MD & DO co'21 Residency Panic thread

Started by kraskadva
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Chibucks15 said:
Interview caps makes sense. Put it at like 3 over the "99% matching" thing the data puts out. If you get one at a reach program you're able to drop a lower one. Although I think that the problem is amplified this year more than most, as every other year travel and money serve as de facto caps
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Yeah, it’s really moot at this point. It would have been a good thing to do for this season.
 
Chibucks15 said:
Interview caps makes sense. Put it at like 3 over the "99% matching" thing the data puts out. If you get one at a reach program you're able to drop a lower one. Although I think that the problem is amplified this year more than most, as every other year travel and money serve as de facto caps
Click to expand...
Problems with this are:
1. If i only get to interview at 15 programs for example (coming from a ****ty med school), the top 10 of my list is top 20 programs who we all know interview all top applicants, we all know based on the pedigree is these top programs tend to match people at top schools, so despite interviews, my chance at the top 10 of my list is low...that leaves me only 5 programs to have a good chance at...So it will force applicants to choose whether they really want to match at top program vs maximizing their chance to match. Again things are more at higher stakes with competitive specialties where pedigree and med school name play a bigger role.
2. Programs have to release invite at one time. I noticed I interviewed at programs I did not really want because they released invites first thing after 10/21...Programs I really want did not release until 2 months after...so do I really want to drop interviews before knowing whether I actually get interviews where I want?
 
frenchyn said:
Programs have to release invite at one time. I noticed I interviewed at programs I did not really want because they released invites first thing after 10/21...Programs I really want did not release until 2 months after...so do I really want to drop interviews before knowing whether I actually get interviews where I want?
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A few specialties already do this. It wouldn’t be hard for them all to do this.
 
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TheGift said:
you are assuming that reddit, sdn = real life...people lie on forums all the time.
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My point, which I realize I didn’t address even directly, was supposed to be that if you take all of these posts at face value, then it shows that at most places this year they really seem to be doing holistic reviews and the system is working, and aren’t just chasing the top few people.

And even if it is the case that there are 10% or so of the applicants holding 30-40% of interviews, in the end everyone’s still gonna match but it might be lower down the rank list on the programs side if a lot of programs interviewed the same few people. Even if we all have fewer interviews than we would in a typical year, everything is gonna be just fine.

In addition the people I’ve spoken to from my school seem to be just fine with their number of interviews to the point where I wouldn’t even know there’s an alleged problem if I weren’t on here or Reddit, and we’re a low-tier DO school that is below average across the board. I don’t think the interviews are going to all the people that everyone thinks they’re going to and there aren’t a bunch of people going on 20+ interviews. There might be a few but not as many as are implied.

Edit: I’m also against any caps with the system as it is now. I still haven’t received an invite from my SOs hospital and if there was even a hard cap of 15, I’d have to be sitting here declining every offer I get in the hopes of getting one at a program that’s looking increasingly slim. There would have to be a consensus unified release date, or even multiple, late enough in the cycle that gives programs time to holistically read every single application. At the very least they’d need to mandate that programs tell us where we stand instead of leaving us in limbo wondering if we’re on a silent waitlist or we’re silently rejected by our #1.
 
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scrublyfe21 said:
My point, which I realize I didn’t address even directly, was supposed to be that if you take all of these posts at face value, then it shows that at most places this year they really seem to be doing holistic reviews and the system is working, and aren’t just chasing the top few people.

And even if it is the case that there are 10% or so of the applicants holding 30-40% of interviews, in the end everyone’s still gonna match but it might be lower down the rank list on the programs side if a lot of programs interviewed the same few people. Even if we all have fewer interviews than we would in a typical year, everything is gonna be just fine.

In addition the people I’ve spoken to from my school seem to be just fine with their number of interviews to the point where I wouldn’t even know there’s an alleged problem if I weren’t on here or Reddit, and we’re a low-tier DO school that is below average across the board. I don’t think the interviews are going to all the people that everyone thinks they’re going to and there aren’t a bunch of people going on 20+ interviews. There might be a few but not as many as are implied.
Click to expand...
1/3 OB applicants having half the recommended number to match doesn't sound like it's just fringe cases, though. Maybe it's very specialty dependent
 
Interview caps and tokens were already known by PDs and specialty leaders because they've been seeing how the match works for years (or even decades) yet hardly any of them decided to impose interview caps or tokens. Adding another round of SOAP is entirely reactive and realizing last minute that the so called powers that be really screwed up with terrible planning.
 
efle said:
1/3 OB applicants having half the recommended number to match doesn't sound like it's just fringe cases, though. Maybe it's very specialty dependent
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Well the number needed to match is going to go down this year if we’re going off the assumption that a small portion of the applicant pool is holding most of the interviews. Effectively the top 5-10 ranklist spots are gonna be wasted at a lot of these programs.
 
Lawpy said:
Also why are we relying on Reddit spreadsheets when people lie and sabotage them regularly?
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Well where is all this data about interview hoarding coming from? ERAS can’t track every interview handed out since a majority go through interview broker and thalamus, so it’s all gotta be self reported.
 
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scrublyfe21 said:
Well the number needed to match is going to go down this year if we’re going off the assumption that a small portion of the applicant pool is holding most of the interviews. Effectively the top 5-10 ranklist spots are gonna be wasted at a lot of these programs.
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Totally possible for a bunch of programs to over-interview the superstars, and fall off their ranklists, while leaving the more average applicants in the cold after the match algorithm runs. At the end of the season after SOAP everyone should be sorted out OK, but I suspect in some specialties the SOAP proportion will be bigger this year.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
Well where is all this data about interview hoarding coming from? ERAS can’t track every interview handed out since a majority go through interview broker and thalamus, so it’s all gotta be self reported.
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Hoarding was already a known phenomenon. Everyone expects the problem to be exacerbated this year by the lack of time and money investments involved in "attending" Zoom interviews. That seems to include the NRMP, who have added an additional round to the SOAP this year. The OB survey gives us some example data, albeit very biased by who responds to the survey
 
scrublyfe21 said:
Well where is all this data about interview hoarding coming from? ERAS can’t track every interview handed out since a majority go through interview broker and thalamus, so it’s all gotta be self reported.
Click to expand...

I mean two people earlier in this thread were actively defending hoarding 20+ interviews and fighting an extensive battle against many enraged SDNers accusing them of hoarding
 
Espressso said:
The absolute worst. The whole, leave all the applicants in a breakout room while we interview them one by one is mind numbing. I had one like that and I was the very last applicant. Ran out of questions after the first three hours. The final hour before my interview was spent literally just chatting with the two residents about restaurants and the weather and how bad the college football team is this year
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LOL. I think I know exactly what program this is.
 
Lawpy said:
I mean two people earlier in this thread were actively defending hoarding 20+ interviews and fighting an extensive battle against many enraged SDNers accusing them of hoarding
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Still anecdotal though, but a frustrating conversation to have nonetheless since I was one of the people berating them lol.
 
For those who hadn't seen it there's also this paper done in OBGYN

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The Case for Capping Residency Interviews - PubMed

This work highlights how current inefficiencies may lead to negative consequences with virtual interviews. Interview caps and preference signaling systems need to be urgently considered.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Walks through how imbalanced things can get in these kinds of situations. Blurb of their result:

In models where applicants are uncapped in the number of interviews, Group <12 applicants receive <1 interview offer, even if programs increase the number of interviews offered and performed. If applicants are capped at 12 interviews, Group <12 applicants will receive 9 interview offers on average and will reach 12 if programs increase the number of interviews offered by 20%.

TL;DR By their model, hoarding is the difference between 1 interview vs 9 interviews for the typical person from the lower half of the applicant pool.
 
Lawpy said:
I mean two people earlier in this thread were actively defending hoarding 20+ interviews and fighting an extensive battle against many enraged SDNers accusing them of hoarding
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Had 2 interviews at T20 so far where they actually asked me how many places I plan to interview and was told by them people told them 20 is the new average this year ...and they agree...so ya do whatever you want at your own risks....you call out people however you want but it is their lives and future...let them do what they want lol. Don’t judge unless you are the one who help them when they don’t match
 
frenchyn said:
Had 2 interviews at T20 so far where they actually asked me how many places I plan to interview and was told by them people told them 20 is the new average this year ...and they agree...so ya do whatever you want at your own risks....you call out people however you want but it is their lives and future...let them do what they want lol. Don’t judge unless you are the one who help them when they don’t match
Click to expand...
I mean its no surprise that the people that are interviewing at T20 places also have 20+ interviews, these T20 places are all interviewing the same 100 or so people... the problem is the super stars who have 10+ t40 invites also have 10-20 mid/low tier invites at places they have no intention to go to while theres solid applicants with 1-2invites that would kill to end up anywhere

All im askin is that if people have overlaps they know they wont be able to make to drop them early so the PC has time to work through their waitlist and other applicants get a fair shake. Theres so much interview overlap this year with a shorter cycle i wouldnt be surprised if for every dropped interview itll probably drop down to 2-3 more people as the people at the top of the waitlist probs are at 10-15 II with overlap. Just dont be that person holding onto an interview they know they cant make until the day before lol
 
Scrubs101 said:
I mean its no surprise that the people that are interviewing at T20 places also have 20+ interviews, these T20 places are all interviewing the same 100 or so people... the problem is the super stars who have 10+ t40 invites also have 10-20 mid/low tier invites at places they have no intention to go to while theres solid applicants with 1-2invites that would kill to end up anywhere

All im askin is that if people have overlaps they know they wont be able to make to drop them early so the PC has time to work through their waitlist and other applicants get a fair shake. Theres so much interview overlap this year with a shorter cycle i wouldnt be surprised if for every dropped interview itll probably drop down to 2-3 more people as the people at the top of the waitlist probs are at 10-15 II with overlap. Just dont be that person holding onto an interview they know they cant make until the day before lol
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I agree. If I know i can’t make it to an interview I drop it the day I got it. I recently got an invite to a program because someone cancelled 2 days before the interview. That is just so unprofessional.
 
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frenchyn said:
I agree. If I know i can’t make it to an interview I drop it the day I got it. I recently got an invite to a program because someone cancelled 2 days before the interview. That is just so unprofessional.
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Might not be their fault, if I got a last minute invite off a waitlist, good chance it would conflict with another interview. Everybody is bunching their interviews into the same few weeks
 
frenchyn said:
Had 2 interviews at T20 so far where they actually asked me how many places I plan to interview and was told by them people told them 20 is the new average this year ...and they agree...so ya do whatever you want at your own risks....you call out people however you want but it is their lives and future...let them do what they want lol. Don’t judge unless you are the one who help them when they don’t match
Click to expand...

These exact people that have 20+ interviews won't need anywhere that many to match though. That's the paradox of this entire situation. Excellent applications getting lots of interviews, when these applications are less likely to need that many.

Sucks that the system will collapse under this to a certain extent come match time, because applicants can't help themselves both in terms of how many places they over-applied to and how many interviews they can easily schedule. They are all allowed to do this of course - but the criticism is valid, as even the ACS wrote about recently. All I hear is that "it's a weird year" without any tangible reason as to why the number needed to match will be different this year when the vast majority of programs are interviewing the same amount of people as usual.
 
efle said:
Might not be their fault, if I got a last minute invite off a waitlist, good chance it would conflict with another interview. Everybody is bunching their interviews into the same few weeks
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That happens but I also know some keep it to last min hoping someone will switch...even saw people triple book themselves
 
Banco said:
These exact people that have 20+ interviews won't need anywhere that many to match though. That's the paradox of this entire situation. Excellent applications getting lots of interviews, when these applications are less likely to need that many.

Sucks that the system will collapse under this to a certain extent come match time, because applicants can't help themselves both in terms of how many places they over-applied to and how many interviews they can easily schedule. They are all allowed to do this of course - but the criticism is valid, as even the ACS wrote about recently. All I hear is that "it's a weird year" without any tangible reason as to why the number needed to match will be different this year when the vast majority of programs are interviewing the same amount of people as usual.
Click to expand...
You don’t know that for sure right with this year. They are advised by their mentors/PD/chair to do that so then who would they listen? Them or you? There are people who interviewed at top places w lot of interviews each year and did not match.
 
Banco said:
These exact people that have 20+ interviews won't need anywhere that many to match though. That's the paradox of this entire situation. Excellent applications getting lots of interviews, when these applications are less likely to need that many.

Sucks that the system will collapse under this to a certain extent come match time, because applicants can't help themselves both in terms of how many places they over-applied to and how many interviews they can easily schedule. They are all allowed to do this of course - but the criticism is valid, as even the ACS wrote about recently. All I hear is that "it's a weird year" without any tangible reason as to why the number needed to match will be different this year when the vast majority of programs are interviewing the same amount of people as usual.
Click to expand...
Well, we can use SOAP participation this year vs last year as a yardstick in a few months.

I actually think most of the damage is going to be masked, though. It's hard to fall fully off a ranklist in the main specialties with big class sizes and high match rates (e.g. medicine, peds, gas, etc). But, someone matching to a less desired/poor fit program near the bottom of their rank list is suffering a consequence of the system too. Just not as severe a consequence as failing to match, and won't be visible at all in the available data.
 
frenchyn said:
You don’t know that for sure right with this year. They are advised by their mentors/PD/chair to do that so then who would they listen? Them or you? There are people who interviewed at top places w lot of interviews each year and did not match.
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Sure absolutely, they have been advised to apply to more as well - that advice was also likely damaging. As the ACS has now realized.

And yes, people fall through the cracks every year - but you use the data if you want to act rationally and make sure the system doesn't implode. For surgery, programs didn't prepare well, they didn't address the problem, didn't do a coordinated release day, had the onus fall on the applicants (many of whom are classic nervous medical students) and now we are all up in the air. Sucks for everyone involved, except the 250+ applicants who had some fun going to community interviews they will never actually want to go to.

efle said:
Well, we can use SOAP participation this year vs last year as a yardstick in a few months.

I actually think most of the damage is going to be masked, though. It's hard to fall fully off a ranklist in the main specialties with big class sizes and high match rates (e.g. medicine, peds, gas, etc). But, someone matching to a less desired/poor fit program near the bottom of their rank list is suffering a consequence of the system too. Just not as severe a consequence as failing to match, and won't be visible at all in the available data.
Click to expand...

Yeah probably. The issue is that somehow the powers that be didn't seem to see any of this coming? Most specialties didn't take any proactive measures and now are in a bit of a *pikachuface* meme mode.
 
ace_inhibitor111 said:
They should just dismantle the match. What other job requires you to go on 15+ interviews to get accepted into one position lol.
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Well that's not true, lots of my friends in other fields apply to and go on lots of interviews. It also seems awful.

The match in and of itself seems like a good system to ensure as many residencies are filled as possible. But as things get more competitive, average scores increase, more students have more research/EC experiences, there will need be a discussion to be had in many specialties with regards to interview caps and such measures. But we will have to see how everything shakes out by the end of this year!
 
ace_inhibitor111 said:
They should just dismantle the match. What other job requires you to go on 15+ interviews to get accepted into one position lol.
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Dude it used to be even worse before the match. They gave it all sorts of protections and exemptions for a reason!

thesheriffofsodium.com

The Match, Part 1: Why do we have a Match?

Not long ago, I interviewed an applicant for our residency program. She explained how, after each one of her interviews, her grandmother calls her and excidedly asks whether she got the job. &#8220…
thesheriffofsodium.com thesheriffofsodium.com
 
ace_inhibitor111 said:
They should just dismantle the match. What other job requires you to go on 15+ interviews to get accepted into one position lol.
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Uh no. The Match is easily the best way, especially compared to what it was before....
Banco said:
Well that's not true, lots of my friends in other fields apply to and go on lots of interviews. It also seems awful.

The match in and of itself seems like a good system to ensure as many residencies are filled as possible. But as things get more competitive, average scores increase, more students have more research/EC experiences, there will need be a discussion to be had in many specialties with regards to interview caps and such measures. But we will have to see how everything shakes out by the end of this year!
Click to expand...
I think a lot of it could be eased by simply having something like the MSAR for programs where they have to be very transparent about what they are looking for.
 
Lawpy said:
Interview caps and tokens were already known by PDs and specialty leaders because they've been seeing how the match works for years (or even decades) yet hardly any of them decided to impose interview caps or tokens. Adding another round of SOAP is entirely reactive and realizing last minute that the so called powers that be really screwed up with terrible planning.
Click to expand...
it actually wasn't reactive and was implemented well before even 10/21, back in june, but it's like that flex tape meme.
 
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AnatomyGrey12 said:
I think a lot of it could be eased by simply having something like the MSAR for programs where they have to be very transparent about what they are looking for.
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Yeah this is huge. As a random example, Dexel med school gets 3x as many apps as U Penn/Perelman does. Self selection should help a lot, especially in fields with a huge range of competitiveness between programs
 
mandu_cheeks said:
I know that self-impressions might not mean much, and this is such a first-world problem, but I noticed that my talking skills take a nosedive whenever I'm interviewing at my top-choice programs. I keep smiling and blubbering on like an idiot, and I have no idea if I sound enthusiastic or cringeworthy. Ugh
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You're probably doing fine at all your interviews and are just being hyper-self-critical about your top choice interviews. I caught myself doing the same
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Uh no. The Match is easily the best way, especially compared to what it was before....

I think a lot of it could be eased by simply having something like the MSAR for programs where they have to be very transparent about what they are looking for.
Click to expand...
I’m all for this, but I wonder how much it would really help. There’s so many med students who apply to programs/fields they have no business applying to. Heck, most of us applied to med schools we shouldn’t have bothered applying to in the premed days.
 
iamarosepetal said:
Today I cried because I'm SO tired of these zoom interviews and I feel like all my interviews this week one person already made up their mind they didn't like me SIGH :shrug:
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It really is exhausting. At the beginning of the season I was like "Psh... zoom fatigue, whatever" but its hard to be excited about a program youre really interested in after doing so many.
 
efle said:
Hoarding was already a known phenomenon.Everyone expects the problem to be exacerbated this year by the lack of time and money investments involved in "attending" Zoom interviews. That seems to include the NRMP, who have added an additional round to the SOAP this year. The OB survey gives us some example data, albeit very biased by who responds to the survey
Click to expand...
Yup. Hoarding happens every year. 25% of IM applicants last year ranked over 16 programs.
 
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E9F0C179-D773-4D94-816A-4C8F65BEAE32.jpeg
 
LutGholein said:
I have friends who were legitimately given bad advice(only apply X amount) “you’re US MD you’ll get more than enough invites” and honestly I’m just glad that I have this great resource SDN that helped me through such a rollercoaster of a cycle.
Click to expand...
I under applied. I wasn’t too worried as a reasonably solid applicant genuinely interested in uncompetitive programs.

It was a mistake.

I can’t believe all these community/low-tier academic programs that rarely ever match a USMD gave them the majority of interviews.
 
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