How far down rank lists do programs (esp child) go?

[Bearrie]

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I'm sure this varies widely from program and from adult to child fellowship and from year to year and PDs don't announce it publicly, but as a broad generalization, take this scenario:

Very well-regarded academic (not NYU, MGH, or Yale but competing for many of same applicants) child fellowship has 10 slots and interviews 5 times as many applicants as open slots. I'm sure you wouldn't have to be in top 10 on their list to match, but is it top 20, 30, 40? This would seem to matter a lot (i.e. being absolute top choices or being somewhere in middle or even near bottom).

Also has anyone else got the sense this is a particularly competitive year for child in the northeast for child, much more so than last year. I was told this recently by a training director. Any thoughts?

Thanks so much

 

[clausewitz2]

I'm sure this varies widely from program and from adult to child fellowship and from year to year and PDs don't announce it publicly, but as a broad generalization, take this scenario:

Very well-regarded academic (not NYU, MGH, or Yale but competing for many of same applicants) child fellowship has 10 slots and interviews 5 times as many applicants as open slots. I'm sure you wouldn't have to be in top 10 on their list to match, but is it top 20, 30, 40? This would seem to matter a lot (i.e. being absolute top choices or being somewhere in middle or even near bottom).

Also has anyone else got the sense this is a particularly competitive year for child in the northeast for child, much more so than last year. I was told this recently by a training director. Any thoughts?

Thanks so much

Surely if it is a match list, the truth of this or the fact of the matter about where programs get to on their match list has exactly zero bearing on your optimal ranking behavior, and is indeed something over which you have no influence?

 

[Bearrie]

Yes I understand the algorithm (Pareto equilibrium, maximal efficiency, etc etc) but would like to know if when leaving interview of say 5 if on average I have to be the "best" of the 5 or say just one of the top 3 (on average). The latter is obviously more reassuring.


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[clausewitz2]

Yes I understand the algorithm (Pareto equilibrium, maximal efficiency, etc etc) but would like to know if when leaving interview of say 5 if on average I have to be the "best" of the 5 or say just one of the top 3 (on average). The latter is obviously more reassuring.


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I don't see how anyone is going to be able to give you an answer to this that is not specific to a particular program-application year pair. Just far too much variance, given the relatively small numbers involved.

 

[SmallBird]

I'm sure this varies widely from program and from adult to child fellowship and from year to year and PDs don't announce it publicly, but as a broad generalization, take this scenario:

Very well-regarded academic (not NYU, MGH, or Yale but competing for many of same applicants) child fellowship has 10 slots and interviews 5 times as many applicants as open slots. I'm sure you wouldn't have to be in top 10 on their list to match, but is it top 20, 30, 40? This would seem to matter a lot (i.e. being absolute top choices or being somewhere in middle or even near bottom).

Also has anyone else got the sense this is a particularly competitive year for child in the northeast for child, much more so than last year. I was told this recently by a training director. Any thoughts?

Thanks so much

We wouldn't be doing you any favors by trying to answer these questions! Try your best to tolerate the anxiety of not knowing 🙂

 

[hamstergang]

The latter is obviously more reassuring.

But you'd just find something else to worry about, so what's the point of reassuring you here?

 

[psychattending]

From the numbers I have seen adult programs interview on average about 10x the number of slots (I think that is a good metric for a lot of specialties where supply and demand are equal). On average programs rank to match is in the 4-6 range (i.e. a program gets one match for every 4-6 applicants it ranks). However, this does not translate into all applicants have a 20% chance of matching at any one program and thus need to just rank 4-6 programs in order to guarantee. Strong students tend to be ranked more highly by all programs. Strong people will likely get their first or second choice. Weak people need to rank many more programs (look at the NRMP Match reports) in order to find where the open slots are.

Obviously just as all students are not created equal; all programs are not created equally. "Strong" programs are usually in competition amongst themselves for a different group of applicant than the "weak" programs. Hence why applicants should have ideal/preferred schools and then "safety" schools (Programs do the same thing, too, BTW).

For child I am clueless but since there are many open slots left unfilled I would expect the number of programs that one needs to interview/rank to be much lower.

 

[masterofmonkeys]

In general fellowship programs have less money and are far more efficient with their use of resources, based on my limited experience. They will not interview more than they feel like they 'have' to. Whereas gen psych programs will typically interview wiht a much wider 'safety margin'. For example, a lot of gen psych programs will interview 10 per slot but consider it a 'bad year' if they go more than 1/3 of the way down their list. Meaning in a 'bad year', 70% of interviews were 'wasted'.

A child psych program on the other hand will interview 3-5 per slot and consider it a 'bad year' if they have to scramble. Much tighter safety margins.

This is based on an 'N' of about 5-10 programs, mind you.

 

[Bearrie]

In general fellowship programs have less money and are far more efficient with their use of resources, based on my limited experience. They will not interview more than they feel like they 'have' to. Whereas gen psych programs will typically interview wiht a much wider 'safety margin'. For example, a lot of gen psych programs will interview 10 per slot but consider it a 'bad year' if they go more than 1/3 of the way down their list. Meaning in a 'bad year', 70% of interviews were 'wasted'.

A child psych program on the other hand will interview 3-5 per slot and consider it a 'bad year' if they have to scramble. Much tighter safety margins.

This is based on an 'N' of about 5-10 programs, mind you.

Thank you very much. For most programs I have a rough sense of how many applicants they are interviewing based on number of interview dates (i.e. 3 days total vs ever week for three months except during AACAP and how many people at each day). Suppose my top choice is a program interviewing ~60 for 10 slots and I sense about 2 internal applicants they are sure to rank high, leaving 8 spots. Would you agree if they being in top 30 on their final ROL is "good enough" to likely match? In other words do I simply have to been generally more liked than disliked or really go out of way to be "the best?"

As an aside--I assume programs rank everyone they interview unless you are acutely psychotic? For programs that generally don't fill (or any program really given NYP and UCLA last year) would it make any sense to include programs where you did not interview at end of your (applicant) ROL or do you have to be somewhere on their list even if it's last for algorithm to match you? If latter, any sense in writing PDs at programs that don't fill something like [more formally of course], "Hey didn't have chance to apply to your program but will be ranking you so please look over my CV and consider ranking me?'

 

[TexasPhysician]

I can only provide evidence from 1 program. In 2 years to fill 4 spots, once it filled in 5 and the other in 12. I'd say that's a pretty large fluctuation, and hard to be meaningful.