Will SDN contribute to BU going unfilled this year?

You may be right in terms of SDN influencing ranking and perception of most applicants. I wonder what the world would be like if this forum did not exist

Talking about BU specifically, they interview 700 applicants for 40 odd positions- I doubt that they would go unfilled or fill them with alarming number of IMGs. The IMGs invited to BU as a rule have double or triple 99s; 6months-1 yr of electives at Harvard/Columbia and the like; in addition to significant amount of publications or >1 yr of research- so they are well deserving. Also, the praise that BU received has been equivalent or more, especially early in the season. Its just been a prominent program this yr, not necessarily all due to bad rep. In almost all threads with BU VS alpha VS beta Vs omega, BU has been recommended highly over other programs. My guess would actually be the opposite, of BU filling higher on their list than previous years.

Maybe BU ought to go unfilled. They have angry, indifferent attendings with little-to-no support or guidance to offer the residents. Scutwork and social issues are very poorly allocated to ancillary services (which, at a place like BMC, can make your life twice as difficult as elsewhere). The interns look as if they'd rather be dead.

Although we'd like to think otherwise, you'd be surprised at how few graduating seniors actually look at this board regularly enough to follow the comments about a particular school.

chitown82 said:

Although we'd like to think otherwise, you'd be surprised at how few graduating seniors actually look at this board regularly enough to follow the comments about a particular school.

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So I've heard. Most AMGs go by word of mouth and there are sufficient networking contacts to get information from.

I do find a heavy foreign presence here though.

Scaredshizzles said:

I was thinking about this. I heard a ton of hearsay on the interview trail from other applicants that could be traced directly back to this forum. Whether or not people personally read this forum, word from this forum seems to carry. This has obviously been the most active this board has probably ever been during the residency application period for IM. I wonder if programs that were bashed on SDN might go unfilled this year, considering they probably interviewed the same number of people. Perhaps it won't matter if there really were a lot more applicants to medicine this year, but I'll be interested to see if any programs that typically don't go unfilled, go unfilled this year. BU might be safe because they interview a fair number of IMGs who don't have a lot of options.

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I do not think that is true. Just as those people who are invited by BWH also have other options like UCSF, UPenn, MGH, the IMGs invited by BU (mostly) have at least 1-2 other good programs. MOST have probably 5 or more programs that are on par with BU, and many of these IMGs also will not rank BU #1, unless they have a need/desire to be in Boston.

mauvespice said:

You may be right in terms of SDN influencing ranking and perception of most applicants. I wonder what the world would be like if this forum did not exist

Talking about BU specifically, they interview 700 applicants for 40 odd positions- I doubt that they would go unfilled or fill them with alarming number of IMGs. The IMGs invited to BU as a rule have double or triple 99s; 6months-1 yr of electives at Harvard/Columbia and the like; in addition to significant amount of publications or >1 yr of research- so they are well deserving. Also, the praise that BU received has been equivalent or more, especially early in the season. Its just been a prominent program this yr, not necessarily all due to bad rep. In almost all threads with BU VS alpha VS beta Vs omega, BU has been recommended highly over other programs. My guess would actually be the opposite, of BU filling higher on their list than previous years.

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I agree - I think what has happened this year is that because there was so much discussion, people looked into BU very closely. And I am sure that was reflected in the kind of questions that may have been asked to the residents/interviewers at BU. I would therefore be surprised, if the program wasnt "on their best behavior" especially this interview season. From what I see on the ROL thread, BU has been ranked at a reasonable position by a decent number of people (except a few). Plus BU is in a desirable location for many, so I dont think it would go unfilled.

Eta Carinae said:

So I've heard. Most AMGs go by word of mouth and there are sufficient networking contacts to get information from.

I do find a heavy foreign presence here though.

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I think the foreign presence on the IM forum is much, much lesser than that in the respective subspecialties forum. As far as going by word of mouth, I dont know how much one can rely on that. There are many "words of mouth" in this forum itself that perceive Vanderbilt to be cush, Baylor residents still rotating at Methodist, USC being a good/bad/great/horrible program, Brighams being ranked the 6th best program in Internal Medicine .....I do think this IM forum is very helpful in dispelling many "myths", and while it leads to a serious degree of OCD-ness in many, I think I for sure, have gained a lot from it - and definitely dont take just anything someone says about a particular program as the gospel truth.

One of things that I learned from interacting with the ED is that you have to go down there and figure out what is going on from your perspective.

I did that with programs irregardless of what people said on this forum. It was interesting to see what other people though, but I stuck with my evaluation and my adviser's advice.

BU will not scramble because of an internet forum.

Reading program reviews at SDN is like reading hotel reviews on Tripadvisor, a litany of often frighteningly unreasonable people with axes to grind with perhaps a couple of positive notes and a vast silent middle who says nothing.

Like pumping up a stock via an online board, the only time it may have a meaningful effect is with a penny stock on an OTC board.

It will be interesting to see what goes on with the match and if internal medicine did become more competitive this year.

Bobblehead said:

Reading program reviews at SDN is like reading hotel reviews on Tripadvisor, a litany of often frighteningly unreasonable people with axes to grind with perhaps a couple of positive notes and a vast silent middle who says nothing.

Like pumping up a stock via an online board, the only time it may have a meaningful effect is with a penny stock on an OTC board.

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Agreed. I found the best use of SDN was to form meaningful questions to ask residents (e.g. in BU, instead of asking "so how do you match so well for fellowships" you would ask "is it really so intense here"? kind of thing).

I agree with Frugal - use what people say to know what lies ahead, but base decisions on your own opinions. I personally did not find BU to be as horrendous as people make it sound. Its just more old-school, and if you can live with that, so as to make most out of what Boston has to offer (and what BU has to offer - because it does have a lot to offer) then thats fine. If not, there are plenty of other good programs in the country, at least 4 others in Boston in itself, that can satisfy your requirements.

Frugal Traveler said:

It will be interesting to see what goes on with the match and if internal medicine did become more competitive this year.

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I am also interested to see how programs, that have also received some flak this year like BU, but unlike BU, tend not to interview enough safeties, will do in the match (e.g. Cornell, UAB, BIDMC).

Scaredshizzles said:

I got the impression not many people canceled interviews this year; so while some programs in the past have matched residents who they only interviewed off the waitlist, that might not have happened.

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I agree with that assessment. UCLA was one of the programs that interviewed historically competitive applicants per the PD. If people went on 10+ interviews, then programs ranked past 10 are not effectively ranked because the list for the typical AMG would not go that far.

Programs tend to build a good buffer. I think the empiric number is interview 5 for each spot as the break-even #. I felt that most programs interviewed 10:1 (10 applicants/1 spot).

What could be seeing is an increase in applicants and/or increase in applications.

Overall, highly doubt that BU or BIDMC will have to scramble. There are plenty of people who want to live in Boston.

I also saw decreasing numbers on the circuit at the end. People did cancel.

One thing was obvious: MGH had too much ice cream, so they had to get rid of it by inviting more people.

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ResidentMD said:

Agreed. I found the best use of SDN was to form meaningful questions to ask residents (e.g. in BU, instead of asking "so how do you match so well for fellowships" you would ask "is it really so intense here"? kind of thing).

I agree with Frugal - use what people say to know what lies ahead, but base decisions on your own opinions. I personally did not find BU to be as horrendous as people make it sound. Its just more old-school, and if you can live with that, so as to make most out of what Boston has to offer (and what BU has to offer - because it does have a lot to offer) then thats fine. If not, there are plenty of other good programs in the country, at least 4 others in Boston in itself, that can satisfy your requirements.




I am also interested to see how programs, that have also received some flak this year like BU, but unlike BU, tend not to interview enough safeties, will do in the match (e.g. Cornell, UAB, BIDMC).

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Sounds reasonable except the question here is not whether it should affect one's (or the masses') decision making and whats the ideal way to go about things but whether it does or has- and this can only be answered on Match day. The fact that it can have an effect, when multiple members of the forum consistently report the same, cannot be completely dismissed.

Most candidates know why they applied to certain programs beyond the brand name and hopefully do examine most facts closely about the programs they visit. SDN does an amazing job in bringing up pertinent positives or negatives that may not have been previously considered that help evaluate these during an interview day, if one can successfully filter the noise and listen to the signal. But for those run of the mill uninitiated, impressionable ones, SDN too, is a word of the mouth- and of some potential at that.

Some folks in this forum are behaving like a bunch of katty bitches.

(don't get me wrong, I personally enjoy the drama)

but gentlemen, please, let us not get things twisted . . . BU fills or does not based on its own merits. However, do not disregard the gossip the filters from the forum out into the general interviewing population. It does occur and it does change the game some, because, the information about a program tends to get out faster this way, as opposed to trickling out over the course of years.

jdh71 said:

Some folks in this forum are behaving like a bunch of katty bitches.

(don't get me wrong, I personally enjoy the drama)

but gentlemen, please, let us not get things twisted . . . BU fills or does not based on its own merits. However, do not disregard the gossip the filters from the forum out into the general interviewing population. It does occur and it does change the game some, because, the information about a program tends to get out faster this way, as opposed to trickling out over the course of years.

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Well said.