Just certified my ERAS application today! Anybody interested in having a thread to share interview experiences, etc? I have stuck to the Northeast with my applications. Happy to share more detail if there is general interest.
Cool! I am gathering together still application materials. Were you able to submit your app without LOR's uploaded?
I submitted my applications last week and I only had 1 LOR uploaded. Once the rest of your LORs are uploaded then you can check them to be send to the programs. Has anyone heard back for interviews? I'm applying primarily to the Midwest area.
I suck at life so I'm only sending my application tonight. LORs pending. Ugh.
Haha - I hope that this wasn't your only evidence for deciding you suck at life. It's only been a week!
I noticed on some fellowship websites that they ask for "other" documentation that ERAS did not ask for--such as copy of medical school diploma, etc. Is anyone planning on sending that separately, or just filling out ERAS?
Is anyone applying to the University of Iowa? They have not downloaded my application. Is any one applying to University of Minnesota or Mayo Clinic? Also got my first 2 interviews at Medical College of Wisconsin and University of Colorado.
Click on the ADTS link in the top right corner where the link for the message/email is at. You will need firefox for it work and it will also tell you when your LOR's have posted.How are you able to track who has downloaded your application? I remember being able to see this for residency application but can't find it in the fellowship ERAS.
Click on the ADTS link in the top right corner where the link for the message/email is at. You will need firefox for it work and it will also tell you when your LOR's have posted.
I noticed something odd while checking ADTS (for no good reason since I only have one letter in...sigh). And I noticed something odd. One program had 'not yet retrieved', most of the others had an 'available for download' time that was the actual time I uploaded my ERAS--this was in black. And two had a greyed out time that was significantly after I'd uploaded. Not sure how to interpret any of those, but maybe greyed out means the actual download time?
Are you letters of recommendation listed along with all of your application stuff (MSPE, PS, etc) for each program that you applied to?Say what? Mine is nothing like that. I just have a column "Available to program" for everything and the date is 7/15 when I submitted. So weird...
I de-identified the image below for the safety of the person that wrote me the LOR. If it gets out that they actually recommended me for anything, their judgment will forever be questioned. You can see that one is black and one is grey. Interestingly, the black one shows the actual upload/send times of when I put into the system. The grey one is later, and I think may represent a manual download or re-download. My (total) guess is that some programs have the applications automatically transmitted to them, and some manually download them. The latter may allow some degree of filtering by various statuses (AMG vs. IMG, maybe board scores) to cut down on total number of apps to review. My initial panicked reaction was that the greying out meant that the program was no longer considering me and that they had asked for ADTS to stop sending them info about me. Thankfully, this is not true either as I got an invite from the grey one (wooh!)
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I didn't apply up north or west coast this time. I did get three from the Southeast last week though. Which surprised me because I only had one letter in--and not even the PD LOR.
I just certified my application this weekend. Still waiting on my LOR authors to upload their letters, but from what I read here it seems that I can go ahead and apply to programs without the letters (and assign them to programs later), right? And speaking of LORs, I have noticed that most programs request 3 letters, including one by the program director. However, at least one program I am applying to requests 3 letters in addition to the PD letter, for a total of 4 letters. I wonder, if the other programs only request 3 letters, would it be bad to send them all four of my letters? I kind of feel like if I have someone write a letter, I might as well get the most out of it that I can, and let programs see what four physicians think of me instead of just three. However, I also don't want to run the risk of being seen as someone who can't follow directions, by sending them an extra letter and giving them 33% more to read. What do you think?
As far as my letter writers are concerned, I have the following: 1) Program Director. 2) Department Chair. 3) Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. 4) General Psychiatrist with whom I worked for several months over the past two years (and who therefore probably knows me better than any of the others), and who was our program's Assistant Program Director before she recently decided to leave us and take a job working somewhere else. If I were to limit my submission to only 3 letters, which one should I leave out? I know that #1 and #3 are required by most programs. I imagine that a letter from #2 probably carries more weight than a letter from #4, given the writer's position, but writer #4 also held a significant position at our institution and she knows me pretty well.
Anybody have any updates? It seems as if the interview handouts are a little lethargic....Or maybe it's my application.
No Worries. One of the program just downloaded my application a couple days ago. I just heard back from Northwestern in Chicago! My program still has not sent out interview invites and the fellowship program coordinator told me it was still very early in the process.Haven't heard back and it's been several weeks since I submitted. Was getting worried that my application just sucks, but I hope that places are just slow...
If I'm going to be in a certain geographic area but haven't yet heard from a few programs that I'm interested in that area, would it be OK to e-mail them and let them know I'll be around? I'd state that I'm not presuming that they'll give me an interview, but if they did I'd appreciate it to save on flight $$$.
Hope this week brings more interview news for all of us!
Most programs require 3 letters, with one being from a program director. Be aware that some may require a total of 4 letters; this would likely be specified on their website or they'll let you know via email when you apply to their program. On ERAS it does allow you to indicate whether your LoR author is a program director or department chair, but you are not required to check either box if it doesn't apply. For your regular attendings I would just state their role in the LoR Author Title / Department section, with something like "Attending Physician / Psychiatry". You can create as many slots for letter writers as you wish, but you can only upload a maximum of 4 letters per program.Rookie questions guys. Are yall assuming all programs are doing 3 LORS? I'm working on my profile and creating slots for the letters and it appears the letter must be from one of 2 sources, a program director or a department chair. What about just regular attendings we have worked with. How do I create a slot for their letters.