Following up on applicaitons?

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grinchick5

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Many resources I've read suggest following up with programs a few weeks after submitting applications to ensure they have all your materials. I assume this is a front to make contact with the programs and express your interest. Are applicants generally expected to do this? Do most follow up? Who does one contact (PD, program coordinator) and how (phone, email)? How is such contact viewed? Does this help/hurt/not make a difference?

I have applied to a couple programs that expressly state they won't provide status updates, so I'm not planning on following up with those. But I'm curious about all the rest.

Thoughts?

Thanks!!
 
This just seems silly to me, because ERAS already tracks which programs downloaded what, and when they did it.

Perhaps that advice was relevant when ERAS was on paper, but it seems like overkill to me...
 
Yeah, I dont know, it seems like calling them up to attain the status of your app or inquire about a shot at an interview, etc. would be fruitless.
 
I've heard that if its getting along in the invite season (mid-late october), your application has been complete and downloaded for a while, and you haven't heard either way, it's appropriate to contact the program to express your interest and ask about the timeline for extending an interview. Some have even told me that may be beneficial for certain programs who want to ensure that applicants have a genuine interest in matching to the program. One younger attending even told me that he was declined an interview at a program, called to express that he was highly interested in the program, and was subsequently offered an interview when one of their offers declined, though I'd imagine it'd be best to employ that tactic sparingly for programs you're really keen on.

That's about the only situation I can imagine it'd be necessary. Unless you had something new and big you wanted to add to your app post-submission that you want to be sure they know about (new publication or something).
 
grinchick5 said:
Many resources I've read suggest following up with programs a few weeks after submitting applications to ensure they have all your materials. I assume this is a front to make contact with the programs and express your interest. Are applicants generally expected to do this? Do most follow up? Who does one contact (PD, program coordinator) and how (phone, email)? How is such contact viewed? Does this help/hurt/not make a difference?

I have applied to a couple programs that expressly state they won't provide status updates, so I'm not planning on following up with those. But I'm curious about all the rest.

Thoughts?

Thanks!!
Click to expand...

My comments are only based on an N=2, but I would guess that in general the advisability of this depends on the competitiveness of the program as well as its idiosyncrasies, as well as the competitiveness of your application. In general, applicants are not expected to follow up. An 'expression of interest' from a marginal applicant certainly will not help -- not only is it annoying (to have to return the phone call or email), but it just makes you sound desperate. An expression of interest from a stellar applicant may help, if the program is one of those programs that pays attention to its yield, particularly in specialties with competitive and hyper-competitive applicant pools. And finally, mid- to late October is too early to be pestering program directors for interviews. Many programs defer making interview offers until the Dean's Letter is released. A more appropriate time to pester program directors, if at all, would be December to early January.

-AT.
 
grinchick5 said:
Many resources I've read suggest following up with programs a few weeks after submitting applications to ensure they have all your materials. I assume this is a front to make contact with the programs and express your interest. Are applicants generally expected to do this? Do most follow up? Who does one contact (PD, program coordinator) and how (phone, email)? How is such contact viewed? Does this help/hurt/not make a difference?

I have applied to a couple programs that expressly state they won't provide status updates, so I'm not planning on following up with those. But I'm curious about all the rest.

Thoughts?

Thanks!!
Click to expand...

I assume that by "many resources" you mean this birdcage liner/puppy training pad.

The only thing I would trust in that book are the words "a" and "the." Everything else is either a flat out lie, patently wrong or just dumb.

The advice you mention above is at least two of them.
 
gutonc said:
I assume that by "many resources" you mean this birdcage liner/puppy training pad.

The only thing I would trust in that book are the words "a" and "the." Everything else is either a flat out lie, patently wrong or just dumb.

The advice you mention above is at least two of them.
Click to expand...

Actually, I was referring to this and this and a couple other websites and pamphlets I picked up along the way. All of which may be equally useless and inaccurate, which is why I'm attempting to gather some additional input on the suggestions that seem particularly stupid/ridiculous/unnecessary. Perhaps I should have said "a few" resources.
 
atsai3 said:
My comments are only based on an N=2, but I would guess that in general the advisability of this depends on the competitiveness of the program as well as its idiosyncrasies, as well as the competitiveness of your application. In general, applicants are not expected to follow up. An 'expression of interest' from a marginal applicant certainly will not help -- not only is it annoying (to have to return the phone call or email), but it just makes you sound desperate. An expression of interest from a stellar applicant may help, if the program is one of those programs that pays attention to its yield, particularly in specialties with competitive and hyper-competitive applicant pools. And finally, mid- to late October is too early to be pestering program directors for interviews. Many programs defer making interview offers until the Dean's Letter is released. A more appropriate time to pester program directors, if at all, would be December to early January.

-AT.
Click to expand...

Which specialty(ies) would the pestering in December-January be good for?

What kind of time frame would you modify the pestering to for specialties that do the bulk of their interviews from November to early-mid January (with only 2 or so programs publishing on their website that they interview in late-January to February) ???
 
Maybe I'm just too proud, but if a program isn't impressed enough by my application to invite me for an interview of their own accord, I don't know that I want to go there. And even if pestering works, how likely is it - given that they initially declined to interview you - that they are going to rank you high enough to match? I guess if you consider yourself incredibly charming and a fabulous interviewee, it might be worth a shot. And I can of course foresee scenarios where one's pride would have to be put aside - e.g. being tied to a certain geographic location because of family/spousal work obligations etc. The hardest thing of course is the not knowing, not getting a final rejection and holding out that little bit of hope that you still have a chance - a feeling that I remember well from medical school interviews.
 
babel said:
Maybe I'm just too proud, but if a program isn't impressed enough by my application to invite me for an interview of their own accord, I don't know that I want to go there. And even if pestering works, how likely is it - given that they initially declined to interview you - that they are going to rank you high enough to match? I guess if you consider yourself incredibly charming and a fabulous interviewee, it might be worth a shot. And I can of course foresee scenarios where one's pride would have to be put aside - e.g. being tied to a certain geographic location because of family/spousal work obligations etc. The hardest thing of course is the not knowing, not getting a final rejection and holding out that little bit of hope that you still have a chance - a feeling that I remember well from medical school interviews.
Click to expand...

However, some of us (IMGs) would NOT make the cut if filtering is done based on citizenship/medical school in hyper-competitive specialties or academic programs...

Is there any benefit of having my mentors contacting the programs prior to the interviewees' selection?
 
Last edited:
turundu said:
However, some of us (IMGs) would NOT make the cut if filtering is done based on citizenship/medical school in hyper-competitive specialties or academic programs...

Is there any benefit of having my mentors contacting the programs prior to the interviewees' selection?
Click to expand...

I certainly don't envy you in your position as an IMG vying for a residency position in the U.S. But filters are there for a reason, no? We're all susceptible to them in one way or another - for Step 1, at least. Programs, I presume, know what they're doing when they set the filters, and realize that some candidates will be cut out, even if "just" because of their Step 1 score or IMG/FMG status. I realize that as an IMG you are in a more difficult position and probably have to pull out all the stops. That being said, some of my advisors have offered to call programs for me if I found I wasn't getting enough interviews, but I got the impression that they meant after those programs started offering interviews, not before. Doing it too early might seem desperate/annoying. I could be wrong though, and this question would obviously be better answered by someone actually involved in the residency selection process.

In any case, best of luck to you. :luck: This process is wearing on me already......
 
turundu said:
However, some of us (IMGs) would NOT make the cut if filtering is done based on citizenship/medical school in hyper-competitive specialties or academic programs...Is there any benefit of having my mentors contacting the programs prior to the interviewees' selection?
Click to expand...
If you are an IMG and have a mentor who has a particular connection to a program (or a faculty member in that Department), a "selective" direct contact wouldn't hurt. I imagine that there are faculty members at many international schools who have US experience (residency, fellowship, post-doc, or who may be research collaborators with US researchers). But I would use such contacts in a very selective manner. If you are an international graduate and have a particular strength or skill in your area of interest (multiple research papers in respected journals, for example), I think an email contact to the chair of the Department, independent of your ERAS application, could be helpful. I do suspect that some programs have an arbitrary citizenship/US grad filter which might cause them to overlook an excellent international graduate- one who might be of interest to them if they actually looked at the complete application.
 
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