Fellowship Application Timeline Question

[Raryn]

I'm having trouble figuring out the appropriate timing for someone considering an REI application and was hoping to get some help here. The most recent SDN post I could find on the process was from 2013 and was before the specialty even started using ERAS.

I get the timelines as written - you can submit applications December 1st of your third year, the deadline is May 31st. Looking around some programs websites, they seem to interview in July-September (most commonly August) of 4th year, the rank list is due in October of 4th year and match day is later that month.

My question is very simple - the *application* window before interviews is a 6 month period. Are most people applying in December? January? May? Is it "be as early as you can or you're late" or "just get your application in before the deadline"?

In addition, programs are asking for CREOG scores - are they just getting the first two years? Third year comes out mid-cycle from what I understand - but still before the deadline.

This timeline is just so different from the ones I'm used to that I'm not sure how to best help plan - and unfortunately the person I'm assisting has a program with minimal advising as to fellowship applications.

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[Dr G Oogle]

I’m a urogyn fellow but we also have a fairly long window (though not quite that long) most of us apply in mid Jan to February and ERAS opens on dec 1st as well. Our interviews are late March through late May; offers start rolling in mid February. And they do want your third year CREOGs for us they email us and ask us to submit when available; you may just want to forward them to programs once you have them

 

[obgyny]

I matched into MFM last application cycle, and my timeline was exactly the same as you mentioned for REI. I don’t know what people typically do, but I didn’t submit my application until March. I still got plenty of interviews so I don’t think it made that much of difference. I starting getting invites in April, but most were sent out May/June.

I have no idea why the ERAS application window is so long...

I’ve heard conflicting advice about timing of submission- some people I asked recommended applying as soon as the application opens... others said likely okay to submit later (just not too close to the deadline May 31).

Some places asked for CREOG scores upfront (they’ll post it on their website to email it to them). While other programs emailed me sometime after I submitted ERAS asking me to send them my CREOG scores.

So if you happen to submit ERAS before you get your PGY3 CREOG score, just send it in later and let the program know, as the above poster mentioned.

Good luck!!

 

[ChaoticTheory]

I'm also interested in hearing about this. Specifically regarding both ONC and REI.

 

[Raryn]

Next question:

Obviously most REI programs are small, some might not fund the exact same # of fellows every year, and sometimes they take internal candidates. This leads to somewhat... inconsistent match participation.

For example (just because they're the first in the alphabet), University of Alabama put 1 spot in the match for the cycles of people starting fellowship in 2015, 2017, and 2018 - but skipped 2016 and 2019, I would *presume* because they took someone outside of the match those two years, because their website says they have 3 fellows. But maybe they skip one out of every three years. I don't know.

Cedars Sinai (next on the list in the alphabet) has put only a single spot in the match in the last 5 years - 2018. Stanford (next on the list) on the other hand has put 1 spot in the match every single year. Etc. I may or may not have made a spreadsheet (call me OCD). Hell, University of South Florida has *never* put a spot in the match, but they do accept ERAS applications.

How are people determining which programs to apply to when match participation is inconsistent? Except for one or two, the programs don't seem to be toggling "participating/not participating" on ERAS - and there's no way to know if the program just takes internal candidates (so it would be a waste of time to apply) or if it just interviews like normal and offers outside of match spots. Are people asking the programs (seems awkward) or just saying screw it and applying to all of them? With only 50-51 programs in the field (I *think* the DO program in Philly is merged into the main match as of the 2020 cycle), it's under $1000 to just apply to them all (minus whichever ones you're geographically unwilling to consider).

 

[BigTumor]

There is a box checked by default that only searches participating programs. Take a look at your results page right after you hit search. It’s near the top of the page.

You will see the number of programs go from 47 to 50 if you uncheck that box with NYU, Utah, and Northwestern not participating.

 

[anonperson]

Next question:

Obviously most REI programs are small, some might not fund the exact same # of fellows every year, and sometimes they take internal candidates. This leads to somewhat... inconsistent match participation.

For example (just because they're the first in the alphabet), University of Alabama put 1 spot in the match for the cycles of people starting fellowship in 2015, 2017, and 2018 - but skipped 2016 and 2019, I would *presume* because they took someone outside of the match those two years, because their website says they have 3 fellows. But maybe they skip one out of every three years. I don't know.

Cedars Sinai (next on the list in the alphabet) has put only a single spot in the match in the last 5 years - 2018. Stanford (next on the list) on the other hand has put 1 spot in the match every single year. Etc. I may or may not have made a spreadsheet (call me OCD). Hell, University of South Florida has *never* put a spot in the match, but they do accept ERAS applications.

How are people determining which programs to apply to when match participation is inconsistent? Except for one or two, the programs don't seem to be toggling "participating/not participating" on ERAS - and there's no way to know if the program just takes internal candidates (so it would be a waste of time to apply) or if it just interviews like normal and offers outside of match spots. Are people asking the programs (seems awkward) or just saying screw it and applying to all of them? With only 50-51 programs in the field (I *think* the DO program in Philly is merged into the main match as of the 2020 cycle), it's under $1000 to just apply to them all (minus whichever ones you're geographically unwilling to consider).

Cedars fellowship was a joint fellowship with UCLA (UCLA-Cedars) with UCLA being the main institution for the purposes of the match. They had this similar set up for gynecologic oncology but the two institutions have decided to separate their REI and gyn oncology fellowships around 2017.

As far as internal candidates, some programs will be upfront about this and pull out of the match early on. Others will pull out later if at all.

Another somewhat common issue is a spot essentially being promised to a resident from another institution based on attending connections but they still go through with the match process (these subspecialty attendings all know each other as it is such a small community).

Even though for example, 47 programs are participating in the match process, the actual number of real available spots is less. The actual number is unknown though.

If an applicant is unsure if a program is participating in the match even after looking through their website and ERAS, you can send them an email. I did for a handful of programs when I applied. It's not a big deal.

 

[Docere]

I matched REI this past cycle and can answer some of your questions.

My residency program, which has an REI fellowship, advised me to submit my application earlier rather than later. I was pressed to submit as soon as the cycle opened in December. I ended up submitting in January and applied to all programs. If I had updates to my research, I ended up emailing them to about half of the programs, the ones I would realistically be interested in matching. My home program and a few other programs sent me interview invites (and rejections) in March-April. A vast majority of my interviews were sent out after the applications closed. That being said, I've heard a few other programs say that they tell their residents to apply into REI by March-April, and those residents seemed to have match this year just fine.

Your CREOG scores are not uploaded to the application at all. Interested programs will email you specifically and ask for your CREOG score PDFs to be emailed in. They won't ask until the scores have all been released so you'll have PGY 1-3 scores in hand when they ask.

Most people who applied to REI ended up applying to all programs. I applied to all but two (realistically, I wasn't going to match into the NIH and I despise Detroit). I didn't want to run the risk of not matching for a few hundred dollars. You are correct that some programs are going to match internally. For this past cycle, there were a few programs that knew they were taking an internal and didn't bother accepting any applications, which is something to be grateful for. Duke was one of those programs. A few other programs decided later on that they were going to take an internal and withdrew from ERAS before sending out any interview invitations, such as Kentucky and EVMS. We grumbled a little about wasting $25 on those applications but there's nothing that can be done.

UAB withdrew from the match for this past cycle because of the department shake-up, but they held a few private interviews in October to try to find a fellow to start in 2019. Not sure if they found one to fill the spot.

anonperson is right in that some programs already have someone in mind to take their spot but go through the match process. I was given this opportunity myself but ultimately decided to match elsewhere. The process is a weird game about connections, much more so than residency match.

Feel free to message me if you have questions. Good luck!

 

[Raryn]

For anyone curious, at least for REI, there's actually a new process/timeline put together this year by SREI that has explicit dates for everything. Came across it earlier and it seems great.

Guideline summary for 2020:

Friday May 1, 2020: (12PM CST):	Deadline for receiving applications.
Friday June 5, 2020:	Single notification date (ALL REI fellowships send out "first wave" notfications
Tuesday June 9, 2020 (12pm CST):	Initial deadline for applicants to accept or decline interview date. Additional invites can be sent at this time.
Friday June 12, 2020	Deadline for alerting invited candidates as to which interview date they are given (including option of waitlisting then if they cannot make the offered slot) as well as informing ALL candicates as their status (i.e. invited for interview; wait-listed; or rejected).

No decisions should be made prior to June 9th deadline for receipt of candidate responses.

SMFM and Gyn Onc have reportedly implemented similar (per the page).