I've been reading this thread and noting all the high board scores and grades! I thought I'd put up a post from an extremely "average" student who did fine in the match - give all those other upcoming 4th years who want Anesthesia some hope! Step1-195/Step2-224 (My Step2 score wasn't back until late Dec so it wasn't a factor with getting the interviews, just with the ranking process). ALL Pass grades in 1st and 2nd years. Mostly High Pass in 3rd year with a few Passes mixed in. Honors in the first 2 blocks of 4th year (no grades after that were back in time for consideration). I applied to 18 Anesthesia programs and got 8 interviews. I ranked 7 of those 8 and landed my 2nd choice at UVermont - for which I am thrilled! Granted, I did not apply to the big name programs like Hopkins, Sinai, etc. But I did lots of reading about the programs and applied to smaller programs with good reputations (with the help of my mentor, an ologist who knew ALL the programs well). I got interviews at Maine, Vermont, Tufts-NEMC, Univ Pitt, St E's in Boston, UMASS, Temple. Some of these programs were absolute gems! The truth is, you will get a good Anesthesia education no matter where you go (just about), there are very few 'malignant' programs and they're easy to spot, but you have to find what is most important to you; size, research, name, environment, area, etc. If you want a 'name' school, you WILL need the high grades, if thats not as important then you can go just about anywhere. I am in school in PA and did undergrad in Boston. I applied to some west coast programs and was shot down right away, and all 8 of my interviews were PA or New England. I attribute my results to the fact that I had great letters of recommendation (1 from chief of surg, 1 from chief of OB/Gyn, and 1 from Chief of Anesthesia at my school who was very well known in the industry - I really spent time trying to work with each of them so they could get to know me well and write meaningful and personal letters - I KNOW this made a difference because the PD's mentioned it in almost every interview). I noticed all the PD's know each other in this industry and if you can find a mentor in Anesthesia who has published a few papers or was or is a program director and has some name recognition -this will go a loooong way. Start working on that relationship early by doing a rotation with them or volunteering a few hours in the OR with them. I was also told in my interviews that I was picked because of my "interesting" background (Medicine is a second career for me). In short, the PD's are bored of reading the same applications over and over and anything you can put on there to differentiate yourself can save your app from the trash bin, ie: interesting hobbies, past employment or volunteer. And never mislead the PD's by telling them you are going to rank them number one if you aren't - they all talk before the rank lists are turned in and they'll find out! I know a few who screwed themselves by trying that. Sending timely thankyou notes to everyone you interviewed with is also very important, don't forget the secretary who organized your day either, you'd be surprised how much his/her opinion is taken into account by the PD- I always tried to reference something we discussed during the interview day to try to trigger their memory because 2 months later when its time to make the rank lists, all the applicants tend to blur! Well, thats my .02, hope this gives all you non-AOA students hope!!