I am feeling really anxious about my prospects. I am sitting on only my home institution interview and my post away interview. So 2 interviews out of 45 and rejected from 2 so far. I thought I had applied to a broad set of competitive-ness levels, but maybe not?
I really confused about what is happening. I am an average MD applicant stat-wise other then a terrible SVI score. Step1 240 and Step2 241. I have a fair number of publications and EC. I honored my away Sub-I and near honored my home sub-internship so I was hopeful that my SLOEs would be ok, but I am assuming they did not turn out as great as I had hoped. Is EM just way more competitive this year or what? Beside the SVI, what did I do wrong??
I am going to apply to more programs today, but any advise out there for picking programs that are looking for someone like me? Are there plenty of schools that are just waiting to send out interviews to the next tier as the top one starts canceling? All the promises of "waves" seemed to pass me by. 🙁 Am I screwed at this point ? ?
I just wanted to follow-up on this post for people that scan these forum next year for some guidance for their situation.
I am happy to report that I matched. Which I am excited and very pleased about. What is somewhat shocking that I have to report is that I only got 1 interview from the first 45 schools I applied to initially (and this was an interview in January). I added another 45 schools to my list and ended up having 8 interviews overall. I matched at my number 7.
Coming from a well respected school on the West Coast, I had expected a different outcome. However, I had classmates in similar situations that matched very low on their list and one that did not match to EM at all. I am not sure what the underlying factor was for our troubles, but several of them were told that they had some unfavorable comments on their SLOEs that seemed to be their only red flag.
Things that seemed to help in my situation and some of my classmates for people next year.
- Apply to more schools if you are not getting responses. If I had not added more schools I would have not matched. I would have liked to stay on in the West and literally did not interview at a single western school outside of my home institution and my away. Broaden your scope. Apply to places outside of major cities or the ignored programs in cities with very prominent EM programs or many programs.
- Writing letters of interest is helpful. One of my classmates scored 5 more interviews at the end of the interview season with this. Timing and content seemed important for this. If you have something really important that you can contribute to the program, important updates, and connections to the program-- that is really essential for letters of interest. I also think there are time periods that PD's are more likely to be considering applicants. Like the end of the season when PDs have sudden openings due to people dropping out in January or in other time periods where momentum might be dying down.
Take note that there was a reason that these programs overlooked you initially though. You will have to bring something to interview day to wow them or convince them you are a good fit. Otherwise you will not be high on their list.
- Do what you can to make your SLOE content perfect. Obviously this is not always in your control and you aren't able to really know it is a problem until it is too late, but every day on your away is an interview that might follow you through your interview season.
- Talk to the year that graduated before you. We realized later that two EM applicants had SOAPed the year before us and there were a couple people with <= 5 interviews applying in to EM that matched. Our advisors did not talk to us about these situations even though they were not so different from ours. These are red flags for the middle ground candidates that might suggest you should dual apply if SOAPing represents a nightmare you cannot fathom or you would actually be very happy with something like anesthesia that you cannot SOAP into.
The process of matching to EM when you have been seemingly pushed out for unknown reason is challenging and demoralizing, but just do what you can and realize that so much of this is not in your control. If anyone wants to contact me, I would be happy to talk to you.
