I like Arizona (Tuscon, at the university), UNM, UC Davis, and Oregon ... really due to a combination of what I read about the programs, where I'd want to live, where I know people, etc...I prefer mid-sized towns with lots of outdoor activities. And I agree I should definitely consider Maine, Vermont, NH.
Just Adult Psych for now. I like inpatient > outpatient. I'm sure that could change in 4 years though.Oh yeah, UNM should definitely be on the list! Have only heard great things, plus bugs are less freaky there. I hate bugs.
Seriously, there was a thread on city-data.com about bugs in Arizona and it totally made me take them off the list. Scorpions in your shoes. IN YOUR SHOES!!! OMG. I couldn't imagine. Ick.
Oh yeah, I'd heard good things about Utah. Applied, but cancelled after more easterly interviews started rolling in. Probably a good place for you.
UVa should be very high on your list too. Seriously. I grew up in Charlottesville and it's a small-med town with TONS of outdoor stuff, great weather/culture, and close proximity and easy travel to a number of larger cities with very cool things to do. Plus DO friendly and a great overall program.
Do you have a particular interest? Child? Forensics? Etc?
But if you murdered somebody and didn't spend any time in jail, then they probably wouldn't know about it. Unless you're one of those people that has a hard time not blurting out the truth when you should keep your mouth shut.
:cry:
Well, my stats aren't great, and so I thought I would apply to alot of places.
I kinda don't really have an opinion on where to go...as long as it isn't somewhere I've been already =) Well... decent BBQ and seafood are musts.
Darn...I just added on all 3 oklahoma programs....
If you don't love the big city life, then a place like that is probably better for you. I did my undergrad in Columbia, MO, where I paid about $210/month for a pretty decent place right next to campus. I went to med school in Sydney, Australia, where I paid at least 4-5 times that price for a crappier place. But I was equally happy in both places - I thought that the big city lifestyle was worth the extra money, but I thought that the small-city compromises were justified by the savings.
Depends on your definition of "large." And the part of the city in which you want to live. My family recently sold a nice house (about that size) in a nice suburb of St. Louis for about $250k. And they're shopping for a similar house in a somewhat-more-distant-but-equally-nice suburb of Chicago for a similar price.
Well, I like using public transportation... you can sleep or read on the way to the hospital. Crime is bad in some parts of the city, but most doctors won't be living in those parts of the city. Parking is a challenge in places like NYC, but if you don't have a car, you just pay a couple of dollars to take the train every day (instead of paying a couple of dollars for gas, plus a couple for insurance, plus a few for the car itself, plus a bit for maintenance).
Maybe, depending on your interests. What I love about large city life is that during a large portion of the year, I can choose to go to a rock concert, a chess club, a medical lecture, a sporting event, a specialty guitar shop, or whatever else I want to do. That wasn't the case in Columbia MO... decent rock concerts happened once every couple of weeks (and much more rare for a band that I actually like), the chess club had only a couple of decent players and only met on Monday nights, academic medical events were occasional at best, there were only a handful of decent sports matchups a year, and the guitar shops all sucked.
Yeah, but what if they think there's just a slim chance that I might match?
It's not so much about "giving them a shot" - if I'm interested in a program, I'd be more than happy to travel there for an interview. But I have a limited amount of time for interviews, and since I'm an IMG, I think I'll need to squeeze in as many interviews as possible in that time... I don't want to waste a potential interview slot on a program that's very unlikely to take me.
That's good to know, considering where you matched. Thanks for the advice.
Well, I'm applying broadly because I don't know how programs will feel about some of my specific deficiencies. I might get rejected for an interview at an unknown small-town community hospital because they filter out everybody without a Step 2CS result, and I might get invited at a prestigious place because they have good past experiences with my medical school and they don't use the 2CS filter. So I figured I'd cast a wide net, just in case I don't get enough interviews to fill up my schedule.
Yeah, I guess that's a good point.
Good to know, thanks. I assume that by "seeing you on a non-interview day" you mean "scheduling an interview" rather than "scheduling a second-look"? And I assume that by "corollary" you mean "converse"? I didn't realize that programs would be flexible in that regard, so that's definitely good to know.
That's still pretty close to equal footing. i.e. if my application is a 50 and somebody else is a 60, then I can still be an equal-quality candidate if my interview score is 20% higher than the other guy's.
Also reassuring. I was fairly stressed about the fact that one of my US attendings still hasn't uploaded his letter (and he's gotten a bit frustrated with my occasional gentle reminders), but I guess my Aussie letter will substitute.
That's also good to know. I was under the impression that if you get rejected for an interview, you probably weren't a great candidate for their program anyway. But apparently, that's not the case.
Mid-Atlantic. Let's say within a 6-hour drive of Pittsburgh. But I do plan to look at a few programs outside of that area.
). However, I felt like all the things I included were important, helped shape me then and helped me focus/distill my interests. I have very solid reasons for why I included each item, and I really think that is the best way to judge it.
I had the same concerns. I kept adding and deleting and adding back. I decided to include 2 or 3 things from undergrad that were huge for me (one was being editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, which was hundreds of hours of free labor each year). I thought they might be interesting to talk about since I'm sure interviews get a little dull after the first dozen or so.
Job-wise, I trimmed out all the stupid college jobs and only include the few I had that were related to education (an internship, etc) since I'm also interested in going the education/academic/teaching way post-residency.
I totally feel you on the minimal experience related to medicine (liberal arts grad
I just applied broadly. I have 107 programs on my list. I figured that I'd rather have too many than risk having too few.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean - are you looking for a residency program that has a lot of people of a particular ethnic group? If that's the case, then you might want to look at programs that are near the associated ethnic enclave.2. any suggestions on programs that have a range of..uhm...color, in their resident classes and faculty? I wanted to say diversity, but I think programs (or residents) seem to think "we have have a mix of US grads vs IMGs, blahblah" is such. I'm not trying to race-bait, but I do think it's a fair concern. a lot of posters have shared the good advice of going intuitively about this Match process. and for some of us, part of fit includes making sure we'd feel comfortable. I've been honestly dismayed by the residency profiles I've seen on several program sites. I understand several groups are already underrepresented in medicine as a whole, so I wonder, where do these psych applicants (of color) end up going??
