Is fellowship application a broken system?

[JK31]

It really seems like it.
The average number of applications per applicant was 77 last year. The average number of applications each program received was over 500. A lot of these programs only have two spots.
How can any program go through 500+ applications? They can’t.
Basically you have to hope you meet the criteria in a program’s filter otherwise your application will never see the light of day.

You think program’s would complain about getting flooded with applications, but oh wait they would never do that because they’re collecting tens of thousands of dollars in application fees.
That is money intended to go to a program’s overhead for things like interview day costs. But wait, interviews are virtual now. There is minimal overhead. I wonder where that money goes now? I wonder why they decided to keep interviews virtual again this year despite nearly 100% vaccination rates among physicians. Why we aren’t allowed to see the place where we’re going to invest three years of our lives and the essential training for our future livelihoods. Most likely based on a decision that has nothing to do with our safety and everything to do with programs stacking our money.

We as trainees are not accustomed to speaking up but I think it’s time to start pointing this stuff out.

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[Rocher]

What would you propose as a solution? Limiting the number of programs that an applicant can apply to?

With delta increasing and the vaccine not being that effective at preventing infection it makes sense for interviews to still be virtual.

 

[aafisahar]

What would you propose as a solution? Limiting the number of programs that an applicant can apply to?

With delta increasing and the vaccine not being that effective at preventing infection it makes sense for interviews to still be virtual.

Limiting apps is a good start. Virtual interviews take away a major barrier of having to travel to each interview. It cost me like 2000 to go to my interviews and I could drive to 80% of my interviews.

 

[unnumzaan]

I heard some specialties implemented a "preferred choice" option where applicants get to tag e.g. 5 programs in the application to signal particular interest.

 

[Ivabradine]

Programs should have a clearly defined criteria, that’s all. A lot of programs say they’ll consider anyone with a step score about 220 but filter out everyone under 240 as an example. They’ll lose out on money by less applicants but that is most fair. The system should be made to save trainees money.

 

[ROBINHO]

Even though there are filters, some fellowship programs go through applications that are being filtered to make sure that they dont miss any genius. I can confidently say we went through every single application and invited applicants who didnt meet " our criteria". At the end of the day exceptional applicants will get the chance.

From program perspective, we would rather prefer to interview applicants face to face than virtual interviewing.
The decision to virtually interview came from ACC, AAMC etc. There are also hospital and state rules in place due to COVID - those go beyond fellowship programs

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Clarifying that programs get NONE of your application fees. Many programs are dismayed by the number of applications they get. We would love to find a way to decrease them. App caps would "work" but would make applying much more difficult -- how would you pick the 10 programs you are allowed to apply to?

 

[rokshana]

It really seems like it.
The average number of applications per applicant was 77 last year. The average number of applications each program received was over 500. A lot of these programs only have two spots.
How can any program go through 500+ applications? They can’t.
Basically you have to hope you meet the criteria in a program’s filter otherwise your application will never see the light of day.

You think program’s would complain about getting flooded with applications, but oh wait they would never do that because they’re collecting tens of thousands of dollars in application fees.
That is money intended to go to a program’s overhead for things like interview day costs. But wait, interviews are virtual now. There is minimal overhead. I wonder where that money goes now? I wonder why they decided to keep interviews virtual again this year despite nearly 100% vaccination rates among physicians. Why we aren’t allowed to see the place where we’re going to invest three years of our lives and the essential training for our future livelihoods. Most likely based on a decision that has nothing to do with our safety and everything to do with programs stacking our money.

We as trainees are not accustomed to speaking up but I think it’s time to start pointing this stuff out.

Maybe applicants could stop applying to a bizillion programs…when the applications were individual applications to each program, people were more selective… now that it’s a radio click people easily apply to 50, 60, 100 programs…the number of interviews programs give out are pretty stable… just more people applying to them… the problem seems to be on the application side, not the program side.

 

[aafisahar]

Clarifying that programs get NONE of your application fees. Many programs are dismayed by the number of applications they get. We would love to find a way to decrease them. App caps would "work" but would make applying much more difficult -- how would you pick the 10 programs you are allowed to apply to?

Places you want to live, places near family, places with interests you have. It's not that hard it's just that right now there's no barrier to sending applications anywhere in the US even when you have a 1% chance of moving there only because the opportunity cost of not matching is too high.

 

[TaroBubbleTea]

Clarifying that programs get NONE of your application fees. Many programs are dismayed by the number of applications they get. We would love to find a way to decrease them. App caps would "work" but would make applying much more difficult -- how would you pick the 10 programs you are allowed to apply to?

Do you find that programs are interviewing more or the same number of people now that interviews are virtual?