The official 2013 "We're couples matching....and we're scared as hell" thred

[Neuromonster]

Hello there. My significant other and I will be trying to match Neuro and Ob/Gyn this season. Any other couples out there? How many places are other couples applying to? How are others planning for the financial burden?

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[viciouz]

I am doing Anesthesia and my better half is doing IM.

I believe, its a little bit more complicated for us because I have the option of Adv/Categorical.

But in addition to that, I am also a lower tier candidate while she is a solid top tier candidate.

So I don't know how this will work out... I am applying to about 50+ anesthesia programs with about 20 TY/Prelim Medicine years (mostly at hospitals she's applying to and those with Anesthesia programs too) .

For the financial burden... we're just going to request extra financial aid if needed, but other then that, I think we'll make it.

 

[Neuromonster]

That's pretty interesting. I'm also the weakest link in the chain and I also have the adv/categorical option. Did you write a separate personal statement for the prelim places? Is 50 programs or so what most couples apply to?

 

[IMDoc2013]

I am applying to Internal Medicine and my boyfriend is applying for Emergency Medicine, however, to make things extremely complicated, he has a navy scholarship. Those in the Navy match in Dec, so our plan as of right now is to see if he matches into Navy EM or is deferred for a civilian residency in which case we will then couples match. We have applied to 25 programs for the couples match, and I will be applying to another 18 in case he matches Navy and need to try and match nearby his base. As for the monetary aspect we are currently homeless and staying with friends and family to save some money. We may need to take out loans to cover the flights to interviews. If anyone has some magical solution I would love to hear it!

 

[Neuromonster]

I am applying to Internal Medicine and my boyfriend is applying for Emergency Medicine, however, to make things extremely complicated, he has a navy scholarship. Those in the Navy match in Dec, so our plan as of right now is to see if he matches into Navy EM or is deferred for a civilian residency in which case we will then couples match. We have applied to 25 programs for the couples match, and I will be applying to another 18 in case he matches Navy and need to try and match nearby his base. As for the monetary aspect we are currently homeless and staying with friends and family to save some money. We may need to take out loans to cover the flights to interviews. If anyone has some magical solution I would love to hear it!

And here I was thinking my predicament was complex....I certainly hope it works out for you guys. As far as money is concerned, I was told to look inot loans by well fargo (they seem to cater specifically to med students). Furthermore, since it is a private loan, they won't give you the usual 'we can't approve any more financial aid' bs story.

 

[viciouz]

That's pretty interesting. I'm also the weakest link in the chain and I also have the adv/categorical option. Did you write a separate personal statement for the prelim places? Is 50 programs or so what most couples apply to?

No I kept the same personal statement. I heard mixed things so I wanted to keep it simple.

Also I don't know what the norm is for how many... I Just applied to that many to be safe.

 

[MilkmanAl]

Those of you who are having loan issues may consider just taking out more loans from your school. Many schools provide some sort of compensation for the fact that interviews are expensive. I obviously don't know any of your respective financial situations, but I lived a pretty damn comfortable lifestyle on my maximum allowance and still had plenty of cash to travel to interviews, build an unnecessarily expensive computer, and travel several times for fun. If you're having a tough time making ends meet, chances are decent they'll try to help you out where they can.

 

[Neuromonster]

Hmmm...throughout the last four years i have had a few financial catastrophes and my school has pretty much gone out of their way to not help me. I'm not sure if that is the case for others but that is why i brought up the private loan issue.

 

[NERDY]

My med school's alum association has a program where you can stay with alums for free. See if your school's alum association can help with lodging.

 

[calico5]

Another couples' match member here! We're biting our nails as interviews trickle in. Just sent applications to a few more programs this week. Trying to think about all the possible places in the country we'd be willing to live/work.

 

[Neuromonster]

Have you guys had any luck coordinating inerviews so far? My better half and I have about 5 invites a piece and not one has fallen on the same date....not even close in fact. Is there a trick to getting it done?

 

[ldg]

Have you guys had any luck coordinating inerviews so far? My better half and I have about 5 invites a piece and not one has fallen on the same date....not even close in fact. Is there a trick to getting it done?

Have you informed program directors that you were couples matching when replying to interviews?

Also, for those of you where one person receives an interview and the other does not, do you email/call the program about your couples mach person? what do you say?

still trying to figure this out!

 

[gutonc]

Have you informed program directors that you were couples matching when replying to interviews?

Also, for those of you where one person receives an interview and the other does not, do you email/call the program about your couples mach person? what do you say?

still trying to figure this out!

There's no "right" answer to this question (as you will discover by doing a quick search here and finding the roughly 2000 other threads asking the same question over the past few years).

That said, you have nothing to lose by contacting programs where one of you has gotten an interview and the other does not. But it's still too early to do this. Different programs have different timelines for reviewing apps and offering interviews. Now that the MSPE is out, give it a couple of weeks and see what happens. If you still haven't heard anything by then, the one with an interview should contact the PC of his/her specialty and the one without should do the same for the other specialty.

 

[JackBauerMD]

Couples matching in ObGyn and Pathology. We both have interviews, but only 2 are near each other! Crossing our fingers for now, I guess

How is it going for you guys? Are you getting interviews in the same places/areas or is everything spread out?

Neuromonster: the two interviews we got at the same institution we were actually able to schedule for the same day. This took a lot of planning. We went through the websites of all the programs we applied to and put all the dates they offered interviews on a color-coded google calendar. Then we were able to see the optimal dates for us to interview in certain areas/programs and we marked the best date for each program. Then when one of us got an offer we knew which date would have the highest likelihood of interviewing together if the other person got an offer there too. This has been made much easier by the fact that several of the path programs simply say "tell us when you want to interview" and don't have specific dates.

 

[JackBauerMD]

Hello there. My significant other and I will be trying to match Neuro and Ob/Gyn this season. Any other couples out there? How many places are other couples applying to? How are others planning for the financial burden?

I forgot to answer your original questions in my last post:

I (Ob/Gyn) applied to 36 and he (Path) applied to 27, the discrepancy is because I applied to some community programs and he applied only to University programs.

The main thing we are doing to finance interviews is just saving now. The other thing we did was get a credit card with airline rewards. We got a Southwest airlines card last year and use it for everything (and pay it off each month) in order to rack up points. With the amount of flying we all will be doing, I think that getting a card now would probably still benefit you. A lot of these cards will give you a free flight just for signing up, and then you get points for purchases and also points for flying. You also get the credit limit of your card ($8000 for us) which we will only resort to using in the case of an emergency, but it makes me feel better to know we have it in case we really need it. We'd likely be able to pay it off as soon as January's loans come in anyway.

One thing to look out for though, is restrictions on travel dates with reward points. Southwest doesn't have restrictions for their reward points, but they also have a more restricted flight schedule than the bigger airlines. I think Expedia or some other companies like that have begun to offer cards with a generalized reward system including hotels and rental cars, that might be worth looking into.

Disclaimer: I am not usually a credit card advocate, but I think can actually be of benefit in this specific scenario.

 

[Neuromonster]

The credit card idea sounds great, I will definitely look into it. For the time being, I went a different route and got an extra loan (is really a drop in a big bucket @ this point). As for interviewing we still have 0 places @ the same date. I'm glad things have worked out somewhat better for you JackBauerMD.

Is everyone getting plenty of invites so far? Have you guys reached the point of contacting places that have invited your SO but not you?

I'd love to hear from all couples out there.

 

[thierryhenry]

There's no "right" answer to this question (as you will discover by doing a quick search here and finding the roughly 2000 other threads asking the same question over the past few years).

That said, you have nothing to lose by contacting programs where one of you has gotten an interview and the other does not. But it's still too early to do this. Different programs have different timelines for reviewing apps and offering interviews. Now that the MSPE is out, give it a couple of weeks and see what happens. If you still haven't heard anything by then, the one with an interview should contact the PC of his/her specialty and the one without should do the same for the other specialty.

When is the best time to do this? I have gotten offers for IM at some great university places and my SO applying for OB has not. You are saying it is best for me the one invited for an interview to contact the OB dept? Or the medicine dept?
Thanks for your help

 

[Neuromonster]

When is the best time to do this? I have gotten offers for IM at some great university places and my SO applying for OB has not. You are saying it is best for me the one invited for an interview to contact the OB dept? Or the medicine dept?
Thanks for your help

I'm no expert....but I believe the general concensus is that the partner who doesn't have an interview contacts their respective program of interest. I would also think you contacting your partner's programs or viceversa would be frowned upon....or at least it would be pretty weird.

 

[thierryhenry]

Agreed that's what I thought wondering when I should have her do this. Perhaps the end of next week?

 

[ldg]

my SO and I are actually applying to the same specialty which is making getting interviews on the same days a little easier.

any other couples applying to the same specialty?

 

[Neuromonster]

Agreed that's what I thought wondering when I should have her do this. Perhaps the end of next week?

That's what my better half and I were planning on doing. Have you guys heard from a lot of programs so far?

 

[thierryhenry]

That's what my better half and I were planning on doing. Have you guys heard from a lot of programs so far?

We applied very broadly we have 13 and 17 IV respectively. However some good univ I could see myself at haven't offered her and vice versa. Probably end of next week we will start sending out emails/phone calls to PD's

 

[JackBauerMD]

So far I've got 10 and he has 7, but out of those there are only 3 reasonable combinations.

 

[RainerMaria]

So this might be easier for us because we are both IM, but as soon as one of hears and the other doesn't, we immediately write back to confirm the interview and then add another paragraph on how we are couples matching and that we look forward to hearing on the status of their application. The advice that you should wait three weeks before you bring it up is absurd, and contrary to the advice that at least my Dean would give. If you mention it, they will either take that information and use it or just ignore it -- what's there to lose? We usually hear quickly when this comes up, but obviously that's a different outcome because we are at the same programs. Still, I would mention it right away. The PA's can really be your best advocate -- especially if you write nice emails and profusely thank them.

 

[calico5]

Yet another strategy for us... We're targeting metro areas rather than specific programs because of our different specialty and type-of-program interests (I'm more interested in big academic centers, he's looking more at community programs). So far he has interviews in his backup specialty in three metro areas that are all possibilities for me. No interviews in his top choice specialty yet... crossing our fingers for a few more weeks. I'm meanwhile accepting every interview I get. We haven't really thought about reaching out to the programs, but I guess in a couple weeks we will think about it.

 

[ensuii]

Anyone know if there's data out there to help couples determine how many programs to interview/rank in order to match successfully?

 

[ldg]

Anyone know if there's data out there to help couples determine how many programs to interview/rank in order to match successfully?

hmm i'm not sure...but it would be helpful. we plan on interviewing at at least 12 places...but i have no idea what a "good" number would be.

also, for those of you applying to the same specialty, are you trying to go to the same program or different programs? my only concern about going to the same program is that it may not be possible to take a week of vacation at the same time.
what are your thoughts on this?

 

[gutonc]

hmm i'm not sure...but it would be helpful. we plan on interviewing at at least 12 places...but i have no idea what a "good" number would be.

also, for those of you applying to the same specialty, are you trying to go to the same program or different programs? my only concern about going to the same program is that it may not be possible to take a week of vacation at the same time.
what are your thoughts on this?

It will depend on the size of the program/class. If you're both doing IM and there are 40 or 50 other residents in your class, it shouldn't be an issue. If you're both doing ortho or derm, where there are going to be 2 or 3 other people in your class, then no, you won't ever get vacation at the same time.

 

[JackBauerMD]

Ok, I guess the time has come. It just feels so awkward to request an interview...but I guess we have to do what we have to do!

So do I email the program coordinator or program director?

 

[spelledout]

Ok, I guess the time has come. It just feels so awkward to request an interview...but I guess we have to do what we have to do!

So do I email the program coordinator or program director?

i called the program coordinator, she was very nice and super helpful. asked me to send an email with the same information so she would have it written down and said she would pass it along. 20 minutes later got an email back from her saying that they had just been waiting for an additional letter and an invite would be sent shortly.

presto magic, invitation appeared about an hour after that.

 

[viciouz]

i called the program coordinator, she was very nice and super helpful. asked me to send an email with the same information so she would have it written down and said she would pass it along. 20 minutes later got an email back from her saying that they had just been waiting for an additional letter and an invite would be sent shortly.

presto magic, invitation appeared about an hour after that.

Are you guys applying to the same program? Or two different programs at the same hospital?

 

[spelledout]

Are you guys applying to the same program? Or two different programs at the same hospital?

2 separate programs, same hospital

 

[JackBauerMD]

OMG it worked!

Emailed the program coordinator last night, got interview this morning!

 

[spelledout]

OMG it worked!

Emailed the program coordinator last night, got interview this morning!

congrats!

 

[viciouz]

I sent a bunch of emails out tonight... Mostly to whoever it was on the ERAS Contact form.

It was difficult in writing the email, but hopefully I hear some good news soon.

 

[thierryhenry]

This past weekend my girlfriend and I sat down and went through the places I got that she didnt, and vice-versa. Sent out emails and phone calls to just the Residency coordinators on the last two days. Since then I've gotten 4 invites because of her so I'd say politely email the coordinator and remind them that your SO got an invite at ____ department to please review your application. It definitely works

 

[Neuromonster]

This past weekend my girlfriend and I sat down and went through the places I got that she didnt, and vice-versa. Sent out emails and phone calls to just the Residency coordinators on the last two days. Since then I've gotten 4 invites because of her so I'd say politely email the coordinator and remind them that your SO got an invite at ____ department to please review your application. It definitely works

That's really good to hear. How long did it take for programs to get back to you? We're sending our e-mails today (fingers crossed).

 

[hiimme]

That's really good to hear. How long did it take for programs to get back to you? We're sending our e-mails today (fingers crossed).

for those sending emails/calling etc. are you guys calling all of the programs? my SO is going into a specialty that sends out invites early and i'm going into one that has just started to send them out. at what point do i start contacting?

 

[thierryhenry]

That's really good to hear. How long did it take for programs to get back to you? We're sending our e-mails today (fingers crossed).

Two places I called and left a voicemail in the morning, wrote an email an hour later (alot of places dont check voicemail), and got an interview by 3-4 pm that day.

Definitely do it, and politely, and email the coordinator not the PD or anyone with MD after their name

 

[anonymous7]

Hey everyone. We''ve got a question regarding sending out e-mails to the programs. We're couple matching different specialties, but we haven't indicated this in our ERAS application.
Have you both been sending out e-mails to the PCs at a specific hospital (i.e. both the applicant with the interview to his/her specialty's PC, and the applicant without to his/her specialty's PC)?
Thanks in advance for any help. We really appreciate it!

 

[thierryhenry]

I can tell you what we did.

We have couples matching listed on both our ERAS and NRMP sites, so I think thats a must because you could easily say you are "couples matching" but if its not verified on your ERAS app they might become suspicious.

If my gf had an invite at a place I didn't. I simply called and left a voicemail or emailed and asked them to review my app, stating she was invited to interview (this a different speciality too). She never did anything.

She did the same thing as well.

It worked out well.

 

[Neuromonster]

Worked for us too. Scored 2 invites each!!!

 

[viciouz]

WHen you guys are emailing PD's, are you listing your SO name?

 

[Neuromonster]

We haven't so far. We put it down on our ERAS though, so if they really wanted to find out I guess they could look for it.

 

[FutureMD26]

My SO is applying to PM&R and I am applying to IM. She just received an invite from a program where I had been sent a rejection about a week ago. The problem is there are no other IM programs in that area. Do you think it would be appropriate for me to email the PC/PD asking them to reconsider my application now? Do you think calling would be better? Thanks for your help!

 

[Neuromonster]

Again, not an expert here, but it was my understanding that no means no for residency programs. Your S.O may have to cancel or decline the invite if there are no other nearby programs that you guys would eventually rank or if you're not considering suicide matches.

 

[gutonc]

My SO is applying to PM&R and I am applying to IM. She just received an invite from a program where I had been sent a rejection about a week ago. The problem is there are no other IM programs in that area. Do you think it would be appropriate for me to email the PC/PD asking them to reconsider my application now? Do you think calling would be better? Thanks for your help!

The yield on this plan is remarkably low. OTOH, it's not like they can reject you more than they already have. So you don't have anything to lose.

BUT...it might be worth going through your SO's program staff to see if they might be of assistance. Have her (your SO), call the prog coord and explain the situation, including the fact that she won't be able to come interview if you don't also have an interview there. It might work...it probably won't...but what do you have to lose?

 

[calico5]

What do any of you know about applying to transitional year/prelim year spots? We're not freaking out *yet*, but I have a lot more interviews than my SO... and he's applying in a decently competitive specialty. So far just three cities where we match up... makes me nervous. I know we've got time, etc etc, but that one little part of my brain wants to start thinking of a backup plan. And the prospect of him scrambling (SOAP-ing?) just terrifies me!

He is also applying/interviewing in FM as a backup, but now is saying he really doesn't want to do that...

I've tried looking for advice on how people apply for TY/prelim year spots, but haven't found great info yet. Any recommendations on what to read?

thanks!

 

[RainerMaria]

I was wondering if someone wise could comment on commuting between cities/programs that are 1 hour a way. For example, if one person was in providence, the other boston -- would it be reasonable to live at the midpoint? Or is that too much time spent commuting during residency. (Although google maps says 30 minutes, I think between parking and commuter rails it will probably be an hour commute each way.)

 

[FutureMD26]

The yield on this plan is remarkably low. OTOH, it's not like they can reject you more than they already have. So you don't have anything to lose.

BUT...it might be worth going through your SO's program staff to see if they might be of assistance. Have her (your SO), call the prog coord and explain the situation, including the fact that she won't be able to come interview if you don't also have an interview there. It might work...it probably won't...but what do you have to lose?

Thanks for the advice. We tried that approach but it didn't work. It was worth a shot though! You have nothing to lose..you are right.