Am I being unreasonable?

[koopaling]

So, I am a fairly competitive applicant for my desired field in terms of board scores, research, and whatnot, but I have not received interview invitations from several programs that other people have already gotten one from, despite having submitted on the first day. The only problem that is jumping out at me is 2 errors I made on my ERAS application, in one instance accidentally inserting a period in the middle of one of my supervisor's names on my CV and not catching it, and referring to an employer as Dr. *Doctor's Name*, MD, which is obviously redundant. I've heard many people harp on typos and grammatical errors in the past, and I'm concerned that this may be what is keeping me from seeing more interviews. Am I being crazy, or does this sound likely?

My personal statement is clean and error free, for what that's worth.

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[rokshana]

no….
you may think you are competitive, but in reality you may not be…or your application doesn't strike a cord with them.

its early yet, hopefully you applied to a wide range of program and not just the top 25 in your field.

 

[koopaling]

I accept that those could be alternative explanations, but does the "no"mean "no, you are not being unreasonable to think it's the typos" or "no, it's not likely to be the typos."

I do have some interviews, one of which is from a top program, but maybe they just missed those errors like I did. >_>

 

[rd31]

I think you're being ridiculous. I don't see how this would have any effect whatsoever on your application.

 

[lantern]

I do the worrying thing a lot. Have a similar concern, but I feel like this is probably not a deal breaker to most.

 

[koopaling]

Do most programs send out several waves of invites, or should I not expect anything from the ones who have already invited people?

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

You are being ridiculous.

Anecdotally, it is taking programs longer to review apps this year in the new ERAS system and interviews are coming out in smaller, rolling batches (at least at the handful of programs in my field I have access to this kind of information about).

Keep calm. It is still early.

 

[koopaling]

Thanks for the reassurance.

This is a stressful time. I'm sure I'm not the only who is a little more wound up than usual.

 

[lockjaw]

My program is reviewing applications alphabetically. It's taking longer because of the new web-based ERAS, so thus far no one with a last name in the second half of the alphabet has even had their application looked at yet. I can't imagine that we're the only program where something like this is the case. Give it more time before you begin to worry too much about not receiving invites.

 

[koopaling]

My last name name starts with C! O_O

(Don't worry, I'm not actually freaking out about this. Yet.)

 

[gutonc]

(Don't worry, I'm not actually freaking out about this. Yet.)

You registered on SDN solely to ask this question. Nobody believes this statement.

 

[Law2Doc]

So, I am a fairly competitive applicant for my desired field in terms of board scores, research, and whatnot, but I have not received interview invitations from several programs that other people have already gotten one from, despite having submitted on the first day. The only problem that is jumping out at me is 2 errors I made on my ERAS application, in one instance accidentally inserting a period in the middle of one of my supervisor's names on my CV and not catching it, and referring to an employer as Dr. *Doctor's Name*, MD, which is obviously redundant. I've heard many people harp on typos and grammatical errors in the past, and I'm concerned that this may be what is keeping me from seeing more interviews. Am I being crazy, or does this sound likely?

My personal statement is clean and error free, for what that's worth.

Doubtful this has anything to do with it. Most likely the programs got a lot of applications that were competitive and some other aspects of others applications caught their interests more than yours. This isn't an all about the numbers process. They are recruiting a colleague for the next X years so the subjective apects matter too. Quite often on SDN people assume they are a "fairly competitive applicant" based solely on their board scores and don't appreciate that someone with ten points lower on step 1 but an amazing story or who has accomplshed amazing things is really the much stronger applicant. You don't see what others have in their applications so you can really only know how competitive you were (other than the numbers, which is more of a baseline) after the match.

 

[DTUD]

Also, with regards to other people getting interviews from programs you applied to. I know my program divides the apps up among people on a committee and each person works through a batch. They work at different rates, so one person might bang them out right away, while another might take a couple days. So it's unlikely that if you weren't in the first batch to receive an interview that it's game over (or so I tell myself). Although I'm not sure if they each have free reign to give out interviews or if every batch of interviews has to be ok'd by the PD first (this would seem like it would take far too long).

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Yes, there are various different ways programs look through applications. What they can't do is look through 2000 applications in a week and a half.

 

[mcl]

Anecdotally, it is taking programs longer to review apps this year in the new ERAS system and interviews are coming out in smaller, rolling batches (at least at the handful of programs in my field I have access to this kind of information about).

Keep calm. It is still early.

Agreed. Web-based ERAS has been awful for efficiency.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

As you are seeing - there are a variety of ways programs go through the apps. Our program uses a variety of filters to sort applicants into different "baskets" so to speak. Most of the first week apparently was spent building those filters from scratch in the new system