Results for the SDN-Reddit Match 2014 Post-Interview Communication Survey

[miborovsky]

A few days back I posted a survey to ask applicants this year about how well their post-interview communication panned out.

The results have been uploaded here: http://imgur.com/a/xS2RJ in a graphical format.

Some interesting observations:

27% of respondents felt they matched better than what they expected based on their PIC, vs 21% who felt they matched worse.

60% of respondents were told in some fashion that they would be ranked highly by a program.

28% of respondents changed their ROL based on their PIC. Of those, more often they were happy with the results than unhappy.

47% of respondents believe that applicants (in general) lie to programs, but only 6% admit to lying.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Ronin786]

I think programs in general are more truthful than applicants in post-interview communication, but only because they have more leeway. A program can tell someone they're ranked to match, which has the double-edged meaning of either actually being guaranteed a spot and being ranked based on historical ROL tendencies.

On the other hand, all the applicant can say is either you're my #1 or you're ranked highly/I'd love to match there. Given the number of #1 emails sent by applicants, I'd assume the latter saying of "you're ranked highly/I'd love to match there" doesn't mean much to programs since it likely means they're not #1. Granted #1 emails don't mean much either, but I think that's why many applicants resort to being untruthful and telling everybody they're #1.

Long story short, nobody should believe anything a program or applicant tells them though I can see how tempting and maybe even reasonable it is for someone who's on the fence between two programs.

Thanks for taking the time to do this survey btw!

 

[rads214]

I think programs in general are more truthful than applicants in post-interview communication

I completely disagree

 

[Cnote81]

I completely disagree

I was told by an associate program director that i was a very competitive applicant, that the decision to go there would be mine, and that if i ranked them first i would be there come july. this was all during a second look, and the meeting and conversation where both initiated by him. I didn't end up there and i wasn't surprised to find he had lied right to my face

 

[DO3]

I was told by an associate program director that i was a very competitive applicant, that the decision to go there would be mine, and that if i ranked them first i would be there come july. this was all during a second look, and the meeting and conversation where both initiated by him. I didn't end up there and i wasn't surprised to find he had lied right to my face

As someone told me...you don't want to end up in a place like that anyway. Why would you want to put up with stuff like that all during residency? It's a blessing in disguise that you didn't match there.

 

[Cnote81]

As someone told me...you don't want to end up in a place like that anyway. Why would you want to put up with stuff like that all during residency? It's a blessing in disguise that you didn't match there.

No argument there. The place has a rep for being malignant but this kind of dishonesty is much more unappealing than a little yelling

 

[MaximusD]

Always keep in mind that even if an attending is yelling at you the subtext is that it's extremely hard to dismiss a resident from training... just a FYI. The joys of federal funding...