How much have you spent/did you spend interviewing?

[mackie]

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I realize this depends on multiple factors including:
number of interviews, region of the country where most interviews took place, distance from home base, etc . . .

I'm looking for a ballpark figure to plan my budget for next year. Would you please include any other info that would help give me some perspective on why your cost is what it is (eg, some of the items listed above)?

 

[drlard]

I spent a total of $2,500 on 16 interviews (prelim + anesthesia). This included 2 flights from East to West Coast and multiple long drive (eg. lots of gas) along the East Coast. I took advantage of Priceline for hotels.

 

[ckent]

I've spent ~$800 interviewing at 10 schools (all costs included, ERAS fees, hotels, and plane tickets). I was able to save a lot of money since a few of my hospitals picked up the tab for the hotel rooms, and I drove to a lot of the places that I interviewed at (left for some of them at 4 am). Priceline is great for hotels. Not very useful for airline tickets though. I'd reccomend looking at airtrans, southwest, or american airlines for the cheapest tickets. Sometimes you can get package deals for hotel rooms and plane tickets as well.

 

[jd807]

I am on the west coast interviewing for east coast spots mainly so i zigzagged across alot. I will do 12 interviews total. I used priceline for rental cars, drove from cities with major airports and had about a 1/3 of the programs pick up the hotel tab for me. I flew discount airlines like jet blue ( $99 one way from the west coast to the east coast). But my interviews came as sort of a trickle then a flood, and dates were filing up, so I started going on them almost as soon as I got them. If I had been more organized about it, I might have saved alot, but then i might have missed out on some bc they were full. So I would say I spent in the $3500 range.

Supposedly, all the interview travel is tax deductible- I have heard conflicting statements on this? Any one else plan to deduct it?

 

[Da Vinci2]

I sort of played and interviewed at the same time so my figure is going to be an overestimate. I guesstimate about $1000-1500 for AMCAS fee, gas, lodging (all were paid for by the schools, except my "leisure stays" - a few days before and/or after interviews; like when I was down in Florida for interviews and took extra time to go to Disneyland), food (ate subway most of the time), plane ticket, and rental car (I probably spent days in my car if you add together all the hours I spent driving around). Actually, most of my expenditure was in AMCAS fee since I applied to way too many programs than I needed.

 

[DrQuinn]

I probably ran between 2000-2500.

ERAS: $800 (or so), I applied to 40+ programs.
2 Flights : $600
Gas: $300
Hotels: $200
Food: $100
Miscellaneous (dry cleaning, blah blah): $200

I interviewed at 10 places.

Q, DO

 

[gimmedog]

overapplied and then cut down to 11 interviews EM, 7 prelim/trans.

ERAS $350
4 flights-- 1000
hotel 200 -- crashed on lots of couches/guestrooms--don't be afraid to ask! Used priceline/hotwire to check prices as well.
gas--who knows
suit--300
also: dry cleaning, thank you cards, gifts for hosts, etc

I'm guessing about $2500 as well. It helped to check email frequently to get the best chance of scheduling everything together in each area. I had friends who had desk jobs checking for me and paging me when there was a new msg.

Took out the Citiassist loan for the max $12,000 in case I need to move and figured I could pay it back if I didn't need it. Didn't want to live like a pauper when I finally had time to play.

 

[sanfilippo]

I think I spent around $375 on ERAS, $600 on airfare, and $900 on hotels for 9-10 interviews so far, two of which were in-state. I didn't include food breaks, magazines, and thank-you cards and postage, though.

I have 2 interviews left, one of which is in-state, so I think I will incur approx. $200 more.

-S.

 

[Finally M3]

Around $1000, give or take. $500 for ERAS/NRMP, $400 for hotel, rest for gas. I had 11 interviews, but most all were in the Midwest, and 6 were within 1 hour's drive. The most expensive trip was a drive out to Chicago for back-to-back interviews.

I'm now a big Hotwire fan for hotels. You could get a good room in a good hotel for about $80 a night including taxes.

 

[OTN]

I've spent significantly more than everyone here it seems, for several factors (as far as I can guess):

1. Applying in radiation oncology - programs really spread out across the country, so more flights needed. Not easy just to drive everywhere.

2. In St. Louis - never cheap to fly out of here, unless on Southwest. (I'm also not exactly applying in the Southwest, so can't use the airline as much as I'd like.) Flights average $300 each, and I've had to pay $640 for one round-tripper. American Airlines just cut back their schedule here by 80% 4-5 months ago. Also can't drive to too many programs, so more flights needed.

3. Going on around 17 radonc interviews and 8 prelim year interviews. Most deans seem to be suggesting around 15 interviews for radonc, so this increased things a bit.

So, I'm probably going to spend $8000 - $10,000 total. A crapload, but what can you do? Next year, tack on another $1000 or so for the clinical skills exam that will be part of Step 2.

 

[leaf]

I'm going to guess $1100-$1500 total (not including AMCAS fee) for 20 interviews in all. Ten of those interviews were close enough to where I live or where I was doing an away rotation that I was able to stay at home and just make a day trip. For the rest, I combined interviews so that I could reduce my transportation costs. In all, I spent about $600 on three plane tickets (Orbitz, direct fares through airline websites because they were cheaper than Travelocity-type fares), $90 on train tickets (3 trips), and $50 on bus tickets (cheaper and sometimes no slower than the train). I needed hotels for five of these interviews, which cost somewhere in the range of $400-$500 (I crashed with friends for the remainder of the interviews). Hotwire saved me a lot of money -- I was able to get a last-minute hotel reservation on it (the day before) for a price that Priceline wouldn't accept ($55). The rest of my costs came from things like taxis and shuttles, which added up quickly but still cost less than renting cars or staying in the hotels closest to the interview sites. (Hint: A hotel with shuttle service to the hospital can be a big money saver!)