4th year with an interview dilemma, am looking for advice

[PCxX]

Hey all,

I am a 4th year podiatry student. I want to keep this as anonymous as possible, so I won't mention which school. Here's a little bit of a rundown of my situation. I'm a solidly above average student (3.4 GPA, near the top 1/3 of my class, passed Part I 1st try, had overwhelmingly good feedback from all my externships etc.) A lot of the programs I externed at are among the top programs in the country. That being said, I am a little bit worried about my interview situation. I applied to all 18 interviews that I was allowed on CRIP, but ended up only receiving 5. If any programs I applied to only interview externs, they didn't state so on their CRIP sheet, and almost all the interviews I got were from programs I externed at. I exceeded all of the minimum cutoffs at the programs I applied to, so this is a surprise to me. I've read my LORs and all are good, one of which is excellent. Most people I know are sitting at 8+ interviews and now I'm really concerned that I may need to scramble.

Obviously I need to prepare extra well for interviews to try and perform as well as I can and I'm planning on visiting some programs to increase my odds at the ones I've applied to and gotten interviews from, but this has me very worried. I figured that most people who performed well academically and in clinic would be fine with match, but this definitely has me concerned. How worried should I be and what should I be doing going forward to avoid scrambling? I understand that only being able to interview at 5 programs is a bad thing, so this is a pickle for me.

Additionally, is it possible to match at programs you did not interview or clerk at? My hunch is the answer is no, but I'm not clear on all that. Thanks for any help!

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[CutsWithFury]

Hey all,

I am a 4th year podiatry student. I want to keep this as anonymous as possible, so I won't mention which school. Here's a little bit of a rundown of my situation. I'm a solidly above average student (3.4 GPA, near the top 1/3 of my class, passed Part I 1st try, had overwhelmingly good feedback from all my externships etc.) A lot of the programs I externed at are among the top programs in the country. That being said, I am a little bit worried about my interview situation. I applied to all 18 interviews that I was allowed on CRIP, but ended up only receiving 5. If any programs I applied to only interview externs, they didn't state so on their CRIP sheet, and almost all the interviews I got were from programs I externed at. I exceeded all of the minimum cutoffs at the programs I applied to, so this is a surprise to me. I've read my LORs and all are good, one of which is excellent. Most people I know are sitting at 8+ interviews and now I'm really concerned that I may need to scramble.

Obviously I need to prepare extra well for interviews to try and perform as well as I can and I'm planning on visiting some programs to increase my odds at the ones I've applied to and gotten interviews from, but this has me very worried. I figured that most people who performed well academically and in clinic would be fine with match, but this definitely has me concerned. How worried should I be and what should I be doing going forward to avoid scrambling? I understand that only being able to interview at 5 programs is a bad thing, so this is a pickle for me.

Additionally, is it possible to match at programs you did not interview or clerk at? My hunch is the answer is no, but I'm not clear on all that. Thanks for any help!

The chances of you just interviewing for a program you never visited or clerked at is slim to none. I'm not surprised they didn't grant you an interview. Not trying to be harsh but all these programs get a ton of student externs and students visiting. They are more likely to grant these students interviews than just somebody who "looks good on paper". That's your fault for not visiting more programs. Interviewing and matching for residency is so critical you need to do whatever you can to visit as many programs as possible.

We had 7 externships when I was in school. 1 was after match. Therefore I found time/ created time to go visit that one program prior to match to ensure I would at least get 7 interviews. I also found time to visit an additional 3-4 programs (even if it was just for one day) to try and lock down more interviews. It worked. Going into Match I had 11 interviews. All programs I either externed at or visited. You have to play the odds. The more interviews you do the better you get at it. I would schedule the programs you want to match at the most later in the process. You are not going nail every interview.

When it was all said and done I did not get 11 call backs. In fact I got half that. A lot the programs that brought me back for a second interview and ultimately ranked me to match were some of the programs I just visited for the day.

5 interviews is not terrible. It is not great. All you really need to do is match at one. Since you only have 5 to prepare for I would study as hard as you can. Talk to every person you know who has externed or interviewed at the program before you. If you know your stuff then you know your stuff. Bright students always rise to the top when the pressure is on.

 

[josebiwasabi]

If you applied to a lot of west coast programs for interviews, you likely got weeded out in the initial screening for having below a 3.5 GPA. The same thing happened to me back in the day despite being in the top 25% of my class. I also maxed out my applications and ended up with only 7 or 8 interviews. The programs which granted me interviews were either places I had externed or visited, or there was a current resident who knew me well from school and vouched for me. My very 1st interview of CRIP was with one of my top choices after the interview I knew I had the spot which made the rest of the process much less stressful.

As mentioned above, you only need 1 program to give you a chance in order to match.

Here's my biggest piece of advice for all of you going to CRIP:
The only studying you need to be doing at CRIP is researching the program you are about to interview with, especially if you did not spend a month there. Do not be that guy sitting outside the door of the interview frantically flipping through PRISM (or even worse, pocket pod). You have worked hard for 4 years, you know more than you think. Don't create more anxiety for yourself right before your interview.

Best of luck!

 

[heybrother]

One year my program interviewed a bunch of non-visiting students as an attempted gesture to show we didn't just pick from 2 schools. So I put a US map on the first page of the powerpoint and asked them to point to where our program is located. It went poorly. Which was weird because most of the people were from a directly neighboring state and the answers were all over the place.

Student leaves room.
me: What did you think of that person?
PD: I stopped listening when they couldn't pick us out on a map. (so at the 1st question)

Consider the implications of that - you are visiting a program that you can't point to on a map. How can you know anything about it if you can't even say where it is? The first student to answer wrongly also told us she wanted to do her residency in a large urban city with many museums where she could spend her time. We weren't in a big city. "She won't be happy here, cross her off."

Being asked - "tell me anything about this program/why do you want to be here" is a more than fair question. A friend of mine at a Chicago program asked interviewees this question over and over again and had this exchange a plural number of times.
"Tell me about this program."
"You are in Chicago."
"Lots of programs are in Chicago, tell me about this program."

Trying to make something from nothing by scanning the CASPR page will get you no where.
"You are a large residency group so that means that you all have to work together as a team."
Or opposite bullcrap answer - "You are a small residency, therefore you all really know each other like a small family."

Scouring programs websites is also dangerous. My PD went to some woundcare conference once forever ago and they gave a bullcrap certification that he didn't care about which his hospital put onto his hospital bio. So when my PD says "tell us about this program" this guy says "well I know you love woundcare because you are certified in it". My attending had NO idea what the guy was talking about because he had never looked at his own hospital bio. I had randomly seen it there. The doc in question hates diabetics and woundcare and the answer seemed like non-sense.

If you haven't visited, an infinitely preferable answer to trying to make something up is - "well, I spoke to Dr. Resident A and blah blah blah." You called. You asked. You showed interest. You got to say something potentially definitive.

When you just make something up or assume something you are setting yourself up for disappointment. "Well, you are in X city so I think that means you all probably do a lot of trauma." If the program doesn't do any trauma they'll just cross you right off - "he wants to go to a trauma program but that's not the focus of this program."

Just some random thoughts in the spirit of knowing something about a program.