EM PD - Ask Me Anything

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soccergirl1234u said:
Hey Doc, when should we start getting worried about not receiving a lot of interviews? I have only gotten 1 and ERAS was submitted before the first day it opened. I heard EM is slower for certain states too. I'm hearing of people getting a ton of IM and other specialty interviews so it was making me nervous. Thanks
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After this week. I think the "first wave" of interviews will be mostly out after this week, though this is complete speculation. I would hope to have like 5 or 6 by at least mid-Nov.
 
Mr. D.O.five said:
Hey GamerEMdoc! So I am applying EM and I just found out I honored my EM shelf exam, and my school states that honoring a shelf exam means you honored the rotation. I was just wondering if emailing programs about that is fine? I thought it may look like a humblebrag, so I haven't sent anything out yet, but I did want to hear your thoughts about it as an APD!
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No, its completely unnecessary and it really annoys PD's to get all these "update" emails. People are honestly overwhelmed looking at like 1000 applications. Emails like this are completely unnecessary. As are the "LOI" emails that are sent out right now. You have to give programs time, its only fair to everyone, to look at peoples apps. Cluttering up their emails with early contact outside of ERAS looks selfish IMO. And if you think that's only my opinion, its not. There was a message thread on this on the CORD message boards by numerous PDs really annoyed by all the students contacting them about their apps in the first few weeks of ERAS opening. I think it does more harm than good.

The time to email programs with updates/LOIs is typically later in interview season.
 
boolin_1 said:
I’m starting to feel dejected about all of this. I’m sitting on only 2 II’s while I have friends who have 5-7 at places that I was looking to get interviews at. I have my SubI interview and a little community program in Ohio. The only possible red flag is my SubI SLOE letter and I felt like I worked really hard, tried my best but the clerkship director might’ve given me bottom 1/3. It was my first ER rotation, in peak COVID, and I worked hard as hell. The random subjectiveness is so annoying. Hopefully these next 2 weeks it’s starts picking up
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The SLOE system inherently rewards some students, hurts others. For every student that doesn't do as well on their rotations and gets a lower SLOE, there's students who stand out clinically who would have been overlooked because of something like a step 1 score. There is no perfect system. However, evaluations from EM leadership are a far better way of choosing residents than just looking at board scores, like many specialties do, because every narrative LOR says the same thing. It's not perfect, but its the best system in place with application selection at the moment accross specialties IMO.
 
gamerEMdoc said:
No, its completely unnecessary and it really annoys PD's to get all these "update" emails. People are honestly overwhelmed looking at like 1000 applications. Emails like this are completely unnecessary. As are the "LOI" emails that are sent out right now. You have to give programs time, its only fair to everyone, to look at peoples apps. Cluttering up their emails with early contact outside of ERAS looks selfish IMO. And if you think that's only my opinion, its not. There was a message thread on this on the CORD message boards by numerous PDs really annoyed by all the students contacting them about their apps in the first few weeks of ERAS opening. I think it does more harm than good.

The time to email programs with updates/LOIs is typically later in interview season.
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Thanks! I haven't sent any emails and now I for sure won't plan on doing so!
 
gamerEMdoc said:
The SLOE system inherently rewards some students, hurts others. For every student that doesn't do as well on their rotations and gets a lower SLOE, there's students who stand out clinically who would have been overlooked because of something like a step 1 score. There is no perfect system. However, evaluations from EM leadership are a far better way of choosing residents than just looking at board scores, like many specialties do, because every narrative LOR says the same thing. It's not perfect, but its the best system in place with application selection at the moment accross specialties IMO.
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I understand. The 1 SubI system seems to hurt some and benefit others. I wish I had another rotation to show my improvements, or maybe if my SLOE writer would've told me where to improve if I was below par. me just venting.
 
Regarding SLOEs, do programs typically tell students where their SLOEs rank them? I see all over the EM spreadsheet that students know their SLOE ranking, but I never asked for mine cause I thought it would be rude.
 
boolin_1 said:
I understand. The 1 SubI system seems to hurt some and benefit others. I wish I had another rotation to show my improvements, or maybe if my SLOE writer would've told me where to improve if I was below par. me just venting.
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Yeah I totally agree. I was not a fan of the 1 rotation decision, but once it was suggested, I thought the most fair thing to do, from both a program and a student perspective, was to follow the advice. But it definitely stinks for some this year not to have had an obvious second chance. On the other hand, I do know of students who got a lower SLOE from their one rotation but had very good Osloes who are getting interviews.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
Regarding SLOEs, do programs typically tell students where their SLOEs rank them? I see all over the EM spreadsheet that students know their SLOE ranking, but I never asked for mine cause I thought it would be rude.
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They shouldn't. In fact, CORD specifically says programs shouldn't. And I've been contacted by many of students in the past who say they have a top 10 sloe, and then when I see their app they don't. I think sometimes its just students extrapolating based on grade. Not always, but sometimes. I'm sure there are students that know what their SLOEs rank them as, but I don't think its widespread knowledge.
 
@gamerEMdoc I wanted to ask if I should notify the programs I applied to that my Level 2 score just came in today. My step/level 1 and step 2 scores were part of my ERAS submission prior to 10/21. Do the programs automatically see my Level 2 score? I also only had 2 LORs to submit for ERAS...one eSLOE and one OSLOE. I'm hoping the surgeon I was with last month will hurry up and submit the 3rd LOR (OSLOE) he agreed to write soon. If/when he does that and I submit it through ERAS do the programs also see that immediately or should I notify them?

Thanks for all your advice on this thread. It's been incredibly helpful and mitigates a ton of stress.
 
Oligodinero said:
@gamerEMdoc I wanted to ask if I should notify the programs I applied to that my Level 2 score just came in today. My step/level 1 and step 2 scores were part of my ERAS submission prior to 10/21. Do the programs automatically see my Level 2 score? I also only had 2 LORs to submit for ERAS...one eSLOE and one OSLOE. I'm hoping the surgeon I was with last month will hurry up and submit the 3rd LOR (OSLOE) he agreed to write soon. If/when he does that and I submit it through ERAS do the programs also see that immediately or should I notify them?

Thanks for all your advice on this thread. It's been incredibly helpful and mitigates a ton of stress.
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No. When they look at your app, they will see the updated info. If they felt they needed more info when they initially looked at your app before making a decision, they can mark it incomplete and come back to it later when they circle back to those. But PD's typically make the decision to interview based on a single SLOE and step 1 scores if that's all that's available all the time, because most years in Sept, a lot of people don't have Step 2 done yet and many people only have 1 or 2 SLOEs.

Update emails are unnecessary at best, and can be annoying to some PDs at worst. Save the update for later if you are considering a late season LOI email to some programs.
 
Hey @gamerEMdoc quick question. So my current EM attending said that he wanted to email local programs on my behalf (insisted despite me saying it wasn’t necessary). This attending wrote me a SLOE 3 months ago but he said he wanted to email them directly about my performance/recommendation. Would this be a good idea or would it just add to the already pack emails of PDs or backfire?
 
gamerEMdoc said:
No. When they look at your app, they will see the updated info. If they felt they needed more info when they initially looked at your app before making a decision, they can mark it incomplete and come back to it later when they circle back to those. But PD's typically make the decision to interview based on a single SLOE and step 1 scores if that's all that's available all the time, because most years in Sept, a lot of people don't have Step 2 done yet and many people only have 1 or 2 SLOEs.

Update emails are unnecessary at best, and can be annoying to some PDs at worst. Save the update for later if you are considering a late season LOI email to some programs.
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What if you were to add a program after 10/21? I attended a few Zoom meets last week and since my own Level 2 came out today I thought it could be opportune to send a quick email about applying to said program. Would it be unnecessary?
 
STG1021 said:
Hey @gamerEMdoc quick question. So my current EM attending said that he wanted to email local programs on my behalf (insisted despite me saying it wasn’t necessary). This attending wrote me a SLOE 3 months ago but he said he wanted to email them directly about my performance/recommendation. Would this be a good idea or would it just add to the already pack emails of PDs or backfire?
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It would probably come across as less annoying, just because its not the person advocating for themselves. But still, its completely unnecessary. If you want to advocate for a candidate, there's a system in place for that, its the letters of recommendation. If they really want to email programs you want to interview at, but haven't heard, have them email after Dec 1. By then you already may have interviews at those places.
 
Doctor_Strange said:
What if you were to add a program after 10/21? I attended a few Zoom meets last week and since my own Level 2 came out today I thought it could be opportune to send a quick email about applying to said program. Would it be unnecessary?
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It's unnecessary.
 
How many interviews are people sitting at at the moment? A classmate just told me he has 9 while I'm sitting at 2.
 
4. I also applied to 6 more programs today....which is probably more likely to make me feel better than actually land me an interview.....but who knows.
 
Doctor_Strange said:
How many interviews are people sitting at at the moment? A classmate just told me he has 9 while I'm sitting at 2.
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I have classmates hovering around 10. and I have heard nothing from my home state. who knows anything anymore.
 
@gamerEMdoc any tips for good questions to ask programs? I know the same ones get asked over and over but I feel like I don't know what questions I should be asking in order to find the right program fit.
 
12jas said:
@gamerEMdoc any tips for good questions to ask programs? I know the same ones get asked over and over but I feel like I don't know what questions I should be asking in order to find the right program fit.
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ask questions you genuinely want to know about a place; asking questions bc you feel like you have to is silly imo

many people ask about any expected changes or how resident feedback is incorporated into the residency and what im most proud of about the residency. Those are probably the most common things I get asked
 
gamerEMdoc said:
ask questions you genuinely want to know about a place; asking questions bc you feel like you have to is silly imo

many people ask about any expected changes or how resident feedback is incorporated into the residency and what im most proud of about the residency. Those are probably the most common things I get asked
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How about how did the program respond to COVID/ what measures have been taken to minimize interruptions to resident education? I’ve heard some horror stories about residents being forced to use their vacation time for quarantine, and in one case a hospital threatening to delay resident graduation if they catch COVID and the hospital doesn’t think it happened at work, while forcing the residents into only handling the COVID ICU instead of their scheduled off-service rotations.
 
boolin_1 said:
I have classmates hovering around 10. and I have heard nothing from my home state. who knows anything anymore.
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Are those classmates really strong candidates like >250s Step 1 and Step 2 type of folks? My group of friends outside of the one guy has very few interviews. It's extremely frustrating.
 
Doctor_Strange said:
Are those classmates really strong candidates like >250s Step 1 and Step 2 type of folks? My group of friends outside of the one guy has very few interviews. It's extremely frustrating.
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some yes, some no. Some of them have a mediocre application and have just under ten. It’s all a crapshoot.
 
Doctor_Strange said:
Are those classmates really strong candidates like >250s Step 1 and Step 2 type of folks? My group of friends outside of the one guy has very few interviews. It's extremely frustrating.
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DO with below average on both steps, bottom half class rank that applied EM. Location: Midwest (lived in the same midwest state my whole life so no "connections" to any other locations). No red flags. 1 eSLOE, 1 Sub specialty SLOE, 1 OSLOE.

15 II's:
- 7 university, 8 community.
- 2 are from programs I rotated at, 4 IIs are from former DO programs, 1 from my home state
- Geographic distribution: 4 Midwest, 4 south/southeast, 3 Northeast, 1 East coast, 3 North/upper-midwest?
- 2 Rejections (1 from a huge reach program)

Things I did that may have helped:
- Networking: Of the places i didnt audition, half were programs I either met with via EMRA residency fair or had reached out and talked with residents over the summer, or attended zoom stuff etc. Legit had faculty at a program i applied like a random twitter comment of mine and then got an invite from them like 2 hours later (probably total coincidence but still lol)
- unique PS/ECs/leadership. Multiple years of ER experience before med school.
- Also i'm assuming my SLOE was good based on general feedback I got but unsure what it is exactly. I hit it off with basically everybody i interacted with on my rotations luckily.
- I believe i applied very strategically (in terms of being a below average DO): Applied to about 50% community and 50% Uni/County. Of the community programs I'd say roughly half were former DO programs. I dont think I applied to a single program that didn't have at least 1 DO in each PGY class.

Feeling very fortunate and will def be dropping II's if Im lucky enough to get more. Still lots of programs that still haven't sent out interviews
 
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@gamerEMdoc
At what point do you recommend reaching out to programs about geographical ties that could not be clearly deducted from an application. For example, all of my siblings live in Texas, but I've never lived there personally.
 
Dr.Bruh said:
DO with below average on both steps, bottom half class rank that applied EM. Location: Midwest (lived in the same midwest state my whole life so no "connections" to any other locations). No red flags. 1 eSLOE, 1 Sub specialty SLOE, 1 OSLOE.

13 II's:
- 6 university, 7 community.
- 2 are from programs I rotated at, 3 IIs are from former DO programs, 1 from my home state
- Geographic distribution: 3 Midwest, 4 south/southeast, 3 Northeast, 1 East coast, 2 North/upper-midwest?
- 2 Rejections (1 from a huge reach program)

Things I did that may have helped:
- Networking: Of the places i didnt audition (10), 5 were programs I either met with via EMRA residency fair or had reached out and talked with residents over the summer, or attended zoom stuff etc. Legit had faculty at a program i applied like a random twitter comment of mine and then got an invite from them like 2 hours later (probably total coincidence but still lol)
- unique PS/ECs/leadership. Multiple years of ER experience before med school.
- Also i'm assuming my SLOE was good based on general feedback I got but unsure what it is exactly. I hit it off with basically everybody i interacted with on my rotations luckily.
- I believe i applied very strategically (in terms of being a below average DO): Applied to about 50% community and 50% Uni/County. Of the community programs I'd say roughly half were former DO programs. I dont think I applied to a single program that didn't have at least 1 DO in each PGY class.

Feeling very fortunate and will def be dropping II's if Im lucky enough to get more. Still lots of programs that still haven't sent out interviews
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Wow, that’s awesome, congrats! How many programs did you apply to in total?
 
2 II, one from audition. Applied 55 programs w/ above avg Step 1/2 scores, low-ish COMLEX scores, 3 year ED scribe exp, 2 pubs + research exp, 1 eSLOE, 1 non-res EM SLOE, trying to get another LOR or SLOE cause I think that's what is holding me back from more interviews
 
A little bit of a program specific question, but do you expect applicants to know whether they would like to pursue academic vs. community EM after residency and does the answer influence your ranking of that applicant?
 
scrublyfe21 said:
How about how did the program respond to COVID/ what measures have been taken to minimize interruptions to resident education? I’ve heard some horror stories about residents being forced to use their vacation time for quarantine, and in one case a hospital threatening to delay resident graduation if they catch COVID and the hospital doesn’t think it happened at work, while forcing the residents into only handling the COVID ICU instead of their scheduled off-service rotations.
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Yeah I've been surprised I haven't heard about COVID yet.

A lot of training programs at the beginning of COVID (non-EM) were being utilized outside of their field just because things like surgeries weren't happening. So you had residents working outside their field in covid floors and ICUs in some areas of the country. But I highly doubt that is happening much now. I mean at the early stages of COVID, there were just some fields that weren't even working at all. Just sitting at home.

We haven't had any residents using their vacation or anything, but I can tell you, I can see both sides of the argument. If a resident is going out to the bar multiple times a week and gets covid, and now has 14 days off, and everyone else has to work for them, that sucks. Or if 3 or 4 residents go to a wedding and are now are all quarantined. Sometimes its just a quarantine because of a contact trace exposure from a social event, not work. So the person doesn't even have COVID, and gets 14 days off after they came back from a friends wedding for instance. It's a difficult situation, on one hand its not fair to everyone else that someone basically can just take half a month off because they weren't responsible. On the other hand, where do you draw the line? How do you prove someone was skirting social distancing guidelines? It's a difficult situation.

I mean, I am DEFINITELY opposed to extending training or forcing vacation loss if someone gets exposed at work, or in the reasonable course of life (going to the store, etc). Its mainly just the people that are refusing to social distance that I feel like its just really not fair to everyone else who is.
 
Dr.Bruh said:
DO with below average on both steps, bottom half class rank that applied EM. Location: Midwest (lived in the same midwest state my whole life so no "connections" to any other locations). No red flags. 1 eSLOE, 1 Sub specialty SLOE, 1 OSLOE.

14 II's:
- 7 university, 7 community.
- 2 are from programs I rotated at, 3 IIs are from former DO programs, 1 from my home state
- Geographic distribution: 3 Midwest, 4 south/southeast, 3 Northeast, 1 East coast, 2 North/upper-midwest?
- 2 Rejections (1 from a huge reach program)

Things I did that may have helped:
- Networking: Of the places i didnt audition (10), 5 were programs I either met with via EMRA residency fair or had reached out and talked with residents over the summer, or attended zoom stuff etc. Legit had faculty at a program i applied like a random twitter comment of mine and then got an invite from them like 2 hours later (probably total coincidence but still lol)
- unique PS/ECs/leadership. Multiple years of ER experience before med school.
- Also i'm assuming my SLOE was good based on general feedback I got but unsure what it is exactly. I hit it off with basically everybody i interacted with on my rotations luckily.
- I believe i applied very strategically (in terms of being a below average DO): Applied to about 50% community and 50% Uni/County. Of the community programs I'd say roughly half were former DO programs. I dont think I applied to a single program that didn't have at least 1 DO in each PGY class.

Feeling very fortunate and will def be dropping II's if Im lucky enough to get more. Still lots of programs that still haven't sent out interviews
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100% its a combination of a great SLOE and networking at the online residency fair. No one is getting 14 interviews at this point with a mediocre SLOE.

If you have a ton of interviews, you have a great SLOE(s). If you have almost none, you almost certainly have a bad one. If you are in the middle, its probably middle of the road.
 
Mr. D.O.five said:
2 II, one from audition. Applied 55 programs w/ above avg Step 1/2 scores, low-ish COMLEX scores, 3 year ED scribe exp, 2 pubs + research exp, 1 eSLOE, 1 non-res EM SLOE, trying to get another LOR or SLOE cause I think that's what is holding me back from more interviews
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It's likely your eSLOE
 
pillowsnice said:
A little bit of a program specific question, but do you expect applicants to know whether they would like to pursue academic vs. community EM after residency and does the answer influence your ranking of that applicant?
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No. I mean don't get me wrong, I like it when residents are interested in teaching students and I'd love to train more people that become faculty at my program or elsewhere, but its way to early for people to be deciding that, and so there's no point putting weight in that answer for rank purposes because minds will change, either way, as residency goes on.

It's much like when someone tells me they want to do a fellowship. Great. Only very few people that say that as an MS4 decide by the end of residency that they want to do one. So I don't really put any weight into someone saying they want to do a fellowship after residency.
 
Mr. D.O.five said:
2 II, one from audition. Applied 55 programs w/ above avg Step 1/2 scores, low-ish COMLEX scores, 3 year ED scribe exp, 2 pubs + research exp, 1 eSLOE, 1 non-res EM SLOE, trying to get another LOR or SLOE cause I think that's what is holding me back from more interviews
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Same situation...my Step 1 is above average my Step 2 is below. My COMLEXs were average. There were only 6 students rotating with me and one of them was not doing EM. I mean I don't see how I got low 1/3 SLOE or any terrible comments -- I feel like someone would have alerted me about any poor performance and my mid-rotation feedback was generic, no red flags. I applied to 49 programs too with about 15 or so reaches. My non-res EM SLOE I know is fantastic as well as my O-SLOE. This process has been really frustrating. If by the end of next week nothing changes I will really be in panic mode.
 
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Doctor_Strange said:
There were only 6 students rotating with me and one of them was not doing EM. I mean I don't see how I got low 1/3 SLOE or any terrible comments -- I feel like someone would have alerted me about any poor performance and my mid-rotation feedback was generic, no red flags.
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The question on the SLOE isn't how you compare to the other 6 candidates. There are two questions for ranking. Compared to students from the LAST YEAR, where does this student rank comparatively. And the second (more important IMO) is where do you plan to rank this person.

So for instance, maybe you only rotated with 6 people, all of which were terrible, and you weren't good either. That doesn't mean any of you will get a top 10 or top 1/3 SLOE. You may all be considered likely to be ranked in the low 1/3 part of the rank list.

As for programs alerting you about poor performance, first, some places don't. Some places are very uncomfortable giving any negative feedback at all. Second, maybe you didn't have a bad performance. A student can be just average, but at that place just being average clinically isn't likely to be as good as the rest of their rank list.

Ive been doing this a long time, and I can tell you, without a doubt, when people aren't getting interviews, its the SLOE. It's always the SLOE(s). Its not boards (I know people with comlex's in the 400's every year that get 12 interviews). The SLOE(s) are always what dictates the applicants competitiveness in this field and prompts places to either interview or not interview when they are looking at cohorts of students.
 
@gamerEMdoc just a f/u question to one I had earlier about advocating on behalf of my s/o - with how truncated the cycle is this year, would you recommend waiting ~1 wk to reach out to programs after I get an IV at said program or would it be OK to email them within 1-2 days of me getting an IV? Was hesitant on sending one out 1-2 days because I didn't know if that seemed incredibly desperate or not hahaha. Thanks!
 
hopefulERdoc251 said:
@gamerEMdoc just a f/u question to one I had earlier about advocating on behalf of my s/o - with how truncated the cycle is this year, would you recommend waiting ~1 wk to reach out to programs after I get an IV at said program or would it be OK to email them within 1-2 days of me getting an IV? Was hesitant on sending one out 1-2 days because I didn't know if that seemed incredibly desperate or not hahaha. Thanks!
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I think it is reasonable if you aren't going to accept the interview if your SO isn't going to interview there to email the program coordinator about it. It makes no sense to take an interview from someone else if you aren't going to rank a place that doesn't interview your SO.
 
Hi @gamerEMdoc or others that might see this. So I received an interview invite today for EM. I've thankfully received a few prior to this. One program simply picked a date for me, a couple others allowed me to pick from available dates. However, this program invited me, but minutes later when I go to schedule, all the dates are filled, there were 15 dates to choose from, so I can't imagine all dates being taken so quickly.

I speculate, that this program, sent out a "second wave" to students who they intentionally wanted to have on a waitlist, in case some "first wave" students opt out.

Is this a thing programs do? I was super excited initially to get the email, only to later be like... wth? lol
 
Apollyon said:
From looking at this guy's(?) posts, I don't know if s/he is just being antagonistic, or is a true troll. However, as his/her history on SDN is short, if s/he continues in the same vein, his/her tenure will be similarly short.
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Hmm...some person have me the "hmm" reaction to this post, but, it turns out that, sometime in the recent past, I was made correct on my statement.
 
astronauticaldoc said:
Hi @gamerEMdoc or others that might see this. So I received an interview invite today for EM. I've thankfully received a few prior to this. One program simply picked a date for me, a couple others allowed me to pick from available dates. However, this program invited me, but minutes later when I go to schedule, all the dates are filled, there were 15 dates to choose from, so I can't imagine all dates being taken so quickly.

I speculate, that this program, sent out a "second wave" to students who they intentionally wanted to have on a waitlist, in case some "first wave" students opt out.

Is this a thing programs do? I was super excited initially to get the email, only to later be like... wth? lol
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Some programs send out way more invites than they have slots. Personally, I really dislike this practice.

The logic is, maybe 300 people meet their standard for say 100 interviews, invite them all and first come first serve. Easier than trying to pare that down. The most interested people will schedule, the rest will go to the waitlist.

The problem with that logic is, the most interested people don't schedule, its the people who are glued to their phone's email.

Personally, we send out the exact number of interviews as we have spots initially, wait to see how many take them and how many decline, then readjust from their for more invites.
 
last year you said on the email listsev PDs said they were getting ~30 LOI a day and were super annoyed by that, are they getting more or less this year?
 
pillowsnice said:
A little bit of a program specific question, but do you expect applicants to know whether they would like to pursue academic vs. community EM after residency and does the answer influence your ranking of that applicant?
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not at all, though I typically will ask a question somewhat similar to that. I don’t judge you on what you want, but on the thoughtfulness of your answer. It can say a lot about your maturity, self reflection, and ability to set goals. I remember an applicant who said they wanted to “revamp medical education because it doesn’t work” and “be a dean in a medical school.” That’s all great, but they had zero experience in education and were not able to articulate how they would achieve this goal.
 
attitudeofgratitude said:
last year you said on the email listsev PDs said they were getting ~30 LOI a day and were super annoyed by that, are they getting more or less this year?
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I haven’t gotten that many a day, but people didn’t wait at all this year. I had people start emailing the day before ERAS opened. It’s been a trickle of LOIs ever since. Some people just can’t help themselves and feel the need to “inquire about the status of their app” or “express their interest” way too early and it just doesn’t help them.

This year there has been some chatter about misinformation about the percentage of interviews that have gone out. There’s a lot of disinformation when you aren’t getting your information from actual PDs/APDs involved in this process. Places like SDN and reddit and twitter are largely made up of students sharing their own experiences, or sometimes residents, and they just don’t have the same behind the scenes perspective on things. They may share what worked for them, but the reality is, they don’t have any idea why they got their interviews, they are speculating on what made them successful.

I wholeheartedly believe this process would be a whole lot less anxiety inducing if students sought out mentors in EM leadership to help advise them through this process, and otherwise just avoided SDN, reddit, and twitter altogether for a month or so after apps go out. Because people just drive themselves into a frenzy worrying and trying to compare themselves to others.
 
I'm doing my best to resist the urge to send out LOIs. This year is so unusual compared to previous years. I've got 8 interviews so far and waitlisted at another...and I realize it's only been 2 1/2 weeks since ERAS opened. So I'm hoping I'll get more invites this week. @gamerEMdoc do you think waiting until after Thanksgiving is the best time to send LOIs to places I really want to interview, or should I wait longer, or act now?
Also, over the past 2 years at EM conferences I've been told if you can get 12-13 interviews you have ~ 75% chance of matching in your top 3 picks. Is that something you've heard as well? Is 12 or 13 interviews plenty, or do you think aiming for 15 is a better/safer goal this season?
I ask because I don't really have an EM advisor....my school has no home program.
 
how have certain APD's tried to combat residency expansion...if they even have?
 
Oligodinero said:
I'm doing my best to resist the urge to send out LOIs. This year is so unusual compared to previous years. I've got 8 interviews so far and waitlisted at another...and I realize it's only been 2 1/2 weeks since ERAS opened. So I'm hoping I'll get more invites this week. @gamerEMdoc do you think waiting until after Thanksgiving is the best time to send LOIs to places I really want to interview, or should I wait longer, or act now?
Also, over the past 2 years at EM conferences I've been told if you can get 12-13 interviews you have ~ 75% chance of matching in your top 3 picks. Is that something you've heard as well? Is 12 or 13 interviews plenty, or do you think aiming for 15 is a better/safer goal this season?
I ask because I don't really have an EM advisor....my school has no home program.
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12 interviews put you at like a 99% chance of matching. Anymore than that is pretty much pointless, unless you are just that uncertain where you want to end up. You 100% do not need to send out LOIs at this point. If you are at 8 interviews less than 3 weeks after ERAS opens, you will absolutely get to 12 or more. Without a doubt. I wouldn't send out a LOI before Dec 1st unless there are extraordinary circumstances.
 
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