MD & DO co'21 Residency Panic thread

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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frenchyn said:
I agree w you. People name and shame those who got a lot of interview...but not matching is the worst thing that can happen. I have classmate who did not match, became depressed and miserable. Even if you re apply and dual apply to some lower speciality, the # of interviews that you will get decrease exponentially. I did not know that until now. You never know if you will match for sure even if you go to a lot of interviews, but I definitely will not want to take chance because some people will hate me...I am hoarding interviews because guess what? They may be the ones who match and I don’t...n will they be around to support and comfort me? Nope!!! Even worse, is if you cancel interviews, go unmatched and end up living the rest of your life wondering what if you went to those interview...I also saw this happened before...unfortunately
There are two sides of this with no perfect solution...but not matching is a terrible thing to happen. The person who gets a lot of interview no doubt work harder than the one who don’t. You can’t say the top people put in the same amount of work than the lower people. It would be nice if the people who have a lot of interview cancel them if they reach certain number...but you can not hate and be pissed of if they don’t. It is life unfortunately...I don’t live my life hating the top people at my school or people at Stanford because they work for their scores and resume.
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I think you missed the part where there is actual data to support that there is declining return once you hit a certain amount of interviews. Check out the stats.
 
Yorick said:
We should start advising high schoolers going into pre-med to do college and med school in different areas of the country lol, Northeast, California and Southeast in some order should do it.
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I think about this often, TBH. I passed on a few med schools out-of-state to save money attending the in-state place. HOWEVER, I will argue that this year is different with the lack of visiting rotations. I feel like that would have been the greater equalizer in normal times when it came to regional bias. But still, I think it's something that should be emphasized earlier on to pre-meds by advisors, especially if a student really knows where they want to end up in 5-10 years (which is reasonable considering that they ask you those sorts of questions at med school interviews).
 
cadingcading said:
I think you missed the part where there is actual data to support that there is declining return once you hit a certain amount of interviews. Check out the stats.
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Would be foolish to rely on data from past years when the system is completely changed this year.
 
cadingcading said:
I think you missed the part where there is actual data to support that there is declining return once you hit a certain amount of interviews. Check out the stats.
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I'm curious if those stats from previous years can be used as a reference point this year? You've got no travel or real time constrictions which you would've had in all previous years so other than burnout IDK what would cause diminishing returns
 
Pinocytosis said:
This is good to hear (with regard to me being in the same boat). Waiting for the "trickle" or the "second wave" is anxiety provoking and it is uncertain if it will even occur. By all accounts, I too should be doing much better in DR than I currently am.
Best of luck. Hang in there.
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Ngl, I read this first bolded part before my coffee and was like”screw you too man!” Lol

Forgot to mention I’m a DO without a home program so I’m sure that ain’t helping.

Good luck dude/dudette!
 
Also, why is anyone arguing with the interview hoarders? They’re not going to change they’re behavior and it’s silly to act like they have that many just due to dumb luck. Heck one of them is directly hurting me when you think about it. But I can’t change his/her mind or the broken system we’re all trapped in.
 
What I’d like to add to this mess of a thread is that anyone who thinks hoarding interviews is okay is ****, and you’re actually completely wrong.

The way the match algorithm works, you’re actually more likely to match this year (assuming a relatively safe number of interviews), assuming programs overreach and interview a lot of the wrong applicants. You’ve all said it yourselves that programs will go further down their lists to match because more of these top applicants are less likely to rank them. Which means people lower down the list will be more likely to match.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
What I’d like to add to this mess of a thread is that anyone who thinks hoarding interviews is okay is ****, and you’re actually completely wrong.

The way the match algorithm works, you’re actually more likely to match this year (assuming a relatively safe number of interviews), assuming programs overreach and interview a lot of the wrong applicants. You’ve all said it yourselves that programs will go further down their lists to match because more of these top applicants are less likely to rank them. Which means people lower down the list will be more likely to match.
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At what number would you consider someone to be interview hoarding? For GS for example the magic number in past years was 13+ consecutive ranks so if you're at 16 are you hoarding? 20? The ambiguity this year makes people much more apprehensive to flat out decline an interview
 
RamsFan&FutureDO said:
At what number would you consider someone to be interview hoarding? For GS for example the magic number in past years was 13+ consecutive ranks so if you're at 16 are you hoarding? 20? The ambiguity this year makes people much more apprehensive to flat out decline an interview
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It’s all relative bro/ sis. If you’re 260s , AOA, good research, etc I’d say damn right you’re probably hoarding if you’re sitting at 16. But if you’re DO with 450s, no USMLE, etc I’d say you probably aren’t. But at the same time one of them is actually going to be sitting at 16 and the other isn’t.

Luckily I’m applying EM where they’ve given us a hard cutoff for pretty much everything this year. MD with a home program but you still did 1 or more aways? RIP cause you’re hoarding by the guidelines. More than 2 if you don’t have a home program? Also RIP. They’ve also given us a hard cutoff for interviews which is 17, but made the mistake of making it essentially unenforceable. But I’m a big believer in karma so I’m not going to push my luck and be selfish just to lookout for myself this year.
 
mandu_cheeks said:
This is absolute malarkey.

One of my best friends who is in an arranged marriage came home to her husband cheating on her, just two months into dedicated period. She didn't get the step 1 score she wanted, but she managed to pass the most difficult standardized exam in medical school while going through months of psychological torture. I know someone else in my class who is up to his ears in debt, who maxed out his credit cards to apply to just 40 programs (he's applying to radiology, which means that his prelims AND advanced programs add up to 40 total). He wanted to apply to more because this is such an unprecedented application cycle, but he literally couldn't take out any more loans and he wasn't in a situation where he could comfortably ask his family for money.

I can go on and on about other students who were dealt a ****tier hand than you or me, but the point I'm trying to make is, it's impossible to correctly measure someone's level of effort with three-digit test scores. Or the number of interviews someone received in the first three weeks of the application cycle. I hope everyone in this thread, regardless of whether they currently have 0 or >20 interviews, feels proud of how much they've accomplished. We have ALL worked hard to get this far, and there's no point in devaluing the efforts of others.
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This.

I was in a domestic violence situation for awhile before and during early med school, and it took me until M4 year even after a year off to recover most of my functioning. My Step scores are garbage but I passed on the first try somehow. However, the compassion I gained for people going through difficult times skyrocketed, and I was wonderful clinically. Unfortunately, most programs have a you-know-what for high Step scores and won’t bother looking past that to see what else I have to offer.

If I were a terrible person, I’d say that I would love to compete against everyone leveled to the playing field of distress and dysfunction that I went through. Suddenly I’d be perfectly competitive. To the arrogant people on this thread, **** your assumptions.
 
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scrublyfe21 said:
It’s all relative bro/ sis. If you’re 260s , AOA, good research, etc I’d say damn right you’re probably hoarding if you’re sitting at 16. But if you’re DO with 450s, no USMLE, etc I’d say you probably aren’t. But at the same time one of them is actually going to be sitting at 16 and the other isn’t.

Luckily I’m applying EM where they’ve given us a hard cutoff for pretty much everything this year. MD with a home program but you still did 1 or more aways? RIP cause you’re hoarding by the guidelines. More than 2 if you don’t have a home program? Also RIP. They’ve also given us a hard cutoff for interviews which is 17, but made the mistake of making it essentially unenforceable. But I’m a big believer in karma so I’m not going to push my luck and be selfish just to lookout for myself this year.
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On the flip side, are you going to have that altruistic outlook if come March you don't match? Sorry, but to an extent interview hoarding is a prudent move in this unpredictable cycle. Not saying do 25+, but if you do the "fair" thing and you don't match then you're SOL and you'll be looking back going wow I sure wish I hadn't cancelled those other interviews
 
scrublyfe21 said:
What I’d like to add to this mess of a thread is that anyone who thinks hoarding interviews is okay is ****, and you’re actually completely wrong.

The way the match algorithm works, you’re actually more likely to match this year (assuming a relatively safe number of interviews), assuming programs overreach and interview a lot of the wrong applicants. You’ve all said it yourselves that programs will go further down their lists to match because more of these top applicants are less likely to rank them. Which means people lower down the list will be more likely to match.
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Lol at this “logic”. Not even the AAMC would agree with you. The point is that if an elite group of applicants take all of the interviews, there won’t even be people “lower on the list” to rank/match. Think about it. Sure, programs may have to go farther down their rank lists to fill, but your stance is based on the faulty assumption that interview number is limitless. Many programs have already stated they aren’t interviewing any more applicants than previous years. I predict that the real losers in this process will be mid-tier places that don’t attract the top applicants, as well as the lower stat folks who didn’t get a chance to interview because top applicants took all of the spots.
 
RamsFan&FutureDO said:
On the flip side, are you going to have that altruistic outlook if come March you don't match? Sorry, but to an extent interview hoarding is a prudent move in this unpredictable cycle. Not saying do 25+, but if you do the "fair" thing and you don't match then you're SOL and you'll be looking back going wow I sure wish I hadn't cancelled those other interviews
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Will be sad/ironic to see the virtue-signaling Twitter crowd go unmatched after they “cap” their own interviews at 15 to avoid “hoarding”.
 
RamsFan&FutureDO said:
On the flip side, are you going to have that altruistic outlook if come March you don't match? Sorry, but to an extent interview hoarding is a prudent move in this unpredictable cycle. Not saying do 25+, but if you do the "fair" thing and you don't match then you're SOL and you'll be looking back going wow I sure wish I hadn't cancelled those other interviews
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Doing right by others has gotten me this far so I’m not gonna throw it all away just to look out for myself 100%. My hope is that because I don’t act like a complete **** during my interviews, I’ll land on the ranklist somewhere. And the programs that decide to rank the tippy top applicants who aren’t gonna out the program anywhere on the list will drop to me, whereas in a regular year they might not.

essentially my hope is that getting on a rank list at all will give us lower tier applicants a better chance to rank at a program than in a typical year. Partly because of what I said above about top applicants just interviewing for their egos or for safety, and likely not end up ranking a lot of the programs, and partly because the people who have the attitude of “myself above all” tend to show through during interactions and end up shooting themselves in the foot with their personalities anyway.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
Doing right by others has gotten me this far so I’m not gonna throw it all away just to look out for myself 100%. My hope is that because I don’t act like a complete **** during my interviews, I’ll land on the ranklist somewhere. And the programs that decide to rank the tippy top applicants who aren’t gonna out the program anywhere on the list will drop to me, whereas in a regular year they might not.

essentially my hope is that getting on a rank list at all will give us lower tier applicants a better chance to rank at a program than in a typical year. Partly because of what I said above about top applicants just interviewing for their egos or for safety, and likely not end up ranking a lot of the programs, and partly because the people who have the attitude of “myself above all” tend to show through during interactions and end up shooting themselves in the foot with their personalities anyway.
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More power to you, but IF you go unmatched with this strategy you'll look back and kick yourself. There's a fine line between being selfish and being a realist this year. Also, as someone with a decent amount of interviews I can say I'm interviewing at all of them (currently) and also ranking all of them. It isn't for my ego, its so I don't increase my odds of having to go through the nightmare of a prelim year
 
scrublyfe21 said:
Chances are if you’re good enough to be getting 15 interviews this year, you don’t actually need those 15 interviews.
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Exactly. If you need 25 interviews to match you have a personality issue. Normal years put the “magic number” at like 10 or 11 in the majority of specialities. Maybe add 2 more cuz of COVID but nowhere near 25.

And if you haven’t done several interviews yet they’re exhausting I couldn’t picture myself getting through 25 haha
 
RamsFan&FutureDO said:
More power to you, but IF you go unmatched with this strategy you'll look back and kick yourself. There's a fine line between being selfish and being a realist this year. Also, as someone with a decent amount of interviews I can say I'm interviewing at all of them (currently) and also ranking all of them. It isn't for my ego, its so I don't increase my odds of having to go through the nightmare of a prelim year
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Outside of completely hating a program why would you not rank it? In essence that’s saying you would rather go unmatched and it’s hard to imagine feeling that way
 
scrublyfe21 said:
I’m gonna stroke my ego for a second. I go to a bottom tier DO school but if I had MD behind my name instead I’d be qualified to go to a top-10 program. I’ve gotten 15 invites and am cancelling/ declining from programs that I only added to my list in anticipation of not getting many interviews this year. At interviews so far it’s been implied that my SLOEs were somewhere between top-1/3rd and top 10%.

You might wonder why I find it necessary to bring that up. I bring it up because if I don’t match this year, just like everyone else with a similar amount of interviews, it’s my own fault. It means I ****ed up my interviews. It’s not because I didn’t go on that 15th interview.
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I mean good for you? The weird aggression you have towards others who disagree with your approach needs to go
 
I just want to add, the issue with "interview hoarding" really only applies to those who are getting a ton of invites and are doing interviews to programs that would go straight to the bottom of their list. Like @scrublyfe21 is saying, getting interviews at programs he added last minute in fear of not getting many invites, he's realizing that if he were to rank them, they'd probably go at the bottom of his rank list, so now he's withdrawing from those interviews. There's nothing wrong with this approach AND this does not equate to some ridiculous claim of virtue-signaling. Lol. We're all applicants this year, we're all stressed out. We all have different goals, expectations,, strategies. If your opinion is to apply to 150 programs and go on 30 interviews, knowing that 10 of those interviews don't interest you at all and will go straight to the bottom of your list... more power to you. But no need to say to someone on here, "well if you don't match... that strategy sucks". Like come on lol
 
browneyes1000 said:
Yeah as someone who has more interviews than goal, I am currently in the process of trimming my list and cancelling/declining interview invites. It is SCARY AS **** to do this y'all (especially because I'm convinced they are all a mistake as there are people on here a lot more impressive than me with less interviews), but it would be absurdly unfair to my fellow applicants.

And to be clear, this has nothing to do with not wanting to go to these programs - I did my research before applying and made sure I would be a good fit personality wise and application/board scores wise. I did apply to mostly community programs, which may explain the various invites I got, but still, no reason to hoard.

ALSO how the heck do people plan to take so much time off from rotations for so many interviews? I'm on the struggle bus over here ALREADY and this is WEEK ONE.
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I scheduled a bunch of online electives and year long teaching electives from mid october to mid january so I'm chilling at home for the majority of interview season lol.
efle said:
Regional is HUGE in my opinion. All of my most competative IIs are either near where I went to med school, college, or grew up.
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I thought this would be the case as well but for me in IM it has not rung true. 2/3 kind of "powerhouse" IM programs in my region that I was pretty confident in ghosted me, but I somehow got IIs at programs way in the northeast and on the west coast. It's extremely strange this year. I thought maybe it was because we had sent medical students to the programs in the past (we're a low tier school so big name program love is few and far between) but we hadn't that I could see from our match data in the past. IIs are just random as hell in my eyes.
Yorick said:
We should start advising high schoolers going into pre-med to do college and med school in different areas of the country lol, Northeast, California and Southeast in some order should do it.
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Should be advising them to try their ass off in undergrad and go for that T25 med school diploma. Puts you on easy mode for the match. I wish someone would've told me to try harder so I could have chances at the big names instead of chilling with my state school program.
Lawpy said:
Do you guys think the residency process can be improved by:

1. Banning all PD "you'll be ranked #1" or "stop interviewing elsewhere" and other false hope communication

2. Setting and enforcing application caps?
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I don't support an application cap at all. I think it will kill smaller programs like mine from ever putting students at top places, which would be pretty brutal after all the work getting through med school to not even have the luxury of applying to places you're excited about. I think an interview cap would serve the same purpose and be way less intrusive on med students application freedom.
 
Dr. Lion said:
Ya I'm exiting the forum. People want to decide whats a personal insult is or not and let people come through here and ruin this experience Moderating itself has been terrible.
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Noo it's all good, don't leave! This panic thread is a great tradition and it's been going well so far, we have to keep it up!
 
bayerncat said:
I scheduled a bunch of online electives and year long teaching electives from mid october to mid january so I'm chilling at home for the majority of interview season lol.

I thought this would be the case as well but for me in IM it has not rung true. 2/3 kind of "powerhouse" IM programs in my region that I was pretty confident in ghosted me, but I somehow got IIs at programs way in the northeast and on the west coast. It's extremely strange this year. I thought maybe it was because we had sent medical students to the programs in the past (we're a low tier school so big name program love is few and far between) but we hadn't that I could see from our match data in the past. IIs are just random as hell in my eyes.

Should be advising them to try their ass off in undergrad and go for that T25 med school diploma. Puts you on easy mode for the match. I wish someone would've told me to try harder so I could have chances at the big names instead of chilling with my state school program.

I don't support an application cap at all. I think it will kill smaller programs like mine from ever putting students at top places, which would be pretty brutal after all the work getting through med school to not even have the luxury of applying to places you're excited about. I think an interview cap would serve the same purpose and be way less intrusive on med students application freedom.
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Yeah but what if you hit your magic interview number and then the dream program sends you an II?
 
bayerncat said:
I don't support an application cap at all. I think it will kill smaller programs like mine from ever putting students at top places, which would be pretty brutal after all the work getting through med school to not even have the luxury of applying to places you're excited about. I think an interview cap would serve the same purpose and be way less intrusive on med students application freedom.
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I don't understand your point here. Why would a cap kill smaller programs? I think if anything the cap would force students from smaller programs (really, all programs) to apply more strategically. and it would result in programs not relying on filters to screen all the applications they recieve on day one.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
The only aggression I have is toward selfishness. During the first two years we call that kind of attitude gunning.
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Lol at turning the match into a moral issue. The only ones who need a moral compass adjustment are the people who created this process.
 
Espressso said:
I don't understand your point here. Why would a cap kill smaller programs? I think if anything the cap would force students from smaller programs (really, all programs) to apply more strategically. and it would result in programs not relying on filters to screen all the applications they recieve on day one.
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Because smaller programs can't be that strategic and selective when applying to top programs. We don't have the luxury. My PD at my home program straight up said if I want to apply to the top programs I have to apply to them all with the expectation that I may or may not get any invites even with high steps and AOA + other stuff.
 
Application caps are a must. It would result in everyone getting to better palces than they are now. It prevents trickle down from top applicants which limits what mid tier applicants get.
 
RamsFan&FutureDO said:
I'm curious if those stats from previous years can be used as a reference point this year? You've got no travel or real time constrictions which you would've had in all previous years so other than burnout IDK what would cause diminishing returns
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It isn't gospel but it still roughly works. Each applicant can only match to one program just like any other year.
 
Okay, the back and forth about who is what kind of person will stop now, or the people doing it are going to be banned from the thread for a while. Up until the last day or so, this thread was about supporting each other, and now suddenly it's about who can virtue signal the hardest or be the most realistic. If you want to go on every single interview because you feel you earned them and don't want to risk not matching, fine. Not everyone agrees with that strategy, and that's fine. Additionally, there are other factors that go into how many interviews someone gets or how competitive they are. Don't assume that just because they have lower stats that they didn't work as hard or don't have other circumstances.

On the other side, not everyone who wants to go on all their interviews has a personality disorder or is selfish and arrogant, and it's a bit hypocritical to say you're selfless and altruistic while saying anyone who disagrees with you has a personality disorder.

So the toxic arguing back and forth ends now.
 
Dr. Lion said:
Coming in here telling us we are less and didn't put in the work. If that's not an insult what is. But then to call it arrogance is the insult? The moderator bias on this site is definitely there and not going to deal with a site that going to promote that behavior.
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No one called you less. The poster you're referring to has a language barrier, which is fairly obvious from their posts, and they clarified themselves saying they meant lower competitiveness, not lesser of a person.

No one is promoting any toxic behavior. The moderator staff are all volunteers. We are all pre-meds, physicians, and medical students with work, school, and family. I am not being paid to be here. I have to fit this in between passing medical school, doing research, and raising my kids. You can help us by reporting posts you think violate TOS so that we get an alert, and the whole staff will see it.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Wtf is going on in this thread?
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Zki6LEk.gif
 
Espressso said:
Okay so back to the original thread...

No invites yet today on my end. Sitting at 10 so far for IM. Did get one rejection today though. That puts me at 6 rejections total.
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I'd love even hearing rejections from a few of my top places that haven't gotten back to me yet. The silent rejections are absolutely killer on the psyche.
 
I have an interview with a program tomorrow that's been scheduled since two weeks ago and I still haven't heard anything from the program. No itinerary, zoom links, or anything. I'm assuming there is no pre-interview meet and greet thing, but hopefully they don't send an email at like 5 saying come to our meet and greet at 6. That would be extremely annoying.
 
Espressso said:
Agreed. It's weird to say, but programs with killer websites make everything so much better. The trash websites just frustrate me to no end
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Agree. Also if the program is so bad that you have to hide the residents, why don’t they do something about changing the program? Seems like everyone would win
 
I was offered an EM interview but for a specific date, which of course is on a date that I really can't do it on because I'm currently on an audition with a program I'm interested in, have a shift scheduled that day, and I've already switched a few shifts for other interviews. Should I switch again and risk annoying the program I'm on or call the program and see if another date is available?
 
underthesun said:
Lol at turning the match into a moral issue. The only ones who need a moral compass adjustment are the people who created this process.
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EM leadership has definitely posed not going over their interview limits as the the right and equitable thing to do.

scrublyfe21 said:
Doing right by others has gotten me this far so I’m not gonna throw it all away just to look out for myself 100%. My hope is that because I don’t act like a complete **** during my interviews, I’ll land on the ranklist somewhere. And the programs that decide to rank the tippy top applicants who aren’t gonna out the program anywhere on the list will drop to me, whereas in a regular year they might not.
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I just wanna say I’m so excited to (hopefully) be going into a field with colleagues like you
 
Pokedoc said:
I was offered an EM interview but for a specific date, which of course is on a date that I really can't do it on because I'm currently on an audition with a program I'm interested in, have a shift scheduled that day, and I've already switched a few shifts for other interviews. Should I switch again and risk annoying the program I'm on or call the program and see if another date is available?
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I would see if you could schedule a different date, personally.
 
bayerncat said:
You could cancel one and slot it in. You'd still be at the cap.
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I meant if you’d already done all of them. What do you just hold onto a couple spots and keep trying to push them out until the last second hoping you get to cancel them?
 
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