california dreams

[retinalball]

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[FutureCTDoc]

I'm not certain that an away is of that great value assuming you have a decent program at home. It is certainly possible to match out there although it is likely to be competitive. Depending on your school, it might or might not be worth doing an away. Columbia has an amazing department chair in ophtho for example, if you have someone like their chair it isn't worth it unless you're going for a single particular program i.e. Stein.

 

[Visionary]

I am from and go to med school in New York and I want to try to get an ophtho residency in California. Is this going to be impossible? Do Cali schools not take non-Cali applicants for the most part?

Also, I do not have any away rotations scheduled, but I have no rotation scheduled in October yet. Should I try and do an away rotation in Cali during October? Will this help me out to try to get an interview at that site, or is doing my first away in October basically too late to help me out?

thanks

My understanding about cross-country applications is that your chances are low, unless you have a connection to the area. For instance, if you are training in NYC, but have family in CA, you may have an in. Think about it as a program director/chairman in CA. You have a certain number of interview slots from which to come up with enough candidates to create a rank list that will reliably fill your class. With the numbers being equal (and there will always be someone that looks as good as you on paper), would you interview someone from NYC that has no ties to CA or someone who has trained somewhere in CA? The NYC candidate may just be shot-gunning, in hopes of matching somewhere good. No way to know for sure. That may not be a fair assessment, but.... For instance, I know of a guy who was 1st in his class, president of his class, ridiculous Step I score, and didn't get a single interview from a CA program. Ended up matching at a top 5 east coast program, though. There is definitely a coastal bias.

 

[JMK2005]

An october away is pretty late and not likely going to help. You may want to do it anyways so you can see how that program functions, but don't expect to get a courtesy interview out of it.

 

[VikingFavre]

My understanding about cross-country applications is that your chances are low, unless you have a connection to the area. For instance, if you are training in NYC, but have family in CA, you may have an in. Think about it as a program director/chairman in CA. You have a certain number of interview slots from which to come up with enough candidates to create a rank list that will reliably fill your class. With the numbers being equal (and there will always be someone that looks as good as you on paper), would you interview someone from NYC that has no ties to CA or someone who has trained somewhere in CA? The NYC candidate may just be shot-gunning, in hopes of matching somewhere good. No way to know for sure. That may not be a fair assessment, but.... For instance, I know of a guy who was 1st in his class, president of his class, ridiculous Step I score, and didn't get a single interview from a CA program. Ended up matching at a top 5 east coast program, though. There is definitely a coastal bias.

Agree with this. Every interview I went to in CA someone mentioned the fact I had family in the area and asked how I liked CA. If it had not been mentioned in my personal statement I don't think I would have gotten any interviews.

 

[Pastrami King]

There is no reason that an east coast medical student cannot match on the west coast. I did, as did a number of other residents/former residents I know.

 

[MstaKing10]

Things may be skewed simply because people from the west coast are more likely to apply and eventually match on the west coast. Same goes for east coast applicants. I don't think there's a prejudice either way. Obviously if you have connections to the program that helps, but that's the case no matter what program you are applying to.

 

[echinoderm]

if you look at where individual residents come from at the various CA ophtho residency programs, you'll see very diverse origins across the nation.... true, many of these individuals have a remote connection to the sunshine state.. but that doesn't correlate with less likelihood or less success rate for out-of-staters...

 

[digitalsideburn]

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[MedEye]

USC/Doheny loves to take applicants from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Mayo, Yale. Check their website. 3 years ago, 7 USC students applied to ophtho; they all matched, but none in California!
Good luck

 

[Visionary]

USC/Doheny loves to take applicants from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Mayo, Yale. Check their website. 3 years ago, 7 USC students applied to ophtho; they all matched, but none in California!
Good luck

Who doesn't like to take folks from distinguished med schools such as those? If you graduated highly ranked from a top 10 med school and are applying to top 10 residencies, regional bias is likely not an issue. It's more of an issue for the overwhelming majority who don't have such a pedigree.