How many internal medicine programs did you apply to?

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Kyra17

Kyra17
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To those who already applied to internal medicine:

I know there is 2005 thread on this topic, but that was four years ago and it only got one reply. So, here's the question...

How many internal medicine residency programs did you apply to?



Looking forward to the feedback!
Kyra17
 
Kyra17 said:
To those who already applied to internal medicine:

I know there is 2005 thread on this topic, but that was four years ago and it only got one reply. So, here's the question...

How many internal medicine residency programs did you apply to?
Click to expand...

This was 4y ago but: I applied to 24, interviewed @ 16, ranked 12 and matched #1.
 
Applied 12, Interviewed at 8, ranked 7, matched #1.
 
About how much do you expect to spend on interviews?
 
I applied to 7 dual IM/EM and 13 IM. So far I have three dual interviews and four IM interviews. But I think I'm going to cancel one of my IM interviews.... it's just not proving feasible to get there (and it's on the bottom of my list). 🙁

As for how many interviews... that depends on timing and money. The latter being incredibly tight right now since I had to spend $1000 on dental work and another few hundred to the optometrist for the family. Oh, and my kid's broken wrist too. And traveling for boards. I hate being broke. Broke sucks. Especially during interview season. Did I mention I need a new suit?
 
nickster said:
About how much do you expect to spend on interviews?
Click to expand...

MS4 is generally expensive.

I. Interview costs can include but are not limited to:
clothing, tokens of appreciation for LOR writers, travel costs, hotels, etc

I expect that the total cost of interviews will be at least $ 5000.

II. Exams
Step 2CS and Step CK were ~ $ 1500 + books + travel for Step 2CS if you do not live in one of the cities the exam is offered.

III. Moving expenses if leaving your home program
- variable

Save your money --> hence my screen name :laugh:
 
ShyRem said:
I applied to 7 dual IM/EM and 13 IM. So far I have three dual interviews and four IM interviews. But I think I'm going to cancel one of my IM interviews.... it's just not proving feasible to get there (and it's on the bottom of my list). 🙁

As for how many interviews... that depends on timing and money. The latter being incredibly tight right now since I had to spend $1000 on dental work and another few hundred to the optometrist for the family. Oh, and my kid's broken wrist too. And traveling for boards. I hate being broke. Broke sucks. Especially during interview season. Did I mention I need a new suit?
Click to expand...
Aww, sorry, Shy. 🙁

I hope the interviews go well. If you were nearby (and assuming we were the same size), I'd loan you my suit.
 
Thank you all for the great feedback so far!!

Kyra17
 
I applied to 15 and have received 11 invites so far. Not going to be able to go on all of them, unfortunately. 😛
 
Applied to 11, 8 interviews offered and scheduled so far. Not sure exactly how many interviews I'll go on, anywhere from 9 to all 11 I think.
 
Why are you guys applying to so many? huge $$$. IM is not the most competitive field and my colleagues and I during our cycle maybe applied to 12 at the most with 8 being the average....
 
efex101 said:
Why are you guys applying to so many? huge $$$. IM is not the most competitive field and my colleagues and I during our cycle maybe applied to 12 at the most with 8 being the average....
Click to expand...

I was a pretty competitive candidate and I applied to a bunch for mostly geographic reasons. Not that I wanted to live in a particular place, quite the opposite. I was in NYC and desperately wanted out. The problem was that I moved there in the first place b/c of my wife and she wanted to stay for professional/cultural reasons. So I applied "tier-limited" but geographically very broadly (New England, Mid-Atlantic, upper midwest, mountain west and West Coast including California), mostly just to get a feel for a number of different cities. If I had wanted to stay in NYC, I probably would have just applied to half a dozen places and been done with it.
 
Applied to 41, invited to interview at 25 so far, hopefully will end up only needing to attend 15-20 or so, depending on where my wife and I get interviews together.

After starting to set up interviews and seeing how full my calendar will be during Nov-Jan, I am getting very unexcited by the prospect of interviewing at more places than necessary.
 
37--in retrospect WAAAAYYYY too many. 19 or 20 interviews so far (I've actually lost track) and will (obviously) not be able to go on this many. Will likely end up picking the top 15 or so to go on since I have Jan. off for interviewing.
 
IDforMe said:
37--in retrospect WAAAAYYYY too many. 19 or 20 interviews so far (I've actually lost track) and will (obviously) not be able to go on this many. Will likely end up picking the top 15 or so to go on since I have Jan. off for interviewing.
Click to expand...

I applied to 16 programs and hope to interview at 10. I have 6 interviews so far, and I haven't gotten many in the last days. It's freaking me out, but from what I see on SDN, the programs I'm waiting for aren't sending invites yet. This whole process is so nerve wracking.
 
I applied to about 25 and have 12 interviews so far. I probably could have applied to fewer if my only goal was to match, but as I'm not sure where I want to be geographically I wanted to leave as many options open for myself as possible! I'm still not sure how many interviews I'll go on, probably as many as feasible before I get tired of it...
 
applied to 5 with 3 interviews 1 rejection and 1 pending
 
16 interviews

to the previous poster, i admire your courage and peace of mind (3 interviews must significantly alleviate travel/scheduling stress 😎)
 
Mental Gymnast said:
16 interviews

to the previous poster, i admire your courage and peace of mind (3 interviews must significantly alleviate travel/scheduling stress 😎)
Click to expand...

Yeah...I can't decide if s/he's smart or crazy. Based on last year's Match stats, this is taking a huge risk. But...you know...good luck and all that.
 
wjm said:
applied to 5 with 3 interviews 1 rejection and 1 pending
Click to expand...

Why so few? It's actually pretty fun to go on a few interviews, meet people, learn about how programs do things differently from one another, and enjoy a couple of free meals. Even if you are set on staying in a particular city or going a particular program, I would add a few more programs. If anything, visit a few new cities (esp if you have friends there) and have fun. Bring your gf/bf along if they can get away, too.
 
chitown82 said:
Why so few? It's actually pretty fun to go on a few interviews, meet people, learn about how programs do things differently from one another, and enjoy a couple of free meals. Even if you are set on staying in a particular city or going a particular program, I would add a few more programs. If anything, visit a few new cities (esp if you have friends there) and have fun. Bring your gf/bf along if they can get away, too.
Click to expand...

Seriously. It costs the same to apply to 10 programs as it does to 5. Might as well get your $ worth. And you never know what you're going to find on the interview trail. My pre-interview rank list and actual rank list bore almost no resemblance to each other. The highest any of my pre-interview top 5 programs landed on my actual rank list was #4. The next one was #8 and 2 didn't even make the cut.
 
Applied to 20 programs.

10 interviews so far.

I'm actually starting to really look pretty hard at a lot of these programs to see if it's worth going on some. General rule of thumb right now is I'll probably go check out the program if they pay for hotel/dinner. I'll have to look more closely at the ones that don't offer just to see if it's worth spending more $$ to go to those👍
 
I applied to 43 programs, which I kind of regret now. I got 10 interviews so far, but not one of them have offered to pay for the hotel!

Which programs actually offered to do that?
 
I'd say so far about half of my interviews have offered to pay for hotel. All have offered to pay for lunch or dinner out with residents and administration.
 
Can you specify which programs offered to do that? I wish I didn't have the habit of deleting old emails. To be honest, I only looked at the dates, picked one, and replied back. I didn't even check if they offered to pay for the hotel!
 
barmay said:
Can you specify which programs offered to do that? I wish I didn't have the habit of deleting old emails. To be honest, I only looked at the dates, picked one, and replied back. I didn't even check if they offered to pay for the hotel!
Click to expand...

I may be paranoid, but I wouldnt delete any mails the place sends you till you have finished interviewing there. Lots of stuff that can be missed, especially in those long paragraph emails (e.g. email us your faculty interests,etc).
 
11 places. 3 responses so far.
 
ResidentMD said:
I may be paranoid, but I wouldnt delete any mails the place sends you till you have finished interviewing there. Lots of stuff that can be missed, especially in those long paragraph emails (e.g. email us your faculty interests,etc).
Click to expand...

Most of the e-mails are stored in the ERAS post office. Some programs (Duke and UChicago) did not send messages through ERAS post office for the interview invite. Such programs run a risk of the applicant not receiving the message because we know that the very message we want to receive by e-mail can be filtered out by your institution's random spam filters or the other forces of the universe that seem to act when you do not want them to act!
 
jbp100 said:
17... but i will not be going on 17 interviews...
Click to expand...

I also applied to 17. I have 8 interviews scheduled thus far. There are 3 more programs I really want to hear from. My plan is to schedule 11-12 interviews, with one or 2 in mind to potentially cancel if I'm getting burnt out.

To those of you curious about hotels, only one program has offered to pay for one so far, which is amusing because it is an hour drive from where I live!
 
39 programs...couples matching. 16 interviews so far - going to be wicked tired just by the end of November. Not sure what Dec/Jan will bring, but until we know where we overlap, gotta take every interview!
 
13 programs applied to --> 4 interviews scheduled so far.

I didn't realize many programs were getting back to people this early...I'm thinking about adding one or two programs now.
 
is there a rule of thumb on how many interviews should one attend to guarantee a match?
 
aspiringdoctor said:
is there a rule of thumb on how many interviews should one attend to guarantee a match?
Click to expand...

I believe there is a document on the NRMP website called charting outcomes for the match. I believe for IM, if you are a competitive US grad (read as scores > 230, AOA, etc) 10 programs should be good.

For the others, 10-20 to be safe. Most rank up to 15. I know many IMGs having decent scores who rank 10-15 programs match as well, often in one of their top 5 choices....so I can imagine it being easier if you have done your medical school here.

If there is absolutely nothing on your application, then I think 20 or so - but I think this would be very,very rare, especially for IM.
 
http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2009v3.pdf
Take a look at page 98 and 99 to see the breakdown of people matched and probability of matching per # of ranks. Very informative. For US grads the probability of matching is nearly 99% after 10-11 ranks so anything after does not really accomplish much.
This report is a treasure trove of info...
 
ResidentMD said:
I believe there is a document on the NRMP website called charting outcomes for the match. I believe for IM, if you are a competitive US grad (read as scores > 230, AOA, etc) 10 programs should be good.

For the others, 10-20 to be safe. Most rank up to 15. I know many IMGs having decent scores who rank 10-15 programs match as well, often in one of their top 5 choices....so I can imagine it being easier if you have done your medical school here.

If there is absolutely nothing on your application, then I think 20 or so - but I think this would be very,very rare, especially for IM.
Click to expand...

thank you, ResidentMD and unimaginative for your input. The reason I asked is because I only plan to go to 8 interviews (i want to do residency on the west coast). By the way, I am a US senior from the top 10th medical school in the west coast. Thanks again.
 
aspiringdoctor said:
thank you, ResidentMD and unimaginative for your input. The reason I asked is because I only plan to go to 8 interviews (i want to do residency on the west coast). By the way, I am a US senior from the top 10th medical school in the west coast. Thanks again.
Click to expand...

You shouldnt have issues as long as you have a decent CV.

P.S. Keep in mind what I mentioned may not necessarily hold true for the couple's match. There are some freaking strong SDNers currently who are going all out simply because they are couple matching.
 
I've received 9 invites so far. Applied to 26. 3 have offered to pay for the hotel. 🙂

barmay said:
I applied to 43 programs, which I kind of regret now. I got 10 interviews so far, but not one of them have offered to pay for the hotel!

Which programs actually offered to do that?
Click to expand...
 
futuremd22283 said:
Applied to 20 programs.

10 interviews so far.

I'm actually starting to really look pretty hard at a lot of these programs to see if it's worth going on some. General rule of thumb right now is I'll probably go check out the program if they pay for hotel/dinner. I'll have to look more closely at the ones that don't offer just to see if it's worth spending more $$ to go to those👍
Click to expand...

Just to update it.
Applied to 20 programs.
Interviewing at 12.
I turned down 4 invites
Rejected from 2.
Haven't heard from 2.
 
I applied to 20. Received 17 interviews, went on 10. All but one have offered to pay for the hotel. Most have paid for dinner before and breakfast the morning of in addition to lunch the day of interview. A couple exceptions to the dinner/breakfast (like two).
 
I applied to 20 programs. Have interviews at 10. Rejected from 5. Waiting on 5 others.
 
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