You are at a disadvantage and I would be as creative and persistent as possible with this situation. I had a core program that took a high number of clerkship months, and called them to negotiate one less month so that I could add a month at another place, and luckily was able to convince my school to allow this change. I found the clerkship and residency selection process one of the most important and difficult processes of podiatry school. In particular learning about residency programs was the most difficult. Without visiting or doing a month at the program, it was hard to know much about them. Your selection of residency will have a huge impact on your training. My advice is to be as assertive for your needs as possible during this process, and one other tip is to visit the programs that you are interested in during the month or two immediately prior to crips. Show your face, show interest. I matched at a program where I didn't even extern, the way I did it was to visit it on the weekends the month or two before crips (I showed up at rounds ready to help), while I was at an externship at a program across town. By visiting when crips was fresh on their mind, I may have been more prominent in their minds than other students who had last seen them several months before.
