Case Western Reserve: 10/29, 11/12, 12/3 (via email sent 9/22)
It begins.
FML.. I got nothing
Case Western Reserve: 10/29, 11/12, 12/3 (via email sent 9/22)
It begins.
Whatever happened to not looking at apps until after astro?
My school has not released Dean's letters for sure.Did your schools release Dean's letters for you guys already? Or is that in October this year?
Just for a note of reassurance, in my experience programs seem to have extremely varied ways/criteria by which they select for an interview pool, in addition to scores, transcript, LORs, etc. including:
If you can keep these separate, it'll make it much easier than scanning through a million posts to find out if your dream program already gave out invites... Well, just a thought...
I just finished up interview season last year and wanted to share some things with this year's applicants. First of all, I felt exactly like most of you are feeling right now, as I was discouraged watching all of my classmates going into IM getting interviews left and right during September. I was freaking out even more because all of the people on these forums talk about how interview offers are sent out after ASTRO, but in reality the invites don't start until 2 to 3 weeks after ASTRO. The waiting was awful...after waiting the entire month of September for stupid freaking ASTRO to be finished I ended up being really nervous because no invites were sent out after ASTRO like everyone said they would be. I was just looking back at my emails from last year and I didn't get my first interview offer until October 14th, and then a few more trickled in throughout the end of October. Then the large bulk of my interview offers came in November (specifically after the dean's letter), a few in December and then a couple in January. I even received an interview after being rejected by a program. I basically just want everyone to know that it's only natural to be freaking out right now, but things will definitely pick up and there's no reason to worry at this point. If you get through all of November without hearing from many programs, then I could understand the anxiety. I got several interviews without having my completed application and I also received several rejections without a completed application.
Also, I agree with nothingman's post about the different criteria for doling out interviews. You will drive yourself crazy trying to predict what programs will give you an interview (unless maybe you rotated there). All you can do is apply broadly and take whatever interviews come your way and be thankful for the ones you get since the criteria vary widely from program to program. Another piece of advice would be to schedule your TY or prelim interviews as soon as possible during Sept, Oct and Nov because December and January are prime time interview season for rad onc and you don't want to miss out on a rad onc interview because of a TY interview (it happened to me). So get them out of the way early. Good luck to everyone.
I will go over all the programs I applied to and see if there are any other unusual requirements - if I find something, I'll post.Does anyone know if any programs other than Penn require a medicine LOR?
so Mayo sent out invites???
Damn 0/2
Rad onc fans here weeee gooo.. officially worried
so Mayo sent out invites???
Damn 0/2
Rad onc fans here weeee gooo.. officially worried
I know it is hard but don't worry yet. 2 is a very small number unless you had some specific connection to the 2 programs that have sent out invites already. I was in your shoes last year and it felt entirely random. I got rejected from places I thought I had a good shot at and invited to places I considered a long reach. Bottom line - don't start thinking because program x rejected me all the programs "below" it will too.
Thank you guys.. but I'm more worried than most because I have a few negatives on my app.. I'm not the best applicant on paper..so I'm more worried than most
I did not rotate there.. I got to tell you guys.. I have never seen so many positive and supportive people in a forum.. Other forums with other specialties it is a post fest of who has the best stats..There are only two programs who have given out invites. Did you rotate at one of those programs? If not, don't worry.
Well... Here goes my free drink.
I away rotated at a program I considered my first choice. I thought it was within my application range. I had ties to the area and had worked at the institution before in a different department where the faculty really liked me. The rad onc faculty seemed to love me, the residents all seemed to like me. I got a great letter of recommendation from a faculty member who told me I had a great chance of matching there. One of the residents told me "Be careful with him. He tells stage IV cancer patients they'll do well." Two months later I didn't get an interview when the invites came out on SDN. People told me, "don't worry yours is coming". People told me, "e-mail your LOR writer". Then my rejection came. The happy person who wrote me the LOR never responded to my e-mail to him. I had my home PD call, they got a generic response and I never got an invite.
A lot of people told me not to worry about my app. I watched people on SDN FREAK OUT only to find out in private that they had triple the number of interviews I had. I would later watch the biggest worrier match at a top program. I on the other hand got few invites for a very long time. I eventually added 15 programs, but by then it was too late. I had missed deadlines for multiple programs wasting money, and even then it was so late for other programs I feel like they didn't even give my application a chance.
I was lucky to end up matching. I did worse than everyone else applying from my med school. I didn't get the interviews I wanted, went to the mdidle of my match list to a program I had never heard of before the season in a region of the country I had no interest in. But, at least I matched.
I've definitely met people out there who weren't so lucky. I've met overconfident people. I've met underconfident people. I don't know your application. I do think rad oncs are some of the smartest, most caring, most outgoing people there are. That's a big reason why I went into this specialty. But don't be lulled into a false sense of security by well wishers. This specialty is rapidly getting more competitive. Apply to a lot of programs, have a backup plan, and good luck.
So 5 programs have sent intreviews (UTMB, Mayo-Jack, NYM, Michigan, and case). only got one and it is a program I rotated at. DrVanNostran I hear you it is going. Anyone else freaking out.
A lot of programs send invites in multiple "waves" spaced apart by weeks and sometimes even months.
I would not assume a rejection unless:
a) you get an actual rejection email
b) all interview days are past and you heard nothing
c) it's early to mid january and you heard nothing
The radio silence may mean that: 1) your app has not been reviewed yet, and will be reviewed for a later interview date, 2) that you're borderline for an interview (see below) and may get offered spots that are not taken/cancelled. Remember that borderline status may depend not only on grades/scores/etc but also geography, whether your app is too strong for program's tier, whether you rotated there, etc. 3) that you're rejected and the program for whatever reason does not want to communicate that to you (FWIW, for about 1/3-half of my rejections last season, I just never heard anything from the program from app submission to match day)
Borderline for interview: A lot of people can sit in this "limbo" pool for some time with individual programs, because as the season progresses some applicants will begin to cancel interviews, and the limbo pool will be turned to to fill newly opened spots.
That said, if you're not hearing anything from a program that's inviting other applicants and that's especially high on your list, email them now to reiterate your interest.
OOC, out of the ~83 programs available. How many interviews do you think an AVERAGE candidate would receive? 7-10?
None of us really know but 7-10 sounds about right but to be honest it feels very random (at least it did to me). I'd say the best data would come from tracking outcomes. It doesn't directly say how many invites people got but you can see how many radiation oncology programs people ranked (assuming most people only ranked programs they interviewed at).
OOC, out of the ~83 programs available. How many interviews do you think an AVERAGE candidate would receive? 7-10?
I counted only 82 programs accepting applications through ERAS. Did I miss a program that maybe added themselves more recently? Thanks!
I may added something twice.
1 UAB
2 Arizona
3 Ca Pacific
4 Kaiser LA
5 City of Hope
6 Loma Linda
7 Stanford
8 UC Davis
9 UCSD
10 UCSF
11 UCLA
12 Colorado
13 Georgetown
14 Yale
15 Miami
16 Mayo Fl
17 U Florida
18 USF
19 Emory
20 Loyola
21 Northwestern
22 Rush
23 U chicago
24 Indiana
25 Iowa
26 Kansas
27 Kentucky
28 Loisville
29 Hopkins
30 Maryland
31 BWH
32 Tufts
33 Henry Ford
34 Michigan
35 WSU
36 Beumont
37 Mississipi
38 Washu
39 Mayo
40 Minnesota
41 Nebraska
42 UMDNJ
43 MS-Kettering
44 MSSM
45 Cornell/Flushing
46 Columbia
47 NYU
48 SUNY/Brooklyn
49 SUNY/Upstate
50 Rochester
51 Buffalo
52 DUKE
53 Wake Forest
54 UNC
55 Case
56 CCF
57 OSU
58 Cinci
59 Oklahoma
60 OHSU
61 Fox Chase
62 Drexel
63 Penn
64 Jefferson
65 Pitt
66 MUSC
67 Vandy
68 Baylor
69 Methodist
70 MDACC
71 UTMB
72 UTSW
73 Utah
74 Uva
75 VCU
76 U Washington
77 MCW
78 Wisconsin
79 Alleghany
80 Albert Einstein
81 NY Methodist
82 Hofstra/LIJ
83 USC
Thanks! It looks like Mississippi is no longer participating in ERAS.
There we go. I made this before eras was available and recently took out UTSA and UT-Houston. Thanks!