completely and re-enter the match process the following year.

If you and your BF want to be close to each other during residency training don't you think it would safer to only extern at programs in one state? Your current plan sounds really risky in my opinion. Especially if you are going to extern in states all over the US (as it appears).

The match process is a binding contract. Basically, where you match, is where you go.

Originally Posted by AchillesGal

Now I'm reading more about the match (MD programs, that is)

Don't research MD match. It's handled by a different agency (ERAS) than podiatry (CASPR/CRIP) with different rules/regulations. MD match has a official "couples match" option where two people match together as a 'package'. Programs HAVE to take them together or neither at all. This option is commonly used by classmates who are couples to either match at the same program or the same city.

Unfortunately for podiatry, there is NO such official couples match option. Here it is straight from the CASPR/CRIP website:

Allopathic medicine has a couples match. Is there a couples match in podiatry?

No. Because podiatry is a much smaller profession (450 in the Match last year vs. 30,000 for allopathic medicine), there is no couples match. Many of our residencies are grouped together, around the colleges or in major cities, so finding two programs near each other is very possible. New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami and Chicago are all examples of this. If you are looking at programs like Intermountain in Utah that have multiple positions but are not near any other programs, you may want to talk to the residency director about your situation. To guarantee that you are in the same part of the country you may have to limit your rankings to one state or region.

PS: Lastly, the SDN thread titled "Married Couples and Pod Residency" seems to be pertinent to your question. After sifting through that thread, the gist I'm getting is that you should both pretty much limit yourselves to picking one big city area and carpet bomb all the programs there (or any others within acceptable distance). Of course, being academic superstars will help your chances to land together.

Nice post Jellybean202!

Originally Posted by jellybean2020

Don't research MD match. It's handled by a different agency (ERAS) than podiatry (CASPR/CRIP) with different rules/regulations. MD match has a official "couples match" option where two people match together as a 'package'. Programs HAVE to take them together or neither at all. This option is commonly used by classmates who are couples to either match at the same program or the same city.

Unfortunately for podiatry, there is NO such official couples match option. Here it is straight from the CASPR/CRIP website:



PS: Lastly, the SDN thread titled "Married Couples and Pod Residency" seems to be pertinent to your question. After sifting through that thread, the gist I'm getting is that you should both pretty much limit yourselves to picking one big city area and carpet bomb all the programs there (or any others within acceptable distance). Of course, being academic superstars will help your chances to land together.

Thanks for this post. Very informative!

Thanks to everyone for your help. I think our plan is to visit/apply for schools in NYC, Miami, and Chicago since those cities have the most programs and then just pick one city in the end to rank.

How many programs are you going to be able to spend a month at in each city? GL either way but I'd rather go for 6 programs in on place than 2-3 in each city...to each their own

My personal advice. Unless you have children, dump the boyfriend. Get the best program you possibly can. Start your career. Men are attracted to $ like flys on $***. You'll have no problem replacing an existing BF. If you land a great progam you may even stand a chance at dating an MD or DO and have a substantially better combined lifestyle. You may have a big problem trying to get into a good program with this current strategy.

Nobody gets anything for free. You have to work hard to get anywhere in podiatry. Don't give a director a reason to rank you lower.

Originally Posted by podpal

If you land a great progam you may even stand a chance at dating an MD or DO and have a substantially better combined lifestyle.

Great life advice

in my program we have had two married couples within the last couplle of years. they stated their strategy was to target an area with a high amount of program such as detroit, chicago etc and apply to as many as possible.

Originally Posted by podpal

My personal advice. Unless you have children, dump the boyfriend. Get the best program you possibly can. Start your career. Men are attracted to $ like flys on $***. You'll have no problem replacing an existing BF. If you land a great progam you may even stand a chance at dating an MD or DO and have a substantially better combined lifestyle. You may have a big problem trying to get into a good program with this current strategy.

Nobody gets anything for free. You have to work hard to get anywhere in podiatry. Don't give a director a reason to rank you lower.

Well let's play devil's advocate for a moment. If having a significant other and trying to match together forces you to (after interviewing):

A) Rank less programs than you normally would (ie. only so many programs in 1 city). This could mean a higher chance of not matching.
B) Rank lower quality programs than you could have. Of course this only applies if going to a high-power program matters to you.

Would you be willing to make that sacrifice? Just food for thought

This gives me an idea jellybean. One person ranks all the programs they want. The other one ranks one program that they know they won't get, thus ensuring they will enter the scramble. Then scramble into the same city!

This is horrible advice, but it can't get much worse in this thread.

Better advice is to target residencies with 5 or more spots. Wycoff has ELEVEN spots! Intermountain has six funded spots, as do a few others.

Externing at programs in one state is really the only way to go. It's really the only scenario where applicants can control what location they end up at. Trying to divide your months between 2 or more cities is asking for trouble. The match process is too much of a crapshoot.

Originally Posted by Ankle Breaker

Externing at programs in one state is really the only way to go. It's really the only scenario where applicants can control what location they end up at. Trying to divide your months between 2 or more cities is asking for trouble. The match process is too much of a crapshoot.

This is true and Jellybean has a point as well. Follow this guide line and the worse case scenario is you two end up at different hospitals that are in the same state. It may not sound like what you wanted but its better to be a drive away than a plane trip.

Pick your favorite residency and see if you can rotate there for 12 months straight

Originally Posted by JonScholl

Pick your favorite residency and see if you can rotate there for 12 months straight

Hahaha what?!

Beside knowing your comment was a joke, it's also somewhat teleological inasmuch that generally people use the rotations to determine what is their fav program.

Originally Posted by podpal

My personal advice. Unless you have children, dump the boyfriend. Get the best program you possibly can. Start your career. Men are attracted to $ like flys on $***. You'll have no problem replacing an existing BF. If you land a great progam you may even stand a chance at dating an MD or DO and have a substantially better combined lifestyle. You may have a big problem trying to get into a good program with this current strategy.

Nobody gets anything for free. You have to work hard to get anywhere in podiatry. Don't give a director a reason to rank you lower.

In my many years of practice, the advice above has got to be one of the most ridiculous comments I have EVER read.

"Dump your boyfriend"???????? "Men are attracted to money like a fly on sh-t"????? "You'll have no problem replacing an existing BF"???? "you may even stand a chance at dating an MD or DO......."??????

What world do you live in????

Your comments seem to be coming from a bitter, unwed DPM who can't earn a living, and therefore assumes that this 3rd year student wants to end her relationship so the end justifies the means.

Look, just because you may not have a boyfriend, husband, etc., doesn't mean that couples should drop like flies. And your comment that an MD or DO is a ticket to financial freedom vs. marrying a DPM is comical.

The more you write, the more I understand your predicament. Wow.

If she's planning a CAREER in podiatry then the end may justify the means. If she has other sources of wealth, and doesn't care if she MAKES IT in podiatry, then she may want to keep her pod BF for a while.
You don't understand me at all. Not needing podiatry for wealth is a good PREDICAMENT as you say, to be in. Investments equal wealth. Podiatry is not necessarily a good investment. For a surgical physician on all available health insurance plans it may be worth it. For those shut out of insurance plans without hospital privilages it may not be a path toward wealth.
Stick with wealth strategies and life will be good, marriages will flourish, and there will be time to enjoy life. Perhaps podiatry was a good wealth building strategy for you. Many people have to rely on other strategies. BUT IF this woman has to rely on podiatry to support herself and her potential family, she should focus on those goals, and not on a BF. If she doesn't care about her career, then by all means, change fields, and try to make ends meet with the BF. Follow him to the ends of the earth and hope that it works out.
Personally, I'd chose wealth and happiness because money can make life so much happier. I'd go for the best residency I could get, focus on a strategy that will generate a lifestyle that I want. So far, for me, podiatry isn't very lucrative, but my other businesses and wealth building strategies are doing fine. Perhaps someday podiatry will be lucrative for me and I hope it is because it's a lot of fun. A fun job that doesn't pay the bills doesn't work for me over the long run. Maybe it'll work for this other gal. Best of luck to her.

Podpal, love isn't logical, so approaching it as such is silly.

Originally Posted by podpal

If she's planning a CAREER in podiatry then the end may justify the means. If she has other sources of wealth, and doesn't care if she MAKES IT in podiatry, then she may want to keep her pod BF for a while.
You don't understand me at all. Not needing podiatry for wealth is a good PREDICAMENT as you say, to be in. Investments equal wealth. Podiatry is not necessarily a good investment. For a surgical physician on all available health insurance plans it may be worth it. For those shut out of insurance plans without hospital privilages it may not be a path toward wealth.
Stick with wealth strategies and life will be good, marriages will flourish, and there will be time to enjoy life. Perhaps podiatry was a good wealth building strategy for you. Many people have to rely on other strategies. BUT IF this woman has to rely on podiatry to support herself and her potential family, she should focus on those goals, and not on a BF. If she doesn't care about her career, then by all means, change fields, and try to make ends meet with the BF. Follow him to the ends of the earth and hope that it works out.
Personally, I'd chose wealth and happiness because money can make life so much happier. I'd go for the best residency I could get, focus on a strategy that will generate a lifestyle that I want. So far, for me, podiatry isn't very lucrative, but my other businesses and wealth building strategies are doing fine. Perhaps someday podiatry will be lucrative for me and I hope it is because it's a lot of fun. A fun job that doesn't pay the bills doesn't work for me over the long run. Maybe it'll work for this other gal. Best of luck to her.

I wasn't going to respond because I know from previous posts that you're extremely bitter about not getting a residency. So I don't think your responses have been very rational. However, I'm just curious: why do you assume that if I stay with my bf that this will somehow affect if I get into a good residency program? What in the world is your train of thought? We both have similar grades and are competitive applicants. I'd love to know why I can't have both.

Originally Posted by AchillesGal

I wasn't going to respond because I know from previous posts that you're extremely bitter about not getting a residency. So I don't think your responses have been very rational. However, I'm just curious: why do you assume that if I stay with my bf that this will somehow affect if I get into a good residency program? What in the world is your train of thought? We both have similar grades and are competitive applicants. I'd love to know why I can't have both.

I'm not going to piggyback on what podpal said because her thought processes are out of wack but I will throw in my two cents about your current situation again.

It's nice that you and your BF are competitive applicants but there will be many other competitive applicants externing and ultimately ranking the high power programs you are interested in. Splitting up your months between different states + applying to high power programs AND expecting to land the same program in the same state are some serious odds to overcome.

Your best bet is to extern at programs in one state. PA, MI, and FL are three states with lots of quality programs. You should pick a state and only do externships there.

Originally Posted by Ankle Breaker

I'm not going to piggyback on what podpal said because her thought processes are out of wack but I will throw in my two cents about your current situation again.

It's nice that you and your BF are competitive applicants but there will be many other competitive applicants externing and ultimately ranking the high power programs you are interested in. Splitting up your months between different states + applying to high power programs AND expecting to land the same program in the same state are some serious odds to overcome.

Your best bet is to extern at programs in one state. PA, MI, and FL are three states with lots of quality programs. You should pick a state and only do externships there.

I agree with you. I was hoping to visit a couple of different states with a lot of programs and then choosing where to apply, but after reading through the advice here I realize there probably won't be enough time to do that. However, I don't know where you read that I'm only applying to high power programs. I mentioned NYC, Chicago, and Miami. I can understand why Chicago may not be a good idea because just looking at the match list from Scholl from 2012, I noticed they took up 75% of the spots in Chicago. But surely picking either NYC or Miami and applying to JUST programs from one of those cities is a safe idea? I looked at Detroit but it didn't look like there were that many programs.

Originally Posted by AchillesGal

I agree with you. I was hoping to visit a couple of different states with a lot of programs and then choosing where to apply, but after reading through the advice here I realize there probably won't be enough time to do that. However, I don't know where you read that I'm only applying to high power programs. I mentioned NYC, Chicago, and Miami. I can understand why Chicago may not be a good idea because just looking at the match list from Scholl from 2012, I noticed they took up 75% of the spots in Chicago. But surely picking either NYC or Miami and applying to JUST programs from one of those cities is a safe idea? I looked at Detroit but it didn't look like there were that many programs.

How many externship months (where you get to choose/apply for the site) do you have? I mean, we are talking about 5-6 for most programs before Jan (interviews). So if you break that up into 2 cities, you are each only seeing 2-3 programs/per location. Why not do 6 in the NJ/NY area or 6 in Miami?

I must have missed something somewhere because I still don't understand why you want to extern at several different major metropolitan areas.

Let me clarify. I originally was going to try that but realized from the advice here that it's not feasible. I am now only planning on picking one city for externships/applying for residency. I'm just not sure which one yet.

The NYC area has more programs in a smaller area. IMO the Miami programs are less hit or miss in terms of quality, but from my understanding you shouldn't have an issue finding a handful of good programs in NY, especially if you are willing to look in Newark as well (UMDNJ is a good program).

Boston also has enough programs to fill all of your rotations in that area. However, you wouldn't have as many options when it comes to back up programs if you can't fill months during the clerkship application process.

The nice thing is that you've got all kinds of time to learn more about programs and get an idea if there is something either of you would like to focus on w/in the profession. That way you can figure out if any of the locations have more programs that offer the training you want (wound care, peds, ortho, research/academics, etc). It's still my belief that you can't get really bad training anymore, but there are definitely programs that stronger than others.

Originally Posted by AchillesGal

I looked at Detroit but it didn't look like there were that many programs.

You're right, Detroit itself doesn't have many programs. But you could pick a central spot and easily have 10 programs within an hour drive. I've met a couple of students who were only externing at programs in Michigan, including a married couple in the same class and a student whose spouse was a resident at a local program. Several of the programs are very high-quality too. For what it's worth.

I am unsure if i'm allowed to ask a question on this post or if you have to start a new thread to do that, so please ignore this if its not allowed.

Would the advice on where to apply/do externships be any different if the couple is a year apart? The student that is a year above will have no problem getting in anywhere he wants, but I will not be as strong of an applicant. Would Miami or Chicago still be recommended or are there other strategies that are suggested? Also, I noticed that a good number of Chicago spots are filled with Scholl students and wasn't sure how much I should take this into consideration? Last thing... do you bring this (having your significant other graduating the next year) up to the residencies that you are considering? If so, when? Thanks!