For Program Directors

[battleAL]

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I know that during match, many program directors give promises to the applicants of ranking them high and the applicants also send ranking emails to various programs. But look it from an applicant's perspective. I have a friend who was promised not 2 but 3 times by the program director of ranking him highly. The program's chief resident also did the same. My friend ranked that program no. 1 and was mentally prepared to go there. When he did not match there, he was so disappointed and today he has under depression. Although he has matched to another good program, he is not excited about it and lost that enthusiasm.

A program director receives ranking emails from many applicants who interviewed, so if one or two don't match at their program it will not affect them badly or not at all. But an applicant who receives ranking promises from a PD of no. 1 program doesn't match there, is dismantled mentally.

My sincere request to the program directors please do not play with the emotions of applicants in future, don't give false assurances.

Thank you.

 

[vir0n]

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[ProgCoordinator]

While I can't say that misleading doesn't happen with some programs, it must be stated that a PD may say in all truthfulness that a candidate is ranked to match and, even though a candidate may have ranked the program #1, said candidate may not match there if the program ends up having all of their spots match higher on their rank list than expected based on their previous match history.

If I have 40 spots to fill and my program usually matches down around #65, it is fair for me to state that candidate #50 is ranked to match. If we match down to #47 this year then, unfortunately, #50 will match elsewhere even if they ranked the program #1.

Not making light of a crappy situation, but I felt it important to submit an alternate perspective.

Of course, if a program says you're #1 and you ranked them #1 and you didn't match there...then they suck.

 

[atsai3]

I know that during match, many program directors give promises to the applicants of ranking them high and the applicants also send ranking emails to various programs. But look it from an applicant's perspective. I have a friend who was promised not 2 but 3 times by the program director of ranking him highly. The program's chief resident also did the same. My friend ranked that program no. 1 and was mentally prepared to go there. When he did not match there, he was so disappointed and today he has under depression. Although he has matched to another good program, he is not excited about it and lost that enthusiasm.

A program director receives ranking emails from many applicants who interviewed, so if one or two don't match at their program it will not affect them badly or not at all. But an applicant who receives ranking promises from a PD of no. 1 program doesn't match there, is dismantled mentally.

My sincere request to the program directors please do not play with the emotions of applicants in future, don't give false assurances.

Thank you.

From what you wrote, it's not clear to me that your friend was given 'assurances'. Perhaps the program director did rank your friend highly-- just not highly enough.

 

[battleAL]

I don't know how many candidates did my friend's no. 1 program ranks every year. What does this mean: "We have ranked you very highly." "We feel you are a perfect fit to our family." "I promise you that you are seriously considered."

if program ranks 100 for their say 20 positions. Telling the 85th ranked applicant that you are ranked very highly is not fair. Because there are chances that their match is done at just 70th rank. This is just an example. I believe programs rank atleast 5 people for 1 position they have. Meaning programs play this game very very safely such that they dont go unfilled, even if they have to play with emotions of the applicants.

 

[ProgCoordinator]

Beyond my original post, wisdom from aProgDirector...


Originally Posted by drwannabe44
I sent my top two programs interest emails and they replied by saying " I hope to see you here next year" and the other one replied "We would be excited to have you join our program" I really hope that means they will rank me high enough to match there! :/ any advice or similar stories ???

aProgDirector: All of those mean nothing other than you're on their list. When I get my matches, I want the last person matched to feel as good as the first. hence, vague happiness inducing statements like the above. A response like: "Well, you're on our list but we kinda hope we don't go that far down, but I guess we'll train you if we do" just wouldn't work for many reasons.


Originally Posted by vir0n
You know, I think it's total crap that these short of emails/communications are allowed to go on. I feel it should be a NRMP violation to have any sort of communication with a program post-interview. We wouldn't have these vague comments from program directors and students wouldn't lie about who they are ranking numbering one, etc. You just simply interview, rank, and match (hopefully). No more "we anticipate you to match here if you should choose to rank us highly" stuff. (Which, just for the record, is an incredibly misleading statement and should really be "we have ranked you number 78 for a class size of 25 and our historical median ranking number needed to fill our intern class is 79, so you should statistically be able match with us.") Dr. aProgDirector, what do you think?

aProgDirector: I happen to agree. I don't send out emails like this. I do respond to applicant emails like this with a vague "We be happy to have you in our program should you match with us", which is certainly true no matter where you are on our rank list. However, I think it's hard to ban things like this. Let's say you try to ban it. Some applicants (and perhaps programs) will want to do it anyway. So they'll combine it with a question. "Hi aPD, I interviewed in December and have a question. What are the hours of night float? Oh yeah, and I'm ranking you highly. Love applicant". So, trying to prevent this behavior is probably impossible.

 

[battleAL]

I would agree with this that communications between the PDs and Applicants should be totally banned and considered a match violation. Its okay to send thank you notes, as it is a part of courtesy.

OR the PDs should consider this unethical to give assurances when they are not sure if they will rank an applicant high enough to be matched at their program. In the same way, it should be unethical for the applicants to send emails to all the programs saying that I am ranking you no. 1

I communicated with my programs. But to even the one I was ranking no. 1, I did not actually tell what rank number I have assigned. I told that I will be ranking them at the top of my list. Period. Other programs I told that I am ranking them highly. Now for an applicant this highly never goes beyond 10th or at the most 15th rank. On the contrary, for the Program "highly ranked" goes upto their 100th rank!!!

 

[futuremd22283]

I communicated with my programs. But to even the one I was ranking no. 1, I did not actually tell what rank number I have assigned. I told that I will be ranking them at the top of my list. Period. Other programs I told that I am ranking them highly. Now for an applicant this highly never goes beyond 10th or at the most 15th rank. On the contrary, for the Program "highly ranked" goes upto their 100th rank!!!

The fact that you're telling your top 10 programs that you were ranking them "highly" is relative to the program telling their top 100 or whatever that they're ranked "highly". Think about it, a typical IM candidate may interview at 20 programs (high estimate) and tell the top 10 that they're high (about 50%). Now, as a program, you may be interviewing 200 people and you tell the first 100 that they're high (about 50%). They are more relative than you think.

It's really plain and simple, candidates are trying to match to the best place and the programs are trying to match the best candidates. Each side will say these things, and at the end of the day, things will just work out the way they work out.

 

[battleAL]

if we do the math correctly. if the applicant with 20 ranked programs, tells his top 10 programs that you are ranked highly. Then, the program with 200 applicants but which ranks 100 only..should tell only their top 50 ranked applicants that they are ranked highly..because the rest 100 are not even ranked. Now it makes sense.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

You telling your 10th program (out of 10) that you are ranking them highly is just as much a lie on your part, didn't realize #10 out of 10 is "highly ranked"... just because you or your "friend" didnt match at your top 1 or 2 doesn't mean you need to post a thread over it at this point... yes, I didn't match at my top 2, and I was initially surprised at not matching at my #2, but now I'm totally fine with it... from my conversations with residents at the program I'll be going to, I feel like everything will work out really well... as it will for you and everyone else.

 

[haitham]

Tell your friend to take it easy.....and to prepare himself to work hard during residency to prove to those who put their trust in him they put it at the right place!

 

[theneh]

I too felt a bit burned by my #1 choice. I hit waves of anger and deep sadness...now i kinda don't feel much of anything, except spite...this experience has changed me...On March 17th, a PD had "turned the lights off" and I stopped for a minute, frozen in panic and disbelief...there was silence...I then chose to march into the eternal darkness, sensing my soul fleeing my body, my eyes becoming flourescent auburn flames...
"Ahhhhh, the Dark Side," I said to myself. "Anger is my only friend now. MUahahahahahahaahaha!"

 

[omegaxx]

I too felt a bit burned by my #1 choice. I hit waves of anger and deep sadness...now i kinda don't feel much of anything, except spite...this experience has changed me...On March 17th, a PD had "turned the lights off" and I stopped for a minute, frozen in panic and disbelief...there was silence...I then chose to march into the eternal darkness, sensing my soul fleeing my body, my eyes becoming flourescent auburn flames...
"Ahhhhh, the Dark Side," I said to myself. "Anger is my only friend now. MUahahahahahahaahaha!"

Bad experience 🙁
Fine poetry 👍

My take on the whole situation: it causes unnecessary strain and should be banned. But then again, not likely that it'll happen any time soon.

Telling your top 10 programs that you are "ranking them highly" is pretty bogus IMO. Most IM applicants, I feel, don't need to fall lower than their #5 when it comes to matching. Most people I know don't go out of their top 4 when it comes to that. That's like the mathematically equivalent of telling the applicant ranked at #100 that he/she is ranked highly, when the program has only 10 seats and traditionally goes down to #50 to fill up its class.