MD & DO co'21 Residency Panic thread

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EM hope said:
EM leadership has definitely posed not going over their interview limits as the the right and equitable thing to do.


I just wanna say I’m so excited to (hopefully) be going into a field with colleagues like you
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Sure, and that’s fine if they want to take that stance as the leadership team. On the other hand, I’ve worked with a lot of med students for the past three years and I’d be foolish if I depended on them to do the “right” thing. It would be nice if everyone could work together, but it’s risky to stake your career on that. Obviously specialty dependent as well.
 
Ho0v-man said:
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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If you did all of them than yeah you would be done but in this situation I would put the IV cap somewhere between 13-15. If you decided to go on all 13-15 interviews in October and early december and didn't think to leave an open slot or schedule some in january to cancel that's kind of just user error. 10-12 is still a very healthy and safe amount of interviews so there would easily be room to leave open a few slots for dream programs. Regardless, I'd rather be in the situation where I have too many interviews and can't schedule my 16th because of a cap than the one where I used up my 20 allotted applications and only got 5 interviews for the season with no recourse because of an application cap. Application cap takes away your freedom to apply. Interview cap takes away your freedom to hoard.
 
I guess I am in the minority who doesnt really care about what other people are doing?
Like if someone is going to attend 50 interviews, god bless them. Come match time its not like they can attend 50 programs. That program is going to have to drop down the list, or soap.
If i have to soap , i have to soap. And I am saying this with by all measures an objectively competitive application to my specialty with not many interviews at this point in the game.
 
bayerncat said:
If you did all of them than yeah you would be done but in this situation I would put the IV cap somewhere between 13-15. If you decided to go on all 13-15 interviews in October and early december and didn't think to leave an open slot or schedule some in january to cancel that's kind of just user error. 10-12 is still a very healthy and safe amount of interviews so there would easily be room to leave open a few slots for dream programs. Regardless, I'd rather be in the situation where I have too many interviews and can't schedule my 16th because of a cap than the one where I used up my 20 allotted applications and only got 5 interviews for the season with no recourse because of an application cap. Application cap takes away your freedom to apply. Interview cap takes away your freedom to hoard.
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What if the 16th interview is your dream program? Oh too bad you can't interview there because you didn't know they were going to invite you late?

An interview cap only works if all programs release their invites on the same day like Uro, ortho, and plastics are doing this year.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
What if the 16th interview is your dream program? Oh too bad you can't interview there because you didn't know they were going to invite you late?

An interview cap only works if all programs release their invites on the same day like Uro, ortho, and plastics are doing this year.
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Like I said, user error. If you aren't willing to only have 12 interviews scheduled and leave that 13th,14th,15th slot open for your dream program (knowing that 12 interviews is more than enough to match) is it really that much of a dream program? No one is forcing you to immediately schedule all your interviews to the cap in this situation. Why would you want to be in a situation with an application cap that leaves you with less interviews than that, less options, and no way to apply to more if your yield is dangerously low?

I don't want a cap on either one, but if it had to be done I would rather have an interview cap.
 
It wouldn't be that hard to make a fair cap system that works. Releasing all IIs on one day, with people then picking their favorite 12-15, and then maybe a week of waitlist shuffling to deal with people who got extra IIs they turned down. Boom, now everybody goes into the season knowing exactly what the schedule looks like & where they're interviewing start to finish.

It would be such a game-changer. When PDs have 100 applicants per spot they're forced to rely on Step and filter you out for anything they can think of, like regional bias. Otherwise they end up interviewing tons of people who are just using them as a safety.

If suddenly there are only 15-20 applicants per spot, things like your letters and app narrative will actually play a role, and they'll know that everyone applying is actually highly interested in their program since they used up a precious spot on you.

It has to happen at some point, we can't just let the numbers of apps keep trending up every year until people are applying to 200 programs each.
 
Having the ability to choose all the programs you want to apply to freely and open as much opportunity for your career as possible is one of the very few things the applicant has any control of in med school. I am absolutely against capping that and limiting our options even further, we already are at the mercy of everyone above us in enough aspects.
 
bayerncat said:
If you did all of them than yeah you would be done but in this situation I would put the IV cap somewhere between 13-15. If you decided to go on all 13-15 interviews in October and early december and didn't think to leave an open slot or schedule some in january to cancel that's kind of just user error. 10-12 is still a very healthy and safe amount of interviews so there would easily be room to leave open a few slots for dream programs. Regardless, I'd rather be in the situation where I have too many interviews and can't schedule my 16th because of a cap than the one where I used up my 20 allotted applications and only got 5 interviews for the season with no recourse because of an application cap. Application cap takes away your freedom to apply. Interview cap takes away your freedom to hoard.
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You know what? I think I’m more on board with this now.

But I still wish we’d cap apps at like 40. It’d work if programs would just be transparent with what they want. But instead programs say “We do not have a strict score cutoff and all applications are holistically reviewed.” Average step 1 score is 245.
 
Ho0v-man said:
You know what? I think I’m more on board with this now.

But I still wish we’d cap apps at like 40. It’d work if programs would just be transparent with what they want. But instead programs say “We do not have a strict score cutoff and all applications are holistically reviewed.” Average step 1 score is 245.
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An application cap at 40 wouldn't be bad. When I've seen people talk about application caps in the past it's always like 15-25 and I am very against something that limiting.
 
libertyyne said:
I guess I am in the minority who doesnt really care about what other people are doing?
Like if someone is going to attend 50 interviews, god bless them. Come match time its not like they can attend 50 programs. That program is going to have to drop down the list, or soap.
If i have to soap , i have to soap. And I am saying this with by all measures an objectively competitive application to my specialty with not many interviews at this point in the game.
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The problem is programs have been vocal about not interviewing more people this year, and there’s a chart from NRMP or ERAS floating around somewhere showing evidence that by-and-large, it’s a complete myth that applicants over applied this year. There are anecdotal cases out there of people applying to 100+ programs but they’re huge outliers. So doing 50 interviews based on the assumption that everyone else is doing the same is based on an assumption that isn’t true, and these people are quite literally keeping others from having those interview spots.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
The problem is programs have been vocal about not interviewing more people this year, and there’s a chart from NRMP or ERAS floating around somewhere showing evidence that by-and-large, it’s a complete myth that applicants over applied this year. There are anecdotal cases out there of people applying to 100+ programs but they’re huge outliers. So doing 50 interviews based on the assumption that everyone else is doing the same is based on an assumption that isn’t true, and these people are quite literally keeping others from having those interview spots.
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So? They cant take up 50 residency spots.
Like who gives the ****. Those programs will go unmatched and soap or will drop down lower on their list. And If i have to SOAP these are the same programs that will have spots available.
 
libertyyne said:
So? They cant take up 50 residency spots.
Like who gives the ****. Those programs will go unmatched and soap or will drop down lower on their list. And If i have to SOAP these are the same programs that will have spots available.
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Yep 100%. If you want to do a limited number of interviews that’s fine, but you don’t get to berate those people who are taking a different approach and choose to attend every interview they’re offered
 
scrublyfe21 said:
The problem is programs have been vocal about not interviewing more people this year, and there’s a chart from NRMP or ERAS floating around somewhere showing evidence that by-and-large, it’s a complete myth that applicants over applied this year. There are anecdotal cases out there of people applying to 100+ programs but they’re huge outliers. So doing 50 interviews based on the assumption that everyone else is doing the same is based on an assumption that isn’t true, and these people are quite literally keeping others from having those interview spots.
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applying is not the same as interviewing

Last year maybe a person applies to 50 programs, gets 30 II's, and goes on 12 ish interviews due to cost and just little desire to attend the interview now that they have enough.

This year that person can go on 30 interviews because without travel costs/travel-associated time commitment, it's literally the same amount of time without the jetlag. And med students are neurotic. They'll go on every interview because in their minds so is everyone else. Especially if they read this thread.
 
RamsFan&FutureDO said:
Yep 100%. If you want to do a limited number of interviews that’s fine, but you don’t get to berate those people who are taking a different approach and choose to attend every interview they’re offered
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All I’m getting at is the things we like to say about ourselves at interviews about being team players, selfless, supportive, pick your adjective about looking out for others are more than nice sounding words.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
All I’m getting at is the things we like to say about ourselves at interviews about being team players, selfless, supportive, pick your adjective about looking out for others are more than nice sounding words.
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That’s the thing, residency applications and the match as a whole isn’t a team sport. In a team sport we all succeed or we all fail. This process is more equivalent to a single elimination tennis tournament. Selflessness and being a team player are fantastic, key characteristics when you’re playing a team sport, but this process isn’t one. I don’t believe the system should work this way mind you, but that’s a topic for another day
 
Dr. Lion said:
I don't see anyone here berrating people holding on to all their interviews, yet people keep insisting that's whats happening.
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Literally one post above you, a user heavily implied that people who don't give up interviews are selfish and unsupportive.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
I’m gonna stroke my ego for a second, and I’m really only saying this for context. 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 personally know people who did not match and their mentors could not figure out what is wrong w them...including personality...sometimes people may fall through the crack or interview at 15 programs that don’t have the culture that fit them...also some specialties are more competitive than others. You can say if you have MD vs DO then...I can also say if I win lottery then...lol...I don’t know what you get from saying that...nothing
 
RamsFan&FutureDO said:
That’s the thing, residency applications and the match as a whole isn’t a team sport. In a team sport we all succeed or we all fail. This process is more equivalent to a single elimination tennis tournament. Selflessness and being a team player are fantastic, key characteristics when you’re playing a team sport, but this process isn’t one. I don’t believe the system should work this way mind you, but that’s a topic for another day
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If I had the time, I might try to model the application and interview process as a nonlinear good and see how it plays out. However, I suspect it is more likely to be a linear payout, and the Nash equilibrium is at 0 because the public good benefit is marginal compared to the cost (potentially not matching).
 
So what's up with some IM programs that looks good on paper (has fellowships, successful graduates and so on) but had to SOAP for multiple spots last year?
Does that mean the program ranked the "wrong" applicants statswise or it's just a malignant program.
 
MDGunner said:
Go Navy. Beat Army. Happy belated 244 B-day. I am Just a lowly MS1. Reading this thread is scarring me a bit. I am learning quite a bit from this thread and I am getting entertainment at the same time. Good luck to all. I hope everyone match.
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Hooyah Navy. One more month. Yeah, I'm just an MS2, but this thread is making me eternally grateful I will almost certainly not have to deal with this.
 
Edited to remove. My phone won’t let me delete it and I didn’t want to contribute anymore to the anger and derailment. Sorry gang!
 
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Speaking of the soap. Does anyone think it will be significantly more competitive than usual since there might be a good number of decent applicants this year?
 
frenchyn said:
I personally know people who did not match and their mentors could not figure out what is wrong w them...including personality...sometimes people may fall through the crack or interview at 15 programs that don’t have the culture that fit them...also some specialties are more competitive than others. You can say if you have MD vs DO then...I can also say if I win lottery then...lol...I don’t know what you get from saying that...nothing
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I will say, and albeit a bit too late now since we've all submitted our applications... I was strongly advised by multiple advisors and matched residents to apply to a broad range of programs because of those people w/15 interviews and not matching. If you're ranking all top tier programs for your 15, you'll be competing with many stellar candidates for those spots. (I speak for GS).
 
I apologize for whatever role I played in derailing this thread. Good luck y'all

Chibucks15 said:
I'd love even hearing rejections from a few of my top places that haven't gotten back to me yet.
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I'd love even more hearing from them with an II 🙂 Come on #1 program! Definitely sending an actual LOI (not just an updated contact information email) to them today.
 
This year it's more like a prisoner's dilemma.

Prisoner's dilemma - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

From a rational, economical perspective, marginal benefit of another interview is non-negligible and marginal cost is almost negligible for some people.

Whether or not one should "hoard" interviews is controversial and debatable as we've seen.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
The problem is programs have been vocal about not interviewing more people this year, and there’s a chart from NRMP or ERAS floating around somewhere showing evidence that by-and-large, it’s a complete myth that applicants over applied this year. There are anecdotal cases out there of people applying to 100+ programs but they’re huge outliers. So doing 50 interviews based on the assumption that everyone else is doing the same is based on an assumption that isn’t true, and these people are quite literally keeping others from having those interview spots.
Click to expand...
The scary part was never going to be high application volumes though. Programs were already getting an absurd amount of apps per seat and relying on crappy convenience filters like Step 1.

The scary part is maldistribution of interviews. Here's some spooky data from an ENT paper last year. Imagine how much worse these skews can get with no travel/costs involved.

img_0568.jpg

For example look at IM. In a normal year, 50% of interviews were being consumed by 12% of applicants. This is not a system that will bear interview hoarding very well.
 
3member said:
I will say, and albeit a bit too late now since we've all submitted our applications... I was strongly advised by multiple advisors and matched residents to apply to a broad range of programs because of those people w/15 interviews and not matching. If you're ranking all top tier programs for your 15, you'll be competing with many stellar candidates for those spots. (I speak for GS).
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I actually applied to more programs than I was advised too. I can’t take the chance of not matching because of something called “family”...I would care less about what others say when I hoard interview....but no I am planning at capping myself at a higher number than previously reported by NRMP because of this year...at the same time tho I don’t think it is right for people call out others who hoard interview. We all work hard, want to match and have our own circumstances that make matching the worst thing that can happen.
 
frenchyn said:
I actually applied to more programs than I was advised too. I can’t take the chance of not matching because of something called “family”...I would care less about what others say when I hoard interview....but no I am planning at capping myself at a higher number than previously reported by NRMP because of this year...at the same time tho I don’t think it is right for people call out others who hoard interview. We all work hard, want to match and have our own circumstances that make matching the worst thing that can happen.
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You are way too defensive chill out...everyone's got "family" and obligations. Everyone wants to match, everyone works hard, everyone applied. For the love of God You. are. not. special.
 
NecrotizingFasciitis said:
Got another rejection today homies, and it was a program on the lower end of my interview “sweet spot” with respect to program rankings based on others I’ve gotten. Ugh.

Luckily wasn’t one of my top 5 programs or anything so we gucci.
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I would enjoy a rejection at this point. I'm not worried but I haven't heard anything for a few days. Sometimes I think as DOs they don't even think to reject us lol.
 
bayerncat said:
Unfortunately, I think the zoom interviews are going to be a thing that stays for many programs.
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That's not what I meant. I go to USUHS. I don't have to apply through ERAS unless I really want to go to a civilian program.
 
Chibucks15 said:
You are way too defensive chill out...everyone's got "family" and obligations. Everyone wants to match, everyone works hard, everyone applied. For the love of God You. are. not. special.
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Actually, most med students don't have a spouse and children depending on them for income. Doesn't mean they don't have obligations though. So I can see where you're both coming from.

Regardless, @frenchyn and @Chibucks15 you are not going to agree on this. I suggest you just put each other on ignore, because I will put you on timeout from the thread if you don't drop it.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Actually, most med students don't have a spouse and children depending on them for income. Doesn't mean they don't have obligations though.

Regardless, @frenchyn and @Chibucks15 you are not going to agree on this. I suggest you just put each other on ignore, because I will put you on timeout from the thread if you don't drop it.
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Thank you!!!!!I misunderstood her/him. I apologize on previous thread. Obviously the tension is still there hence the personal attack...but again I will say sorry...grow up and move on...good luck to us all. Hope we all match...blame it on covid.
 
Chibucks15 said:
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
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if anything i'd feel like you'd need less since there's so many of the same people with high stats taking up interview spots hahah
 
3member said:
I will say, and albeit a bit too late now since we've all submitted our applications... I was strongly advised by multiple advisors and matched residents to apply to a broad range of programs because of those people w/15 interviews and not matching. If you're ranking all top tier programs for your 15, you'll be competing with many stellar candidates for those spots. (I speak for GS).
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by top tier you mean like Upenn right lol not mid-tier or upper mid-tier academic programs. nervous as i dropped my community and hybrid programs lol since i had 20 academic.
 
The issue is that the consequences of not matching are so substantial, so severe that even if someone has a 95% chance of matching, they would be hardpressed not to make it 98%. There is a stigma to reapplicants and most people who don’t match the first time around don’t ever get into their specialty. Half of people who apply to SOAP don’t ever get a position. And many that do end up in Prelim Gen Surg (the worst type of hell). The consequences of not matching are much worse than not getting into medical school IMO
 
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ace_inhibitor111 said:
The issue is that the consequences of not matching are so substantial, so severe that even if someone has a 95% chance of matching, they would be hardpressed not to make it 98%. There is a stigma to reapplicants and most people who don’t match the first time around don’t ever get into their specialty. Half of people who apply to SOAP don’t ever get a position. And many that do end up in Prelim Gen Surg (the worst type of hell). The consequences of not matching are much worse than not getting into medical school IMO
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Ah finally, we're back on topic, let the panic ensue!
 
efle said:
The scary part was never going to be high application volumes though. Programs were already getting an absurd amount of apps per seat and relying on crappy convenience filters like Step 1.

The scary part is maldistribution of interviews. Here's some spooky data from an ENT paper last year. Imagine how much worse these skews can get with no travel/costs involved.

img_0568.jpg

For example look at IM. In a normal year, 50% of interviews were being consumed by 12% of applicants. This is not a system that will bear interview hoarding very well.
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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
 
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?
 
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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