Derm Rejections of Seemingly Qualified Candidates

[cisopen]

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Have you heard of any applicants with Step 1 >260, All Honors, Research (0 pubs), good recommendations and AOA get derm residency rejections?

Please reply with stories of any such candidates.

Other rejection stories are also welcome.

Supposedly, we had a 2008-2009 applicant get rejected with those same qualifications. She was very nice, a little quiet, but still exceptional clinician. We're a non-ranked medical school, which might have something to do with it...

 

[advisee]

Have you heard of any applicants with Step 1 >260, All Honors, Research (0 pubs), good recommendations and AOA get derm residency rejections?

Please reply with stories of any such candidates.

Other rejection stories are also welcome.

Supposedly, we had a 2008-2009 applicant get rejected with those same qualifications. She was very nice, a little quiet, but still exceptional clinician. We're a non-ranked medical school, which might have something to do with it...

Not surprised to hear that. There are applicants from both ends (very low scores, very high scores) that do and also some that do not get invited to interview. Progams get close to 500 applications and it is not possible to invite all applicants for an interview so applicants from both ends get rejections all the time.

While the numbers are important, they are not the only criteria when programs screen applications for interview invitations.

What do you mean by "non-ranked medical school" Is it not ACGME accredited?

 

[asmallchild]

Do you mean shut out altogether from the match or just single rejections from programs?

If you mean the latter, of course! Derm is a small field and connections often play a large role. There are programs that can easily turn down a "seemingly qualified" candidate because they have plenty of their own "seemingly qualified" candidates in-house.

 

[MOHS_01]

Ummm.. yeah, it happens. Some people are just tools. Some smart people are tools. Some less-smart people are tools. No one wants to work beside a tool.

Don't be a tool.... and you will do just fine.

 

[N-Surge]

0 pubs might have hurt as well. Just a thought.

I wonder what the % of those who interview/Match have pubs. Would be interesting to know...

And as asmallchild pointed out, it is who you know that can matter.

 

[Dermguy]

Ummm.. yeah, it happens. Some people are just tools. Some smart people are tools. Some less-smart people are tools. No one wants to work beside a tool.

Don't be a tool.... and you will do just fine.

Some people are not tools and still get screwed. With >400 applicants at each place if you just barely don't stand out enough from the pack you could end up not getting interviews or not matching. At a couple of places the thing that got me an interview was totally bizarre like one of my hobbies that I had in common with the reviewer. It's a crap shoot and some people just get left out.

 

[opencomedo]

N-Surge, not to be a tool, but such information on # of pubs and such is available via "Charting Outcomes in the Match" from the NRMP.... here is the link http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2007.pdf

 

[dderm]

I know three people with stats like your's (or your wife's) who didn't match. There's no guarantee in the derm application process. That's the risk you have to be willing to take to be in such an amazing field. She will have absolutely no problem matching in Path (it's not competitive for U.S. graduates). What you don't want to be is someone who applies for derm just because you can. Do derm only if you love it.