2008 Ranking/Match timing...

[mdphd2b]

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Hi there,

I'll be applying for Peds residency next year, and I'm also trying to organize international electives in MS4, probably Jan-early March. This is the only time I can reasonably do them, and I definitely want to be back in time for the Match. Can anyone give me an estimate of when Match Day 2008 would be? I'm guessing Thurs March 20-ish? Also how much time do we get to enter the ROL list? Is it days or weeks?

Ideally I'd like to be done with interviews by Dec 2007, and submit my ROL before leaving the country.

Thanx!

 

[Happy2BOB]

Since Match Day this year was the 15th, I'm guessing it will prob be the 13th or so next year. Also, you should know that programs often schedule interviews through the end of January. So, while you'd like to be able to be finished by December, you have no control over when the programs you'd like to visit will schedule their interview days. As for submitting ROL, I believe we we had from mid-January until the end of February.

 

[mdphd2b]

Since Match Day this year was the 15th, I'm guessing it will prob be the 13th or so next year. Also, you should know that programs often schedule interviews through the end of January. So, while you'd like to be able to be finished by December, you have no control over when the programs you'd like to visit will schedule their interview days. As for submitting ROL, I believe we we had from mid-January until the end of February.

I thought Match Day was the 3rd Thurs of March, so I calculated 3/20/08.

I'm confused about the ROL thingy then, if schools can interview to END of Jan, but lists can be submitted before then? (mid-Jan to end of Feb)

Anyway, I guess I'll have to cram as many dates in before I leave. I'm only applying to 8-10 Peds programs, and realistically only want interviews at 8 😛
I'm limited by location and my husband who's field is business.

Good luck to all you graduating 4th years

 

[Medical123]

This year programs that I was interested in started interviewing in early November through the first week of February. Just be aware that MOST (there are a few exceptions) do not interview between Christmas Break and New Year's, so you will probably want to leave yourself a little room to play with interview dates if needed. Also, there are some programs that don't bother to send out interview invitations until the Dean's Letter goes out in November, so it may not be feasible to have everything done by December.

 

[sophiejane]

I'm confused about the ROL thingy then, if schools can interview to END of Jan, but lists can be submitted before then? (mid-Jan to end of Feb)

You can submit your ROL anytime from mid-January to mid-February. The deadline is mid-February to allow for those doing late-January interviews.

The programs don't submit their lists until after all interviews are completed.

Good luck this year to those interviewing!

 

[atsai3]

I thought Match Day was the 3rd Thurs of March, so I calculated 3/20/08.

I'm confused about the ROL thingy then, if schools can interview to END of Jan, but lists can be submitted before then? (mid-Jan to end of Feb)

Programs do not submit their rank lists prior to completing all of their interviews. Interviewing candidates is time intensive and costly; there's no reason why a program would interview a candidate that had a 0% probabiliy of making it onto the rank list.

Your plan w.r.t. international electives is doable. When I went through the residency application process, I submitted my application (even though not all of my letters of recommendation were on file) in October and got about half of my interview offers in the following week, and the rest of my interview offers came in November after the Dean's Letters were released. Crammed all of my interviews in November and December; as I recall, that was a fairly exhausting month-and-a-half. Spent Jan-May overseas and skipped Match Day.

-AT.

 

[mdphd2b]

Crammed all of my interviews in November and December; as I recall, that was a fairly exhausting month-and-a-half. Spent Jan-May overseas and skipped Match Day.

Dude, I'm glad that worked out for you! I know other MS4's that skipped Match Day b/c of travelling abroad, since spring term is the only real time to do it. I guess it depends on the feeling you have after interviews.

I do my Peds AI early, then my Step2 CK is 10/19 and CS is 11/9. Hope to cram interviews in after that. I'm all for getting everything done early enough so I can use 2008 for travel fun-n-games 😀

 

[atsai3]

I know other MS4's that skipped Match Day b/c of travelling abroad, since spring term is the only real time to do it. I guess it depends on the feeling you have after interviews.

Even if you think there is a chance you may not match, then there is no reason why you still couldn't travel abroad and skip the pre-Match Day week. All you need is access to a fax machine and an Internet connection. This should be easy enough to arrange. Even if you are planning to work in the bush, you can make arrangements to spend the week before Match Day in a city with access to the necessary communication devices should you need to participate in the scramble.

-AT.

 

[jennyboo]

Although most people want to be in the country in order to attend the Match ceremony (and, just in case, to be around in order to scramble a couple days before that), this is not required. I was out of the country for both.

MATCH DAY - I went online at 1 PM to check my match results. Yeah, I missed the match ceremony, but it was more important for me to go to my wedding. 😛 The only downside for me was that the match ceremony is at 12 PM, but the results don't go onto the website until 1 PM. I had friends calling me to ask where I matched and all I could say was, "Uhhhhh, I don't know.... I can't check the web site for another hour."

SCRAMBLE - Fortunately for me this was not an issue because I matched successfully. For the scramble, you need to be well connected to phone and fax machine. You can technically do this if you have a reliable phone, Internet, etc. I inquired about this and decided that, in the very small off-chance that I'd have to scramble, I was okay. This is because I went to a well-connected Western European location, not middle-of-nowhere in a third world country.

 

[hattie]

I just matched into peds this past March and would suggest that you think about pushing your departure date out a little bit, especially if your program options are limited secondary to wanting to stay in a certain area of the country.

I got all my materials in at a decent time, and while I interviewed almost the whole month of december (8 I think, across the country), there were 3 programs that were simply unable to give me interview dates before the first week in January, including two in cities where we really wanted to live. Also, January is the time of year that people start cancelling interviews, so if you've been waitlisted for an interview at a program you're really interested in, this is the time of year that you would hear about it (I was offered one this way in early January).

Of course, this advice is somewhat moot if you like your home program and they would like to keep you, in which case you could probably interview with them in Nov, fill in with whatever programs you can in Dec, and enjoy January wherever you might be.

Good luck!