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- Aug 25, 2008
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SDN's been a great resource for me through the years, both in terms of info and in terms of moral support, so this is my attempt at passing it forward. I wanted to put up a grand master all-encompassing poll about the entire interview season so future applicants have something to refer to. These were the burning questions I had going into the interview season, so hopefully other people out there will find this helpful!
Since this is sort of a catch-all poll, it's pretty complicated, so please read the bold stuff before voting.
1) You are allowed to vote three times. The idea is to vote once per category.
2) The poll is grouped up into the following categories:
And now, just a couple things I wanted to say to future applicants: first, interview invites seem to come out in two waves, roughly corresponding to the schools that invite before Dean's letters and the ones that invite after. Ergo: one in mid/late September, and one in mid/late October. There are invites trickling out in between the waves, obviously, but those are when most people seem to have received most of their interviews. That also means there may be an agonizing 2-3 weeks in between when your invites might slow to a crawl. If that happens to you, DO NOT PANIC 😛
Second, based on past empirical data, you have a ~80% chance of matching with 6 interviews. It goes up to >90% with 8. Above 12, you top out around 95%+. That said, there's always the horror story of someone ranking 15 and matching to #14, or ranking 15 and not matching at all. So to answer the age-old question of "how many interviews should I go on," the consensus seems to be: go on as many as you get/are interested in/can schedule/can afford. That usually works out to somewhere between 10-15. IMHO, it's okay if you have slightly more (or less). Obviously, don't hold on to interviews you have no interest in and/or interviews you know you can't make. But if you're interested in a school, and you have the time and the money to make it to their interview, imho you owe it to yourself to go. Don't let people guilt you into dropping a school you were legitimately interested in.
And lastly, don't be discouraged if the numbers here end up intimidatingly high. SDN's an exceptional crowd, and my experience is that the broader world of ophthalmology is full of smart, high-achieving, but ultimately human and non-superstar applicants. The vast majority seem to match somewhere they'll be happy nonetheless.
Okay -- I'm gonna shut my big mouth. After match day I might come back here and do one more poll to see just what rank # we matched to 😛 Until then, happy holidays and BEST OF LUCK!
(Edit: clarified voting a bit.)
Since this is sort of a catch-all poll, it's pretty complicated, so please read the bold stuff before voting.
1) You are allowed to vote three times. The idea is to vote once per category.
2) The poll is grouped up into the following categories:
a) How many offers did you get?
b) How many "secondhand" interviews did you get? This is defined as an interview invite offered to you AFTER the school initially offered interviews; i.e., presumably an interview someone else had turned down.
c) How many interviews did you attend?
3) Please vote for only ONE option under each category. Because of stupid poll formatting, I wasn't able to put multiple polls on this one post -- so instead, I just repeated the questions as part of the poll answer choices. I also wanted to divide the numbers more finely, but 10 options was the max 😡b) How many "secondhand" interviews did you get? This is defined as an interview invite offered to you AFTER the school initially offered interviews; i.e., presumably an interview someone else had turned down.
c) How many interviews did you attend?
And now, just a couple things I wanted to say to future applicants: first, interview invites seem to come out in two waves, roughly corresponding to the schools that invite before Dean's letters and the ones that invite after. Ergo: one in mid/late September, and one in mid/late October. There are invites trickling out in between the waves, obviously, but those are when most people seem to have received most of their interviews. That also means there may be an agonizing 2-3 weeks in between when your invites might slow to a crawl. If that happens to you, DO NOT PANIC 😛
Second, based on past empirical data, you have a ~80% chance of matching with 6 interviews. It goes up to >90% with 8. Above 12, you top out around 95%+. That said, there's always the horror story of someone ranking 15 and matching to #14, or ranking 15 and not matching at all. So to answer the age-old question of "how many interviews should I go on," the consensus seems to be: go on as many as you get/are interested in/can schedule/can afford. That usually works out to somewhere between 10-15. IMHO, it's okay if you have slightly more (or less). Obviously, don't hold on to interviews you have no interest in and/or interviews you know you can't make. But if you're interested in a school, and you have the time and the money to make it to their interview, imho you owe it to yourself to go. Don't let people guilt you into dropping a school you were legitimately interested in.
And lastly, don't be discouraged if the numbers here end up intimidatingly high. SDN's an exceptional crowd, and my experience is that the broader world of ophthalmology is full of smart, high-achieving, but ultimately human and non-superstar applicants. The vast majority seem to match somewhere they'll be happy nonetheless.
Okay -- I'm gonna shut my big mouth. After match day I might come back here and do one more poll to see just what rank # we matched to 😛 Until then, happy holidays and BEST OF LUCK!
(Edit: clarified voting a bit.)
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