MD & DO co'21 Residency Panic thread

Started by kraskadva
Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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underthesun said:
Is saying that 12% of IM applicants took 50% of the interviews the best interpretation of this data? Bc that means that 7% of FM applicants took 50% of FM interviews and that is tough to believe. Do you have a link to the actual paper? I feel like I need context to get what they’re trying to say
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Yeah, I was surprised too. But I do know cases IRL of competitive people getting like 40+ interviews because they were way too neurotic about apps, obviously they cancelled most of them due to travel/cost issues. This year that would just be 40 afternoons in front of a webcam.

Here's the paper:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30408192/

Some other interesting numbers they pulled out:

In ENT, 110 people received 1721 interviews. That's about 15-16 interviews each, a very reasonable number for a competitive ENT applicant to actually attend. That also means the remaining 306 applicants only got an average of 5-6 interviews each (likely nonparametric distribution though).

At a glance these numbers all check out i.m.o.
 
JibsGuy52 said:
Alright. 10/10 freak out. 2 II’s. Applying IM. 42 applications. 233 step1 238 step 2. Visa needed. USDO Canadian citizen.
WTF do I do? I’ve been dry since the first week.
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Yeah, as a Canadian I would have done at least 100. If you still have a chance I'd apply to more. Also, I'm assuming your COMLEX scores are pretty good too? I feel that so many DOs just report their step scores on here thinking that programs will just ignore comlex, which they probably will unless you've done poorly on it.
 
underthesun said:
Is saying that 12% of IM applicants took 50% of the interviews the best interpretation of this data? Bc that means that 7% of FM applicants took 50% of FM interviews and that is tough to believe. Do you have a link to the actual paper? I feel like I need context to get what they’re trying to say
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The paper where this graph came from made the assumption that the number of ranked positions in a specialty = number of interviews because that’s all the data they had. Given that FM is a back up heavy specialty, perhaps this low percentage is reflecting that people interview but don’t rank it/apply, receive an interview and turn it down therefore making the % artificially low?
 
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medstar11 said:
So I still have had no love from the home state. I am a DO applying FM with lower board scores but have 12 interviews out of 36 applications. None of my interviews have come from programs with any ties. I am also super nervous to send LOI for some reason especially because it doesn't look like they have sent interview invites this week yet. Do I wait until friday to send LOI or just go do it?
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Prehealth1011 said:
With nothing to back it up, I don’t think LOIs will hurt. You’ll either be ignored or get a generic response. If you happen to get a rejection I would hope they reviewed your app and then rejected it but the former two are the most likely outcomes. I would fire away.
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For what it's worth, my advisors are very open about LOI's and say that they can't really hurt. Keep them brief and to the point; at worst they will be ignored, but hey that's the baseline state you were already at.
 
ready2go2 said:
The paper where this graph came from made the assumption that the number of ranked positions in a specialty = number of interviews because that’s all the data they had. Given that FM is a back up heavy specialty, perhaps this low percentage is reflecting that people interview but don’t rank it/apply, receive an interview and turn it down therefore making the % artificially low?
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Well, ranked should theoretically be very close to IIs, unless people are attending the interview and then not even ranking it. Like, they'd have to prefer SOAPing to ranking it. I can't imagine many people do a lot of that.
 
So okay... I’m still sitting at 4 interviews, all from audition places (ie courtesy invites). I have friends with lower (MUCH lower) scores than me getting invites to programs where I applied...

One thing that blows about my app is BOTH of my surgery months were lost to COVID. I did surgery rotations right away when we were allowed to come back, but for whatever crazy reason my school only used the comments from those preceptors. The scores from my eval are just blank on the MSPE. And my transcript for surgery 1&2 just says “incomplete” for the grade. I am thinking this is a major issue leading to me having my app passed over. Not sure if I should reach out to some programs about it or what. It’s just a theory, but I really should have SOME interviews by now based on my stats.
 
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efle said:
Well, ranked should theoretically be very close to IIs, unless people are attending the interview and then not even ranking it. Like, they'd have to prefer SOAPing to ranking it. I can't imagine many people do a lot of that.
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I’m more talking about someone applying say both IM (first choice) and FM. They get invited to both, but quickly realize they don’t need FM as back up so either interview and don’t rank or decline/cancel interviews. They will get counted as being an FM applicant in this data but of course since they didn’t rank, the interview number looks low? That’s just my best guess because otherwise I can’t explain why it’s so low. The article mentions that 89% of people rank everywhere they interview, so less likely a post-interview thing I guess. But I think the applicant total might be funky
 
Spectreman said:
So okay... I’m still sitting at 4 interviews, all from audition places (ie courtesy invites). I have friends with lower (MUCH lower) scores than me getting invites to programs where I applied...

One thing that blows about my app is BOTH of my surgery months were lost to COVID. I did surgery rotations right away when we were allowed to come back, but for whatever crazy reason my school only used the comments from those preceptors. The scores from my eval are just blank on the MSPE. And my transcript for surgery 1&2 just says “incomplete” for the grade. I am thinking this is a major issue leading to me having my app passed over. Not sure if I should reach out to some programs about it or what. It’s just a theory, but I really should have SOME interviews by now based on my stats.
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Do you now have scores/evals entered? If so, would definitely send an update letter that says "Due to COVID grading was delayed, here look I Honored both my surgical rotations"
 
ready2go2 said:
I’m more talking about someone applying say both IM (first choice) and FM. They get invited to both, but quickly realize they don’t need FM as back up so either interview and don’t rank or decline/cancel interviews. They will get counted as being an FM applicant in this data but of course since they didn’t rank, the interview number looks low? That’s just my best guess because otherwise I can’t explain why it’s so low. The article mentions that 89% of people rank everywhere they interview, so less likely a post-interview thing I guess. But I think the applicant total might be funky
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They might be counting applicants the same way the NRMP does, based on what specialty you rank as your #1, so that you don't get double or triple counted into your backups. Not sure though. All the numbers for ENT look correct
 
efle said:
They might be counting applicants the same way the NRMP does, based on what specialty you rank as your #1, so that you don't get double or triple counted into your backups. Not sure though. All the numbers for ENT look correct
Click to expand...

So it appears it does not take just #1. Quote from discussion: "Furthermore, NRMP lists only contiguous ranks for a given specialty, so applicants who apply to more than one specialty and list a different specialty will reflect an artificially low numbers of interviews attended and thus lead to a higher Gini coefficient. This may be particularly evident in specialties where it is likely for applicants to cross-apply." So makes sense!
 
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JibsGuy52 said:
Alright. 10/10 freak out. 2 II’s. Applying IM. 42 applications. 233 step1 238 step 2. Visa needed. USDO Canadian citizen.
WTF do I do? I’ve been dry since the first week.
Click to expand...

At this point I would blast some LOI's and see if there are others where you can still throw your app to.
 
Spectreman said:
So okay... I’m still sitting at 4 interviews, all from audition places (ie courtesy invites). I have friends with lower (MUCH lower) scores than me getting invites to programs where I applied...

One thing that blows about my app is BOTH of my surgery months were lost to COVID. I did surgery rotations right away when we were allowed to come back, but for whatever crazy reason my school only used the comments from those preceptors. The scores from my eval are just blank on the MSPE. And my transcript for surgery 1&2 just says “incomplete” for the grade. I am thinking this is a major issue leading to me having my app passed over. Not sure if I should reach out to some programs about it or what. It’s just a theory, but I really should have SOME interviews by now based on my stats.
Click to expand...
Even to me (as a non-PD), that does not sound very good. Did your school not indicate *grade affected by COVID* at all?
 
ready2go2 said:
So it appears it does not take just #1. Quote from discussion: "Furthermore, NRMP lists only contiguous ranks for a given specialty, so applicants who apply to more than one specialty and list a different specialty will reflect an artificially low numbers of interviews attended and thus lead to a higher Gini coefficient. This may be particularly evident in specialties where it is likely for applicants to cross-apply." So makes sense!
Click to expand...
Interesting, so to skew the data they'd have to alternate the ranks. Like if you applied to IM with FM as a backup, you'd have to mix a few FM in between your IM ranks. Must keep the skew very minimal, or else we'd never see GenSurg and IM so similar to Derm!
 
3member said:
Even to me (as a non-PD), that does not sound very good. Did your school not indicate *grade affected by COVID* at all?
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The MSPE says the rotations were affected by COVID, but the grades on the transcript just say “IP”. My school specifically said “If any of you have to go through the match again your grades and MSPE will reflect your evaluation from the makeup rotation. The change will not be made to your transcript or MSPE this year.”
But they tried to assure us the verbiage in the MSPE was specific and says the rotation was affected by COVID. Plus the year being unique, programs will take this sort of thing into account. There is literally nothing I can do about it, but now that we’re this far out and I have zero cold app invites, I really think this is the big red flag on my app. I have no fails, top half of my class, 2 pubs, 6 posters, I meet cutoffs for most programs and have a huge gain in my level 2. I also have super solid letters from a heavier hitter and chief of surgery. I figured my scores were sub-230 and sub-240 so that would be my big flag. I have friends with sub-210 and sub-220 getting invites at places I applied. To me, that makes no sense except for the transcript thing.
 
Spectreman said:
The MSPE says the rotations were affected by COVID, but the grades on the transcript just say “IP”. My school specifically said “If any of you have to go through the match again your grades and MSPE will reflect your evaluation from the makeup rotation. The change will not be made to your transcript or MSPE this year.”
But they tried to assure us the verbiage in the MSPE was specific and says the rotation was affected by COVID. Plus the year being unique, programs will take this sort of thing into account. There is literally nothing I can do about it, but now that we’re this far out and I have zero cold app invites, I really think this is the big red flag on my app. I have no fails, top half of my class, 2 pubs, 6 posters, I meet cutoffs for most programs and have a huge gain in my level 2. I also have super solid letters from a heavier hitter and chief of surgery. I figured my scores were sub-230 and sub-240 so that would be my big flag. I have friends with sub-210 and sub-220 getting invites at places I applied. To me, that makes no sense except for the transcript thing.
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I agree. Your scores seem to be within range.. and I am assuming you applied to a broad range of programs. Could you reach out to your PD to see what they think? And I think some LOIs should be sent out as well (maybe have your letter writers reach out to some places).
 
efle said:
Interesting, so to skew the data they'd have to alternate the ranks. Like if you applied to IM with FM as a backup, you'd have to mix a few FM in between your IM ranks. Must keep the skew very minimal, or else we'd never see GenSurg and IM so similar to Derm!
Click to expand...
So is it basically what I thought and it’s short-sighted to say that 7% of the applicants to FM are taking 50% of the interviews? Sorry didn’t have chance to read paper yet
Edit: read some of it and answer appears to be yes, especially for backup specialties like FM and IM
 
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underthesun said:
So is it basically what I thought and it’s short-sighted to say that 7% of the applicants to FM are taking 50% of the interviews? Sorry didn’t have chance to read paper yet
Edit: read some of it and answer appears to be yes, especially for backup specialties like FM and IM
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Unclear, it seems like the only skew would be people who ranked their backup in the middle of their specialty of choice, and since IM and GS are roughly the same as Derm (which is never really used as a backup) I actually still completely trust the numbers. Potential exception for FM.
 
efle said:
Unclear, it seems like the only skew would be people who ranked their backup in the middle of their specialty of choice, and since IM and GS are roughly the same as Derm (which is never really used as a backup) I actually still completely trust the numbers. Potential exception for FM.
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Ok, my only thing is that there are TONS of people applying who never even interviewed in the specialty, even for ENT. Only like 75% of applicants even went on a single interview. When you take that into consideration I think the posted numbers are far more reasonable....like 23% of FM applicants taking 50% of the interviews. The only reason it is "7%" is that everyone uses it as a backup. Same for IM. Certainly surprising to see that such a large chunk of ENT applicants never even interviewed though. So hard to even know what that means.

Also, the derm numbers are close to the IM and GS numbers, but they could be close for different reasons. Since people never apply to derm as a backup and the applicants are uniformly very competitive, it makes sense that 28% of interviewed applicants could take up 50% of the interviews. In IM, it could be that 25% of interviewed applicants take up 50% of the interviews because people apply to IM as a backup and there are less applications geared specifically to IM, and thus less deserving of multiple interviews.

Anyways, it's sort of mind-twisting to think about.
 
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Anyone without a Level/Step 2 score having problems getting interviews? I was told by multiple PDs that they didn’t need the level 2 for an interview just for ranking. I am not seeing this is the case this year. Seems like many are prioritizing a complete application even if level 1 was much lower than mine. I thought they meant it when they were giving us leeway this year due to covid but that is not what I’m seeing.
 
cadingcading said:
Anyone without a Level/Step 2 score having problems getting interviews? I was told by multiple PDs that they didn’t need the level 2 for an interview just for ranking. I am not seeing this is the case this year. Seems like many are prioritizing a complete application even if level 1 was much lower than mine. I thought they meant it when they were giving us leeway this year due to covid but that is not what I’m seeing.
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2 friends don't have it and are struggling with invites. 1 friend got step 2 back and already got 4 this week.
 
CrypticRomantic said:
Hi guys,

I am applying psych, and I only have 1 interview invite right now.. Applied to 100 programs broadly and 40 IM programs. I have low board scores which is probably the reason..

Is it too late to start adding more IM programs? What should I do - I'm afraid of not matching? 🙁
Click to expand...

I don't have an answer for you, but I have Gir riding a stuffed pig tattooed on my foot.
 
cadingcading said:
Anyone without a Level/Step 2 score having problems getting interviews? I was told by multiple PDs that they didn’t need the level 2 for an interview just for ranking. I am not seeing this is the case this year. Seems like many are prioritizing a complete application even if level 1 was much lower than mine. I thought they meant it when they were giving us leeway this year due to covid but that is not what I’m seeing.
Click to expand...

yeah that’s what they said.... but I got 0 invites before my Level 2, and 6 invites since then. And I fully believe I was already completed passed over at many others by being filtered out entirely, reviewed without it never to be looked at again, or who already filled prior to my level 2.

my advice to any M3s reading this is have Level 2/Step 2 done BEFORE apps go out.
 
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sunshinefl said:
yeah that’s what they said.... but I got 0 invites before my Level 2, and 6 invites since then. And I fully believe I was already completed passed over at many others by being filtered out entirely, reviewed without it never to be looked at again, or who already filled prior to my level 2.

my advice to any M3s reading this is have Level 2/Step 2 done BEFORE apps go out.
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Did you simply request a transcript through ERAS to update your score, or did you email programs as well? I'm wondering if just requesting a new transcript through ERAS is sufficient for program to know that you have a new score.
 
sunshinefl said:
yeah that’s what they said.... but I got 0 invites before my Level 2, and 6 invites since then. And I fully believe I was already completed passed over at many others by being filtered out entirely, reviewed without it never to be looked at again, or who already filled prior to my level 2.

my advice to any M3s reading this is have Level 2/Step 2 done BEFORE apps go out.
Click to expand...

I'm inclined to agree with this. The only thing missing in my application was Level 2. I already had Step1/2 and scored well on those. I kinda feel it was my high Level 2 score that got me some II action.
 
Noemata said:
Did you simply request a transcript through ERAS to update your score, or did you email programs as well? I'm wondering if just requesting a new transcript through ERAS is sufficient for program to know that you have a new score.
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I re-transmitted in ERAS to all and let 6 programs know, 5 by email and 1 in person because it’s my core site and I’m currently there. Only 1 of the emailed programs responded with cut and paste, 0 invites from emailed programs. My core site invited me later that day.
 
sunshinefl said:
I re-transmitted in ERAS to all and let 6 programs know, 5 by email and 1 in person because it’s my core site and I’m currently there. Only 1 of the emailed programs responded with cut and paste, 0 invites from emailed programs. My core site invited me later that day.
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I don't get my score until December 7/8th. Would it be too late to update programs?
 
Oligodinero said:
I'm inclined to agree with this. The only thing missing in my application was Level 2. I already had Step1/2 and scored well on those. I kinda feel it was my high Level 2 score that got me some II action.
Click to expand...

I'm also agreeing with this. I think having my Level 2 by Oct 21st was my saving grace. I also have PE... but... don't think that's it :whistle:
 
sunshinefl said:
I re-transmitted in ERAS to all and let 6 programs know, 5 by email and 1 in person because it’s my core site and I’m currently there. Only 1 of the emailed programs responded with cut and paste, 0 invites from emailed programs. My core site invited me later that day.
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Judging by the interviews you received, it sounds like they know about the update even if you don't email them. Thanks for responding!
 
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Didn't get an II at what could've been my top choice program. My step scores were in the 75th percentile of their program, I was an in-state applicant with ties to the area and I published a paper with one of the residents in their program who said he put in a good word for me...this interview season makes no sense
 
CavsFan2016 said:
Didn't get an II at what could've been my top choice program. My step scores were in the 75th percentile of their program, I was an in-state applicant with ties to the area and I published a paper with one of the residents in their program who said he put in a good word for me...this interview season makes no sense
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Specialty?
 
CavsFan2016 said:
Didn't get an II at what could've been my top choice program. My step scores were in the 75th percentile of their program, I was an in-state applicant with ties to the area and I published a paper with one of the residents in their program who said he put in a good word for me...this interview season makes no sense
Click to expand...

+1, exact same situation
 
morningmedicine said:
I agree, no need to panic yet. However, the ERAS interview circus is only in town for a total of 14 weeks, and that includes the three slower weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.

So there are 11 weeks left, and only 8 full weeks left if you account for those aforementioned holiday weeks.
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Last year a psych PD on SDN said many places were wrapping up invites at the one month mark, ~2.5 weeks after MSPE was released for us. This was someone who was telling us to chill leading up to that point. I think I still got a couple after that point and I got one waaaay later that was almost definitely a cancellation. If anyone was thinking about doing LOIs you might want to do that this upcoming week.
 
Spectreman said:
The MSPE says the rotations were affected by COVID, but the grades on the transcript just say “IP”. My school specifically said “If any of you have to go through the match again your grades and MSPE will reflect your evaluation from the makeup rotation. The change will not be made to your transcript or MSPE this year.”
But they tried to assure us the verbiage in the MSPE was specific and says the rotation was affected by COVID. Plus the year being unique, programs will take this sort of thing into account. There is literally nothing I can do about it, but now that we’re this far out and I have zero cold app invites, I really think this is the big red flag on my app. I have no fails, top half of my class, 2 pubs, 6 posters, I meet cutoffs for most programs and have a huge gain in my level 2. I also have super solid letters from a heavier hitter and chief of surgery. I figured my scores were sub-230 and sub-240 so that would be my big flag. I have friends with sub-210 and sub-220 getting invites at places I applied. To me, that makes no sense except for the transcript thing.
Click to expand...

Any chance the heavy hitter could call a few programs on your behalf and attest to your abilities? I bet that would help a lot. Other than that, I would send some LOIs and try to explain the situation. I really can't believe the school is not updating the MSPEs. It screws over applicants like yourself.
 
MavFab said:
Any chance the heavy hitter could call a few programs on your behalf and attest to your abilities? I bet that would help a lot. Other than that, I would send some LOIs and try to explain the situation. I really can't believe the school is not updating the MSPEs. It screws over applicants like yourself.
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Got a few people making calls, yeah. Hopefully that helps. The advisor from Nova is trying to help me get them updated now that I’ve already done a bunch of surgery rotations.
 
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