How many electives before ERAS submission?

[Medschoolready95]

General question about M4 planning. It seems like several specialties (ENT, derm, pmr, etc) expect you to do at least 2 electives in the given specialty of interest. With all other requirements (step 2, sub-I, EM), it just seems difficult to realistically squeeze in 2 electives before submitting ERAS apps. Anyone know if programs expect you to have completed multiple electives in the specialty of interest before application submission? Or are they fine with you completing it after submission (November-Jan)? If it matters, I am interested in a specialty that is not one of the M3 core rotations at my school.

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[mrbreakfast]

If you are expecting (or, in case of some specialties, expected) to get letters of recommendation from these away rotations, then yes.

Generally speaking, med students have time for two, or two and a half, electives in M4 before ERAS, plus usually one elective in M3 year. If possible, doing your sub-I in the field of interest counts.

Otherwise, you should be doing electives unnecessary for ERAS after the deadline. For example, if I remember, I did EM as my last rotation of med school.

 

[calivianya]

How many electives you have time to get in before apps are due is going to depend on when third year ends and what you do with the start of your fourth year. My third year went went to mid-June - but I still had time for three full electives before ERAS apps were due because I only took two weeks off for prep + taking step 2/level 2 and dove into elective rotations immediately.

One thing that came up during interviews for me was that multiple people asked what experience I had with the specialty, and since I had done three different but related electives in the specialty before I put apps in, I was able to talk about what I saw, how different programs handled things differently, and articulate what I was really looking for. Everyone who asked me that question seemed satisfied with my answer and I for sure would have been at a disadvantage for that question if I'd only been to one program, or worse, hadn't been anywhere at all.

 

[Phloston]

General question about M4 planning. It seems like several specialties (ENT, derm, pmr, etc) expect you to do at least 2 electives in the given specialty of interest. With all other requirements (step 2, sub-I, EM), it just seems difficult to realistically squeeze in 2 electives before submitting ERAS apps. Anyone know if programs expect you to have completed multiple electives in the specialty of interest before application submission? Or are they fine with you completing it after submission (November-Jan)? If it matters, I am interested in a specialty that is not one of the M3 core rotations at my school.

Doing the relevant electives before application submission is to 1) get letters from people in your area of interest, and 2) provide some clinical context that can potentially be weaved into your personal statement. The latter will paint a more complete picture about how/why your interests have evolved as such.

If your question is, "Will I get automatically rejected by certain programs depending on when I do my electives?" That's probably a subjective element that varies between programs. I doubt anyone would care, especially if your board scores are high.