EM Residency Interview Months

[hikikomori]

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What are the "peak" interview months for EM residency programs?
I'm trying to plan what month(s) I should take some time off for my 4th year. I heard that this varies by specialties and geographical locations. I'm planning on applying to programs in NY and CA. So, what is the absolute month I should take some time off for interviews?

 

[alwaysaangel]

What are the "peak" interview months for EM residency programs?
I'm trying to plan what month(s) I should take some time off for my 4th year. I heard that this varies by specialties and geographical locations. I'm planning on applying to programs in NY and CA. So, what is the absolute month I should take some time off for interviews?

Its very dependent on where you apply and how early you think you're going to submit your ERAS and get all your letters in.

For me, most of my interviews this year were in Nov (I applied almost entirely to California), but some were in Dec and a couple in Jan. I guess I could have finished entirely from mid-Nov to mid-Dec with good planning but I didn't actually have that time off so I was taking time off rotations and limiting how many days I took off.

However, I have some classmates who were complete slightly later who are doing a lot of interviewing now in January.

If your school is super strict and you won't be able to take any time off for interviews during rotations then you should probably take January off...then when you get offers from October to January you can schedule them all for January and just knock them all out. But that sounds really really painful.

I was very thankful that my interviews were spread so far out giving me a break in between.

 

[deleted356135]

I did most of mine in December, but remember that very programs will interview from Dec 21 until Jan 2, so there's some downtime. You'll probably need to have close to 6 weeks of "availability" if you intend to interview at 12-15 programs without living out of a suitcase.

Of course, if there's strong geographic "clumping" of your potential sites such as NYC, NC, Chicago, or other areas with a cluster of programs, you may be able to be more efficient.

Also plan for possible weather delays.

 

[JohnUC33]

What are the "peak" interview months for EM residency programs?
I'm trying to plan what month(s) I should take some time off for my 4th year. I heard that this varies by specialties and geographical locations. I'm planning on applying to programs in NY and CA. So, what is the absolute month I should take some time off for interviews?

For osteopathic programs, they usually started in the middle of October, peaked in November, and finished by the middle of December.

 

[mizzoushooter]

The nice thing about EM interviews is the number of dates that they offered us by the programs. The earlier you get interview offers the more amount of dates that are available. All of my interview offers offered about 20 dates in the last 2 weeks in Nov, all of Dec, and and all of Jan. The few interview offers that I got later seemed to have dates open in Jan. So My recommendation is take off either Dec or Jan. If you are a less competitive applicant you may have more opportunities in Jan, at least from my experience.
Good luck.

 

[EMRocksmyworld]

For me, December was hands down the heaviest interview month. Also, by the time it's January you may be getting sick of interviewing. For me, December was the best month to take off. Also, some programs don't start up interviews in November and some programs end interviews in Mid-January (a pretty decent number, actually, from my experience) but everyone is interviewing in December.

Just my $0.02

 

[alexmtr]

I am only doing 10 and they were scheduled early on in the season. My first one wan Nov 3 and I still have one left on Feb 1st. I didn't really notice any geography-time relationship. I had December off, but I still had to miss days from school. Thankfully, my school has been understanding.