Friend matched acgme surg

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Gen Surg is moderately competitive. I have plenty of MD friends over the years that failed to ever obtain a position despite decent scores.
I obviously don't know why your friends failed to match, but gen surg and even radiology are not what MD students consider competitive... A 220+ step with some research would give a MD student a good shot at gen surg and radiology, assuming that person has no red flags.

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I obviously don't know why your friends failed to match, but gen surg and even radiology are not what MD students consider competitive... A 220+ step with some research would give a MD student a good shot at gen surg and radiology, assuming that person has no red flags.
It's more competitive than 11 specialties but less competitive than 8 in the main match- basically, it's on the upper end of the middle of the spectrum of the NRMP, and solidly in the middle of the pack of we include non-NRMP specialties. Overall, general surgery had the 6th lowest match rate of all NRMP specialties, with one in six applicants not matching. I'd say that's "moderately competitive," and certainly not uncompetitive.
 
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It happens all the time. Which is why “my best friend matched acgme gen surg” is a ridiculously pompous thread. There’s not even any context lol.

Not without a USMLE it doesn't.

Lol at all of you in here crapping on this thread. The instant I read the OP it was obvious that OP is simply happy for their friend. No one is basing residency decisions off of a thread like this yet you all are strolling in here to **** post. You don't like it? Well thats too bad. If it bothers you, then GTFO and grow up. No one cares if you like it.

Much more harmful than the "endless negativity, vitriol, cynicism and bitterness" on SDN is the incessant virtue-signaling. ;)

This thread isn't even close to virtue signaling so nice straw man.

OP's post says that DO students should be more excited and hopeful because OP's friend (whom we know absolutely nothing about) matched ACGME general surgery. I'm sorry, but this is completely different from "posting good news."

Lol just a month ago there was a thread where a poster in this thread and one other person tried to rail against me for 2 pages when I simply told the OP of that thread (who had a 240+ on both Steps) to go talk to actual DO residents in GS about their experience because SDN wasn't going to give them good advice. According to them it was "extremely difficult" and "not a good chance" and there were other comments like "why are you glassing over the difficulty of DOs matching in surgery" and a bunch of other personal attacks, simply because I told someone to go talk to actual residents. That was literally my only advice I gave. One of those people is now in this thread acting like matching ACGME GS is cake. So... yeah someone matching ACGME surgery with simply COMLEX is something that is interesting, as it is in direct contradiction to the population of SDN who act like you need a 260, 10 pubs, and major residency connections to simply not do primary care. Everyone here obviously knows that this is still an outlier and not something anyone should expect, but its still a nice story to hear. DO students should be hopeful that their work will be rewarded if they put in the requisite amount of effort. But, it's nice to know though that there are people who aren't in medical school yet who clearly have the bull by the horns and will carry on the SDN torch of crapping on other people's accomplishments in the name of "we can't be misleading desperate people" and trying to make sure that people don't have hope because DOs should never have hope.

Someone could match neurosurgery at John's Hopkins from ICOM and there are people in this thread who would be ready with their, "yeah but...." statements 2 minutes after it was posted. :rolleyes:
 
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It's more competitive than 11 specialties but less competitive than 8 in the main match- basically, it's on the upper end of the middle of the spectrum of the NRMP, and solidly in the middle of the pack of we include non-NRMP specialties. Overall, general surgery had the 6th lowest match rate of all NRMP specialties, with one in six applicants not matching. I'd say that's "moderately competitive," and certainly not uncompetitive.
I know it's not uncompetitive based on charting the outcomes... But a below average MD student can match into gen surg and radiology if they know how to play the game... And I see it in my class in this match and I go to a very low tier US MD school...
 
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I know it's not uncompetitive based on charting the outcomes... But a below average MD student can match into gen surg and radiology if they know how to play the game...

What field did you end up matching into, if don't mind me asking?
 
Congrats to op for having a friend
 
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And? Gen Surg is not really a competitive field, and lots of DOs match it every year (even though there is about 50% success for ACGME). I thought you were going to say something unique like your friend matched into a top tier surgery program, which would have been interesting. But a lot of people like your friend match into low tier and community surgery each year...

I interviewed at this place and it was an incredibly malignant program. The faculties appeared cruel, mean and unsupportive. The residents were overworked, miserable and disgruntled.
You, my friend, reminds me of that place a lot.
Gosh, I hope you as a person is better than you as an SDN-er
 
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Internal Medicine... The only field I applied to.

After hearing about thinking about applying to FM, Psych, etc to cover your bases. I wasn't sure. Congrats.
 
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After hearing about thinking about applying to FM, Psych, etc to cover your bases. I wasn't sure. Congrats.
Psych was my #1 going in, but I was a little bit scared when there was one student I know who did not match last year with 208 step1 (my step1 is ~10 point higher than his) and he had 8 or 9 interviews.

I am someone who is very risk averse, so since IM was a close second and easier to match overall, so I said I will go with my close second.
 
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And? Gen Surg is not really a competitive field, and lots of DOs match it every year (even though there is about 50% success for ACGME). I thought you were going to say something unique like your friend matched into a top tier surgery program, which would have been interesting. But a lot of people like your friend match into low tier and community surgery each year...
I bet you're real fun at parties...
 
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I interviewed at this place and it was an incredibly malignant program. The faculties appeared cruel, mean and unsupportive. The residents were overworked, miserable and disgruntled.
You, my friend, reminds me of that place a lot.
Gosh, I hope you as a person is better than you as an SDN-er
you interviewed at SDN?
 
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And to rational people, these kinds of posts just serve as spam. We already know that some DOs match into general surgery, and we already know that at least some of these DOs have friends. We may as well see forum posts describing the color of the sky or enumerating the letters of the English alphabet.

Between all the "Whoot Whoot Whoot" and "Muh research" threads, and the never-ending annoying af MD/DO posts, I think we can have afford to have one little thread congratulating one of our colleagues for matching ACGME Surgery with just COMLEX.
 
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It's more competitive than 11 specialties but less competitive than 8 in the main match- basically, it's on the upper end of the middle of the spectrum of the NRMP, and solidly in the middle of the pack of we include non-NRMP specialties. Overall, general surgery had the 6th lowest match rate of all NRMP specialties, with one in six applicants not matching. I'd say that's "moderately competitive," and certainly not uncompetitive.
I think there is a good amount of people 'reaching' for surgery as well tho. I am sure all of us have at least one friend that was surgeon or bust but didn't have the grades. Some of those people try anyway, especially from the Caribbean.
 
I think there is a good amount of people 'reaching' for surgery as well tho. I am sure all of us have at least one friend that was surgeon or bust but didn't have the grades. Some of those people try anyway, especially from the Caribbean.
I was going entirely off of US MD statistics.
 
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I was going entirely off of US MD statistics.
TY for the clarification. Whelp, I still imagine its still the same kind of people tho, what is the USMLE of those not matching?
 
Not without a USMLE it doesn't.

Lol at all of you in here crapping on this thread. The instant I read the OP it was obvious that OP is simply happy for their friend. No one is basing residency decisions off of a thread like this yet you all are strolling in here to **** post. You don't like it? Well thats too bad. If it bothers you, then GTFO and grow up. No one cares if you like it.



This thread isn't even close to virtue signaling so nice straw man.



Lol just a month ago there was a thread where a poster in this thread and one other person tried to rail against me for 2 pages when I simply told the OP of that thread (who had a 240+ on both Steps) to go talk to actual DO residents in GS about their experience because SDN wasn't going to give them good advice. According to them it was "extremely difficult" and "not a good chance" and there were other comments like "why are you glassing over the difficulty of DOs matching in surgery" and a bunch of other personal attacks, simply because I told someone to go talk to actual residents. That was literally my only advice I gave. One of those people is now in this thread acting like matching ACGME GS is cake. So... yeah someone matching ACGME surgery with simply COMLEX is something that is interesting, as it is in direct contradiction to the population of SDN who act like you need a 260, 10 pubs, and major residency connections to simply not do primary care. Everyone here obviously knows that this is still an outlier and not something anyone should expect, but its still a nice story to hear. DO students should be hopeful that their work will be rewarded if they put in the requisite amount of effort. But, it's nice to know though that there are people who aren't in medical school yet who clearly have the bull by the horns and will carry on the SDN torch of crapping on other people's accomplishments in the name of "we can't be misleading desperate people" and trying to make sure that people don't have hope because DOs should never have hope.

Someone could match neurosurgery at John's Hopkins from ICOM and there are people in this thread who would be ready with their, "yeah but...." statements 2 minutes after it was posted. :rolleyes:

One guy supposedly match surgery just with COMLEX (not the poster, his/her friend), suddenly gen surg attainable for every DO grad.
 
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One guy supposedly match surgery just with COMLEX (not the poster, his/her friend), suddenly gen surg attainable for every DO grad.

I would love it, and I'm sure everyone here would too, if you could show me precisely where a single person has ever said this in the history of SDN. Nice strawman, your comment has literally nothing to do with what I have said or this thread in general.
 
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I would love it, and I'm sure everyone here would too, if you could show me precisely where a single person has ever said this in the history of SDN. Nice strawman, your comment it has literally nothing to do with what I have said or this thread in general.

I agree that his post is a strawman... but it seemed like a good segue into an old-fashioned, grab-your-popcorn DO vs. MD slugfest, so I gave it a Like.
 
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TY for the clarification. Whelp, I still imagine its still the same kind of people tho, what is the USMLE of those not matching?

For USMD? Step 1 of 218 is the average of those not matched. Even with a Step score of 210-220 you still have a 66% chance of matching as a USMD. My MD friends tell me that GS really isn't competitive for them and its kind of like IM where the top programs are as competitive as anything but just landing a spot somewhere isn't very difficult with the plethora of low-tier and community programs. The people who don't match are largely very low stat students who are reaching for surgery. Even those with a 200-210 have a 50/50 match rate.

tldr, just landing any GS spot as a USMD is not hard. Like IM, the more rungs of the ladder you want to go the more exponentially difficult it becomes.

I agree that his post is a strawman... but it seemed like a good segue into an old-fashioned, grab-your-popcorn DO vs. MD slugfest, so I gave it a Like.

You know, we might have our differences, but posts like this make me chuckle and think that in real life we would probably get along just fine.
 
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For USMD? Step 1 of 218 is the average of those not matched. Even with a Step score of 210-220 you still have a 66% chance of matching as a USMD. My MD friends tell me that GS really isn't competitive for them and its kind of like IM where the top programs are as competitive as anything but just landing a spot somewhere isn't very difficult with the plethora of low-tier and community programs. The people who don't match are largely very low stat students who are reaching for surgery. Even those with a 200-210 have a 50/50 match rate.

tldr, just landing any GS spot as a USMD is not hard. Like IM, the more rungs of the ladder you want to go the more exponentially difficult it becomes.

You know, we might have our differences, but posts like this make me chuckle and think that in real life we would probably get along just fine.

I know 2 people who matched GS in my class with step1 in 210s to low 220s, and both of them had to cancel a few interviews...
 
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One guy supposedly match surgery just with COMLEX (not the poster, his/her friend), suddenly gen surg attainable for every DO grad.

There you are, I was wondering when the Fluffster would come rain on the parade.
 
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Honestly, this is my major complaint with SDN. The endless negativity, vitriol, cynicism and bitterness that are regularly seen across many forums are frustrating and tiring to read. When someone posts good news, we should congratulate them on their success and not selfishly use this as an opportunity to put down colleagues and undermine their accomplishments.

SDN gets a bad name because people on here are judgmental, brutal and condescending to one another. We are stuck in this vicious circle of hypercompetitiveness/neuroticism and are so used to negativity that even good news should be criticized to the most finest extent. That needs to stop.

+1! Well said
 
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One guy supposedly match surgery just with COMLEX (not the poster, his/her friend), suddenly gen surg attainable for every DO grad.

Nobody said that.

It’s a happy story and a good sign— not a magical indication that ACGME Gen Surg is universally obtainable for DOs. I don’t think that’s what OP was trying to say and I don’t think it’s how most of us heard it.

I actually appreciate your realism and attention to detail and data most of the time, but I don’t know why everyone has to rain on the parade of what was intended to be a happy thread, anecdotal as it is.
 
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Here’s another n = 1 story. DO candidate withUSMLE 251/259 soaping ACGME gen surg. Tragic.



What's your point? I'm sure we can find plenty of n=1 stories of DOs and MDs with great numbers who didn't match into their specialty of choice.

Dude posts one harmless thread during match week being happy about a fellow colleague matching Surgery w/only COMLEX too, and a bunch of you feel the need to invalidate everything. Piss off.
 
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What's your point? I'm sure we can find plenty of n=1 stories of DOs and MDs with great numbers who didn't match into their specialty of choice.

Dude posts one harmless thread during match week being happy about a fellow colleague matching Surgery w/only COMLEX too, and a bunch of you feel the need to invalidate everything. Piss off.

I came in after a certain poster writes a lengthy post along the line of “oh gee, I disagreed with experienced poster like Goro and painted rainbow and sunshine about DO and gen surg and got schooled. Now I am validated now because this one thing happened”

It’s a time for celebration but also sobering reflection.
 
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Good old SDN where "people read what they want to read." Sounds like a familiar thread...
 
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I came in after a certain poster writes a lengthy post along the line of “oh gee, I disagreed with experienced poster like Goro and painted rainbow and sunshine about DO and gen surg and got schooled. Now I am validated now because this one thing happened”

It’s a time for celebration but also sobering reflection.

Please show me where I "got schooled" or "painted rainbows and sunshine about DO and gen surg." :rofl: I think you suffer from amnesia. I dare say your little buddy @sab3156 has been painting more rainbows and sunshine about DOs and gen surg than I ever have:

And? Gen Surg is not really a competitive field, and lots of DOs match it every year

Good old SDN where "people read what they want to read." Sounds like a familiar thread...

It's ok. The mental gymnastics it takes to reach the conclusions he gets out of my posts is worthy of the olympics. I'd give him a 10/10 for sure.
 
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I came in after a certain poster writes a lengthy post along the line of “oh gee, I disagreed with experienced poster like Goro and painted rainbow and sunshine about DO and gen surg and got schooled. Now I am validated now because this one thing happened”

No, you come into this thread saying: "One guy supposedly match surgery just with COMLEX (not the poster, his/her friend), suddenly gen surg attainable for every DO grad." Nobody said this whatsoever, but cool, thanks for that blatant strawman.

It’s a time for celebration but also sobering reflection.

No, it's not "a time for...sobering reflection." It's match week, and people are happy. Don't you have better things to do as someone who finished med school than coming here and constantly trolling DOs?
 
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No, you come into this thread saying: "One guy supposedly match surgery just with COMLEX (not the poster, his/her friend), suddenly gen surg attainable for every DO grad." Nobody said this whatsoever, but cool, thanks for that blatant strawman.



No, it's not "a time for...sobering reflection." It's match week, and people are happy. Don't you have better things to do as someone who finished med school than coming here and constantly trolling DOs?
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Here’s another n = 1 story. DO candidate withUSMLE 251/259 soaping ACGME gen surg. Tragic.


That thread is truly frightening. PD's are animals, you got people getting promised spots in emails then not getting them. I feel for everyone going through the SOAP.
 
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Here’s another n = 1 story. DO candidate withUSMLE 251/259 soaping ACGME gen surg. Tragic.




WOW. Reading this and the other posts written by the OP on reddit sent chills down my spine. Very well-rounded applicant with scores in the top 14th percentile. It is just getting incredibly competitive. Makes me think that maybe the merger happened too quick with not enough protection for DOs. The AOA should've required programs using the expedited "Pathway A" route to remain in the AOA match until 2020 or something. I don't know. Too bad they don't care at all. Really feel for this kid. Those scores are not easy to get. Lots of sleepless nights, lots of sweat and tears only to SOAP into a random IM program.


As a DO student planning on applying surgery next year, this worries me.
 
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WOW. Reading this and the other posts written by the OP on reddit sent chills down my spine. Very well-rounded applicant with scores in the top 14th percentile. It is just getting incredibly competitive. Makes me think that maybe the merger happened too quick with not enough protection for DOs. The AOA should've required programs using the expedited "Pathway A" route to remain in the AOA match until 2020 or something. I don't know. Too bad they don't care at all. Really feel for this kid. Those scores are not easy to get. Lots of sleepless nights, lots of sweat and tears only to SOAP into a random IM program.


As a DO student planning on applying surgery next year, this worries me.

The issue is that the vast majority of surgery programs just don't want to interview DOs. And they don't need to. That's why threads like this are just dumb, giving "hope", yet giving no information about connections, whether this was a former AOA program, whether this person took a year off after not matching to do a fellowship at the program he eventually matched to, etc.

And think about it - this is general surgery. Not even that competitive. It doesn't even have as much AOA membership among residents percentage-wise as IM.
 
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The issue is that the vast majority of surgery programs just don't want to interview DOs. And they don't need to. That's why threads like this are just dumb, giving "hope", yet giving no information about connections, whether this was a former AOA program, whether this person took a year off after not matching to do a fellowship at the program he eventually matched to, etc.

And think about it - this is general surgery. Not even that competitive. It doesn't even have as much AOA membership among residents percentage-wise as IM.

The university programs are still competitive but the community ones I interviewed are not as competitive as it’s made to seem on the MD side. I can tell you guys for a fact that at several of my ACGME interviews there were MD candidates interviewing with step scores lower than the average <230. Every other DO I met that interviewed at these same programs scored >230 Whether they got ranked is a different story, but it goes to show the disparity in terms of how some of these programs interview DOs as opposed to MDs the bias does exist unfortunately.

Good for whoever this person is that matched with just a comlex but Everyone need to take this it’s a grain of salt without more information. And like I always tell people, for every miracle story you hear there are a dozens others who have failed before them. Hard workand determination will get any applicant where they want though
 
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The issue is that the vast majority of surgery programs just don't want to interview DOs. And they don't need to. That's why threads like this are just dumb, giving "hope", yet giving no information about connections, whether this was a former AOA program, whether this person took a year off after not matching to do a fellowship at the program he eventually matched to, etc.

And think about it - this is general surgery. Not even that competitive. It doesn't even have as much AOA membership among residents percentage-wise as IM.
We also don't really know about how this applicants interviews truly went or if there was something they left out. I've talked to a GS PD who basically said he didn't give a crap about the board score as long as it was decent (meaning he didn't care 230 vs 260) and he cared much more about whether or not that applicant was good to work with. When you're working overnight with that resident you want him to be a go to kind of guy. We don't know the whole situation about any applicant, the only thing we can do is go by the data we do have, which say GS is moderately competitive and DOs are capable of matching with regularity but it's not a shoe in nor is it easy. Everything else is just n=1. In the PD survey it shows exactly how many programs don't want to interview DOs and if I remember right I believe most will, but there are certainly a significant portion that don't. Further, this thread is about us being happy for someone who matched their desired specialty and did so with only COMLEX. Nobody should assume that it's smart to skip the usmle and, if you do, you do so at your own risk.
 
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I met with my school's dean just yesterday (Wednesday) and he said this year was apparently the worst match year in our school's history with an unusually and unexpectedly high number of students participating in the SOAP.

Makes me think that maybe the merger happened too quick with not enough protection for DOs. The AOA should've required programs using the expedited "Pathway A" route to remain in the AOA match until 2020 or something. I don't know.

Couldn't agree more. Too many changes happening too fast and the ones who are most hurt are those in the top and the bottom. How could the AOA not see this coming? You're opening up DO programs to MDs in a very short time frame and not expecting a drop in DO residency placement? But it's all right. The students that didn't match or SOAP will just "delay graduation" and DO schools will still be able to boast about "100% placement" and keep the $$$ flowing.
 
I met with my school's dean just yesterday (Wednesday) and he said this year was apparently the worst match year in our school's history with an unusually and unexpectedly high number of students participating in the SOAP.

Couldn't agree more. Too many changes happening too fast and the ones who are most hurt are those in the top and the bottom. How could the AOA not see this coming? You're opening up DO programs to MDs in a very short time frame and not expecting a drop in DO residency placement? But it's all right. The students that didn't match or SOAP will just "delay graduation" and DO schools will still be able to boast about "100% placement" and keep the $$$ flowing.

We don't have the charting outcomes yet but almost everyone that is not DO saw that coming... You open these residencies to MD and you think things won't change that much. It's not even US MD students that will make difficult for the bottom half DO to match; it's mostly FMG/IMG who have the luxury of taking months (or even years) to study for the steps. We all know how obsess people in medicine are about stats... so a lot former (ACGME now) DO PDs will be tempted to take the FMG/IMG who scores 220+ in step1 over a DO who barely passes these exams... Lets hope PD can resist that temptation.
 
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so a lot former (ACGME now) DO PDs will be tempted to take the FMG/IMG who scores 220+ in step1 over a DO who barely passes these exams... Lets hope PD can resist that temptation.

Eh it’s not the 220+ IMGS that people need to be worried about. It’s the higher stat (240+) people that will be tempting to PDs. The kind of people who are so desperate for a residency spot they will apply to all the former AOA IM programs just to have a shot.
 
Couldn't agree more. Too many changes happening too fast and the ones who are most hurt are those in the top and the bottom. How could the AOA not see this coming? You're opening up DO programs to MDs in a very short time frame and not expecting a drop in DO residency placement? But it's all right. The students that didn't match or SOAP will just "delay graduation" and DO schools will still be able to boast about "100% placement" and keep the $$$ flowing.


Yup! It's a mess and not fair. The Classes of 2018 and 2019 really didn't know the full repercussions of the merger before signing up to attend a DO school so I do agree that the AOA should have added some protection or some loophole for the earlier classes.
 
Yup! It's a mess and not fair. The Classes of 2018 and 2019 really didn't know the full repercussions of the merger before signing up to attend a DO school so I do agree that the AOA should have added some protection or some loophole for the earlier classes.
Yeah, you guys are getting pistol whipped. I cannot even imagine going to school and thinking comlex only was ok for my goals and then 2 years later having this dumpster fire situation. I feel really bad for those people because they couldn't know two years later that usmle would be soooooo much more important.
 
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Yeah, you guys are getting pistol whipped. I cannot even imagine going to school and thinking comlex only was ok for my goals and then 2 years later having this dumpster fire situation. I feel really bad for those people because they couldn't know two years later that usmle would be soooooo much more important.

The only saving grace for those people (if you can call it that) is the fact that some programs have stayed in the AOA match even after getting accreditation, or that programs that don't get it will be able to let people finish their programs after 2021.
 
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The only saving grace for those people (if you can call it that) is the fact that some programs have stayed in the AOA match even after getting accreditation, or that programs that don't get it will be able to let people finish their programs after 2021.
That's true. I hope the optimists are right and DO PDs stay loyal (which I have heard anecdotes of but disagree with the mass casualty of DOs in the SOAP/Scramble threads) or are at least open minded after the AOA match dissolves completely, but I am not holding my breath. Just got my fingers crossed that my 2/3 target specialties don't have a big upswing in competitiveness like radiology did this year.
 
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Do you guys think it will get better by the time we graduate? (2020, 2021)
 
Do you guys think it will get better by the time we graduate? (2020, 2021)

IMO yes and no

Better in that itll be less confusing for those classes having one unified match? Yes

But also worse in that we’ll have a few hundred more graduating MD and DOs due to new schools, more programs will be shutdown, etc. So worse for far top and bottom of class, slightly better for middle of class perhaps? Not completely sure, just my speculation.
 
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That's true. I hope the optimists are right and DO PDs stay loyal (which I have heard anecdotes of but disagree with the mass casualty of DOs in the SOAP/Scramble threads) or are at least open minded after the AOA match dissolves completely, but I am not holding my breath. Just got my fingers crossed that my 2/3 target specialties don't have a big upswing in competitiveness like radiology did this year.

The SOAP threads aren’t representative of what really happened though IMO. DOs had the exact same match rate as last year (81.7%) and that’s with an increase of over 800 more DOs applying this year through NRMP.
 
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