Our school has absolutely no opportunities in 3rd year to do any rotations in the ED. We get zero electives and we aren't allowed to shadow during our core rotations. Many of use aren't able to get July rotations because we have no home ED program. So we have to compete with individuals such as yourself who have already had 3 rotations, when we start our first EM rotation in August. So we will have 1 SLOE by the time the September 15th date comes around. We attend a newer DO school so the core curriculum sets you up for primary care, and the rest of us just get left hanging . They recommend doing so many rotations for exposure to programs to help obtain interviews, as it's very difficult to look like a good EM candidate the way they set up our schedule. Many of our students only get interviews at places they rotate. As we are a newer school we don't have residents in programs to vouch for the quality of students. Additionally, we also only get 4-5 weeks of dedicated study time 2nd year (finish at the end of May), so they make it extremely difficult to study for both USMLE and COMLEX.
My point was you don't need an EM rotation 3rd year. I did it simply because I didn't know what it takes to match at that point in time. It didn't help me match, and being in your position a few years ago I'm telling you from experience you are getting bad advice. The advice on this forum from people recently in your position is more likely to be accurate than what most advisers who aren't actively involved with an EM residency typically provide. The advice from EM faculty on this forum is certainly going to be more accurate.
Even if you take the pandemic out of the picture, people will be weirded out if you do 6 auditions. Just do a few and then use the rest of your elective time for something cool, fun, or interesting to you.
On a regular pandemic year, you only need 2-3 audition rotations. I think most DO students should do 3 if possible because their home institutions usually do not have a residency and therefore would not provide a SLOE. Anybody telling you to do 5-6 is out of touch.
On normal application cycles, most programs will send interview interviews with 1 SLOE with the expectation that you will send a 2nd SLOE sometime in the Fall.
This warrants repeating. You only need 2 SLOEs to match at most programs. Having more will NOT increase your chances in most situations.
A minority of programs want 3 SLOEs. I don't think any programs require 4. You cannot physically send more than 4 SLOEs to a program even if you have more of them.
There is a lot of good info on this forum about the residency match process including away rotations, SLOEs, and interviews. SDN advice isn't always correct, but I found that it was actually the most reliable source of information about matching to an EM residency.
