Be careful what you wish for. Go take a look over at the EM forum.
Yes. It's a stupid system. And it's something that people only tend to learn after they SOAP into prelim spots without an advanced spot. After you run out of funding you get something like 50% funding and then your GME department has to foot the rest of the bill. So if you do a prelim IM year, then re-apply to psych as a PGY1, you have full funding through PGY1 and PGY2. Some GME departments are loaded so it doesn't really matter, but it does make it harder to match as a reapplicant. If you do a TY year, it doesn't matter. I can't remember the original source for where I got this info, but I know it's a thing from personal experience.
forums.studentdoctor.net
Touché.
This. A lot of community and smaller programs won't consider people who don't have full funding, and given that you didn't match, these are probably the programs you're going for in the future
He must have had something else on his apps or serious connections to overcome his COMLEX failure and extended time to graduate. I’m a DO from one of the oldest DO schools, no failures but a low COMLEX Level 1 (which aligns with my preclinical grades), improved significantly on Level 2, received great feedback on all my rotations which was reflected in my dean’s letter. I applied broadly to 65 programs that all had DOs, had seven interviews which I felt I did well in, and did not match. I know people with much better scores, including Step, who also did not match. Even if you get enough interviews to have a 90% chance of matching, 10% still don’t, and it’s not always because there’s something wrong with them, in the interview or otherwise. Sometimes the numbers just don’t work in our favor.
FWIW, I didn't match this round as US MD with step 1/2 both ~260, told I had great letters by multiple interviewers, and no red flags that I am aware of, never came close to failing anything. Did 11 interviews. Possible I just did not interview well.
What would you suggest? Struggling to even think of paying jobs other than something in research that would look good and possibly net a new letter. I don’t have any research experience or connections so I’m worried about even getting my foot in the door with a researcher.
not OP but this was definitely my reason for going unmatched
What about a job as a psych tech? It's not glamorous, but would probably actually be a valuable experience later on and would give you a chance to work very closely with psych patients this year. Perhaps you could even develop a relationship with the psychiatrist, maybe get a LOR with input from nursing who can really speak to how you are with patients. Just an idea.
no, only 1 was. the rest were a fair spread of what I imagine people would call mid- to maybe some low- tier programs as my preferences were primarily geographic.
I did this for several years before medical school and am thinking about doing it again now too. definitely gives you a perspective on inpatient mental health that you won't have as part of the medical team.
The main advantage is that loans stay in student status. I feel like I used to hear that there's also some sort of advantage to applying as a student vs. independent but maybe that's no longer the case.
Sounds like you did everything right. Scored well on exams, applied to a variety of places. I wonder what went wrong. If you ever find out, please do let us know. Sorry to hear that you didn't match 🙁
This is not so much of an advantage anymore, because with income-based repayment you will only be paying 10% of your discretionary income. In fact, it would be advantageous to take a full time job at a non-profit in order to earn months toward PSLF. And this year, loan payments are all suspended until at least September.
Fair enough, the loan status thing is probably fact specific. With interest capitalizing after you transition from student status it will likely mean more interest accrual (outside of covid situation) than you'll be paying on IBR. Also depends on whether the school will charge tuition. My school did charge an amount during my research year but it was nothing like the usual tuition.
It would be worth you and/or your PD reaching out to programs to determine what went wrong. If you interviewed at 11 places with 260’s and no red flags, something went terribly wrong somewhere to not match. It’s worth figuring out what that is and fixing it.
Thanks for your input. Yeah that makes sense and reaching out is part of the plan that me and my PD have discussed (figured I would wait for the Match to settle first before sending out emails). In argument against it being one of the letters, however, several interviewers told me that my letters appeared to be great (I certainly never asked for such information, it was just volunteered multiple times throughout the season). I would hope that multiple people wouldn't lie to me about this.
