Better chance if fellow interviewees have more interviews?

[pain monster]

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Basically, do I have a better shot at matching if the people I interview with have more interviews? Should I swap interviews to allow them to have more, or selfishly hoard them to prevent them from getting more...

Also, is it better for me if I'm interviewing with the same people at most of my interviews?

 

[Raryn]

Basically, do I have a better shot at matching if the people I interview with have more interviews? Should I swap interviews to allow them to have more, or selfishly hoard them to prevent them from getting more...

Also, is it better for me if I'm interviewing with the same people at most of my interviews?

Everyone can match at at most one spot.

 

[pain monster]

So yes? I want everyone to have more interviews so they rank more places (hopefully) higher than where I interviewed?

Still don't know whether its good to be seeing the same people at all my interviews or not though. Not that it matters, just curious match-wise.

 

[IMPD]

So yes? I want everyone to have more interviews so they rank more places (hopefully) higher than where I interviewed?

Still don't know whether its good to be seeing the same people at all my interviews or not though. Not that it matters, just curious match-wise.

It's neither good nor bad to be seeing the same people. It simply confirms your suspicions about "what kind of candidate" you are. Programs of similar qualities and locations tend to attract similar applicants and we can only interview people who apply to us.

The number of interviews you do makes some theoretical difference in the following scenario:
1. Programs do not increase interview spots given the LARGE increase in IM applications over the last 5 years, thus the more interviews X does, the fewer interviews that Y, W and Z are able to do. There is conflicting evidence, but my experience is that many programs have increased interview spots.

But, if you game this out, the programs that have not increased spots might be the more competitive and thus, giving up your interview spot at them is likely to disadvantage you.

The shortest answer here is that the system works best when everyone works to maximize their "best" match. This is why the authors of this algorithm won a Nobel prize for it.
http://www.nrmp.org/about/nobel-prize/

 

[Law2Doc]

You want to go to as many interviews as is feasible and rank all of them that you would be willing to go to in your order of preference. That's it. What others do is irrelevant. You can't game the system, only screw yourself over to varying degree. You don't know enough people or how the programs would rank them to know that if you gave someone one of your interviews that might help you somewhere else. You'd probably just have one less interview and someone you don't even know would probably move up one spot at one place, but not necessarily move their ranking at the program you cared about -- wouldn't help you.