How many interviews is typical?

[pipettequeen]

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I am a current senior undergraduate and as the interview invitations roll in, I am finding my schedule is becoming extremely full even this early in the season. Ideally, I would like to go to as many interviews as possible, at least until I receive an acceptance. However, I am becoming legitimately concerned about my undergraduate classes. While in the grad scheme, I know my classes are of minimal importance, I really do not want to receive a C, D, F or W.

How many interviews is too many? If I am receiving interviews from Top 20 schools, is it worth the cost and time to attend 3+ safety school interviews?

I know this is a wonderful problem to have. I am extremely humbled, grateful and excited by my outcomes so far.

 

[StIGMA]

You should go to at least 5 interviews, possibly up to 8-10 if you are interested in those programs or don't interview well. Schedule the safeties as late as you can and decide if it is worth the effort at a point where you may have received more interviews. You should expect around 2 acceptances for 5 interviews for the average applicant.

Always cancel interview invitations politely and as early as possible so that the school may fill the slot with another applicant.

If you can manage with your schedule, go to as many interviews as you can because you won't know what a program is like until you visit.

 

[Fencer]

I understand your concern about your time, classes, and cost. Unfortunately, each of the schools will only have 4-12 positions. Out of the early data for 2013, only 8 schools had 14 MD/PhD matriculants or more in the class enrolling in 2013 and 59 schools had 4 or more MD/PhD matriculants. I suspect that NIH sequestration will impact these numbers, reducing the number of new positions for the class enrolling in 2014.

If you are competitive to enter this cycle, schools primarily care that you complete your coursework and graduate. Thus, "F"s are a major problem and "W" are important if they prevent you from graduating. Lower grades depend upon how badly you do (B- might be ok) and how many courses are involved.

Too many interviews - perhaps, more than a dozen would be too many; if you do less than a dozen, you might not have choices. If you are very competitive, you could do 8-10, or even less after 1st acceptance.

Programs can offer acceptances as early as October 15. My program has an AC meeting scheduled on October 16 for that purpose.

Good luck on the interview trail...

 

[Reckoner]

I understand your concern about your time, classes, and cost. Unfortunately, each of the schools will only have 4-12 positions. Out of the early data for 2013, only 8 schools had 14 MD/PhD matriculants or more in the class enrolling in 2013 and 59 schools had 4 or more MD/PhD matriculants. I suspect that NIH sequestration will impact these numbers, reducing the number of new positions for the class enrolling in 2014.

If you are competitive to enter this cycle, schools primarily care that you complete your coursework and graduate. Thus, "F"s are a major problem and "W" are important if they prevent you from graduating. Lower grades depend upon how badly you do (B- might be ok) and how many courses are involved.

Too many interviews - perhaps, more than a dozen would be too many; if you do less than a dozen, you might not have choices. If you are very competitive, you could do 8-10, or even less after 1st acceptance.

Programs can offer acceptances as early as October 15. My program has an AC meeting scheduled on October 16 for that purpose.

Good luck on the interview trail...

Thanks for providing this info. Do you think programs are taking this into consideration and interviewing fewer candidates, or just accepting a smaller percentage of interviewees?

 

[Fencer]

That is very program specific... I suspect that it is more of the latter. While some programs might contract a little, a few others (like mine) are making plans for expansion. In 3 weeks (Sep 19-21), we have the national meeting for MD/PhD directors & administrators. I will know more after talking to others.

 

[Maebea]

To expand on Fencer's post, the July sequestration cuts were not applied evenly. Programs with high training grant slot to program size ratio were generally cut, while programs with low ratios were left alone, or even increased. The slot to size ratio is out of whack, and there is some sentment that this needs to be less variable. Some programs have 1 training grant slot for every two trainees, while others have one slot for twenty trainees. When you consider that the outcomes for programs is substantially similar, it is hard to justify such wide variance in the awarding of training grant slots. Programs like Fencer's that either have low ratios or have not yet been awarded a grant will be more likely to expand their programs if the NIH redistributes funds, while programs that have high slot ratios will either contract or find other sources of revenue to maintain their current size.

 

[zippyziggy]

Where do I find information about the number of available training grant slots at each school?

 

[Reckoner]

That is very program specific... I suspect that it is more of the latter. While some programs might contract a little, a few others (like mine) are making plans for expansion. In 3 weeks (Sep 19-21), we have the national meeting for MD/PhD directors & administrators. I will know more after talking to others.

Great, thanks!

 

[pipettequeen]

Where do I find information about the number of available training grant slots at each school?

I have been using this chart of 2012 data (https://www.aamc.org/download/321544/data/2012factstable33.pdf) and information on each school's website to see how many trainees they usually take.


Thank you all for the information - it is very helpful.

 

[zippyziggy]

I have been using this chart of 2012 data (https://www.aamc.org/download/321544/data/2012factstable33.pdf) and information on each school's website to see how many trainees they usually take.


Thank you all for the information - it is very helpful.

I might be misunderstanding Maebea's post, but this chart only shows the overall number of trainees, not the number of training grant slots.

 

[Fencer]

The number of MSTP slots is different than the MD/PhD census of students in the program (or overall number of MD/PhD trainees). The number of MSTP slots is a smaller number, typically at 20% (range was from 7% - 47% in 2012). The number of MSTP slots is not a public number but you can guess it if you search NIH Reporter, the public information about MSTP grants.

As I indicated previously, AAMC fact tables are not correct for my institution because the data was reported indirectly via TMDSAS at the time. I am told that the problem has been fixed for reporting the 2013 class (which will be released in late December 2013).

 

[zippyziggy]

The number of MSTP slots is different than the MD/PhD census of students in the program (or overall number of MD/PhD trainees). The number of MSTP slots is a smaller number, typically at 20% (range was from 7% - 47% in 2012). The number of MSTP slots is not a public number but you can guess it if you search NIH Reporter, the public information about MSTP grants.

As I indicated previously, AAMC fact tables are not correct for my institution because the data was reported indirectly via TMDSAS at the time. I am told that the problem has been fixed for reporting the 2013 class (which will be released in late December 2013).

This was what I was looking for - thanks!