One thing that really helped me out was to do an away in an area where I had a lot of concentrated interviews (mid atlantic) . I could drive to the interviews, no additional flight costs, only a couple of days where I had to ask for a "day off" of a rotation. Granted, I was able to do this by doing a couple of things:
#1: having a week (or 2weeks ) of vacation dedicated after the rotation dedicated to interviews. (slowly driving back to my home state of Texas from the east cost, mooching off relatives along the way)
#2: Having a week during thanksgiving break to squeeze another interview in in the area. (not many programs sched. interviews around this time)
#3: being in IMED: I did way too many IMED interveiws (18?). That would be way too little by my understanding for the avg. applicant for other specialities.
BTW- this did not hurt my overall impression at my away rotation- I interviewed w/ the PD who said he was highly impressed with both my app. and the positive feedback I got from my rotation. Although I chose not to mathch there, I got a f/u call from the program post- match day to ask me why I chose not to attend the program - and this is a rather comp. IM program.
