Cost of Interviewing?

[ToasterThief]

How much have you/did you spend on interviewing for radonc? It seems like the magic number of ranked spots is 8, so I figure 8 interviews + 3/4 TY/prelim years is a total of about 12 interviews? Am I in the ballpark? Did you guys end up taking out extra loans to cover the cost?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[yeasterbunny]

How much have you/did you spend on interviewing for radonc? It seems like the magic number of ranked spots is 8, so I figure 8 interviews + 3/4 TY/prelim years is a total of about 12 interviews? Am I in the ballpark? Did you guys end up taking out extra loans to cover the cost?

The magical numbers may be ~8, but if you get 12 or 15 offers you would be doing yourself a big disservice to turn them down to save money.

To answer your question, it depends on where you are going, how long you will stay, where you stay, whether you rent a car, etc.

For me, the average interview went something like this:
$200-300 airfare
$60 cheap hotel on hotels.com or the like, 1 night
$40 car rental, 1 day no insurance
$30 food, gas, misc., etc

= about $400 per interview

Sound about right? This may be different if you can manage to fly to several places consecutively in a single trip (though if you have to stay longer to do so you will of course spend more on hotel, car, food, etc.), and hopefully several places will be close enough to drive, though depending on where you live, this may be affected by winter weather. From where I was in Milwaukee, I was too chicken to drive anywhere beyond Chicago.

 

[StanleyCup7]

How much have you/did you spend on interviewing for radonc? It seems like the magic number of ranked spots is 8, so I figure 8 interviews + 3/4 TY/prelim years is a total of about 12 interviews? Am I in the ballpark? Did you guys end up taking out extra loans to cover the cost?

I agree largely with yeasterbunny that you should not turn down too many RadOnc interviews b/c they are so hard to come by and you would be infuriated with yourself if you failed to match. However, if you were fortunate enough to receive invitations to interview at 12 places that you could be happy living, I would stop accepting invites.

Some things that I did to save money on my swing of 10 RadOnc interviews:

1. Try to stagger interviews (if possible) on an every other day schedule and cluster them geographically (not always possible). For example, I went on 4 interviews in a 7 day span, which allowed me to go from home city to A to B to C to D and back to home city (a string of one way tickets). This is obviously much cheaper than buying four round-trip tickets. Remember to check both Kayak and Southwest the latter does not participate in the former.

2. Hotwire.com is amazing both for hotels and car rentals.

3. Try to stay with friends as much as possible (tremendous blessing to be able to stay with friends in 7/10 interviews).

4. Try to use public transit as much as feasible without compromising your proper frame of mind for interviews (e.g. I did not personally want to ride to my interviews on a bus wearing my suit...but maybe that's just me).

Keep in mind that the cost of not matching is approximately equivalent to one year of an attending's salary b/c that is one more year that you are going to have to wait before you can start making that salary. So, turning down interviews may certainly not be cost-effective in the long run. Best of luck.

 

[medgator]

Keep in mind that the cost of not matching is approximately equivalent to one year of an attending's salary b/c that is one more year that you are going to have to wait before you can start making that salary. So, turning down interviews may certainly not be cost-effective in the long run. Best of luck.

Keep in mind that not matching is not the end of the game. A lot of things can change during your internship, and believe it or not, spots open up and/or are created at new and existing programs. By completing your internship, you will be eligible for these spots out of the match, and can start in July without skipping a beat. MS IVs can only interview for spots that are a year and a half away.

 

[md mayhem]

I calculated about $366 per interview, and I had to fly nearly everywhere. Lots of people drove places and I'm sure they spent less.

Use priceline for hotels. even if you want to stay at the hotel the program recommends, you can sometimes find cheaper rates online than with their "program discount" I would regularly get rates around $60 a night, and at good quality hotels.

Southwest is awesome, can't say enough about their cheap fares and free rescheduling of flights! Most airlines charge a couple hundred dollars to change a flight, with southwest you just pay the difference in airfare. Can't say how many times this helped me out.