Importance of audition rotation

[LoveMedicine100]

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How important is it to do audition rotations in psychiatry? I'm a 4th year and did only one elective in psych at the affiliated hospital at my school. There is no residency program at this hospital but I just did the elective with the psychiatrist there.

I got around 10 interview invites already. I havent done an audition rotation at a place where there is residency. Is this going to be a problem for me to match??

Has anyone not done any audition rotations and still match somewhere?

Thanks!

 

[FrasierMD]

Audition rotations can be a mixed bag. I am also currently going the interview season. I didn't do any audition rotations and from what I hear, its not a neccessity by any means. If you have one or two dream schools some folks may say it is worthwhile so they know your face and work ethic. If you go and love it, perfect. If you go and don't like it - then it lets you know it shouldn't be your dream school. As far as affecting your chance of matching, I would say definitely not. With 10 invites now, you are well positioned to match! You'll rock it!

 

[LoveMedicine100]

audition rotations can be a mixed bag. I am also currently going the interview season. I didn't do any audition rotations and from what i hear, its not a neccessity by any means. If you have one or two dream schools some folks may say it is worthwhile so they know your face and work ethic. If you go and love it, perfect. If you go and don't like it - then it lets you know it shouldn't be your dream school. As far as affecting your chance of matching, i would say definitely not. With 10 invites now, you are well positioned to match! You'll rock it!

thanks, good luck to u too!!!

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

I would say that we do offer interviews to people who do sub-Is who we normally would not. Performance on a rotation is a much more accurate indication of performance than an interview day. If you do well on a sub-I, this can forgive a lot of shortcomings. If you do so so, you will be more accurately placed on the list be that for better or for worse.

Overall, doing rotations at an institution you want is a positive. If you don’t show enough aptitude, you probably will not want to be there anyway. It works both ways; you may find that you don’t want to be at the place you rotate.

Programs certainly do not expect you to do rotations with them. You can do only one or two at best and we know that. They can open doors otherwise closed however. Knowing someone makes pushing the reject button feel very different when a familiar face is involved.

 

[Psychotic]

I haven't done any and never really gave it any serious thought - they seem like far more trouble to set up and do than they are worth. It is more "required" for certain other residencies I think, like derm? Whatever, I don't think it is all that critical for psych, with maybe the exception of an applicant who needs to make a favorable impression somewhere because there are red flags in his app.

I have also heard of people doing these auditions and not even getting an interview invite. OUCH.

The window for doing these audition rotations is pretty narrow, too. Like right now or next month would be ideal, and the problem with that is the prime months conflict with the interview season, and I think it would be bad form to be at an away rotation and be asking/telling them you need time off for interviews elsewhere.

 

[Nasrudin]

I haven't done any and never really gave it any serious thought - they seem like far more trouble to set up and do than they are worth. It is more "required" for certain other residencies I think, like derm? Whatever, I don't think it is all that critical for psych, with maybe the exception of an applicant who needs to make a favorable impression somewhere because there are red flags in his app.

I have also heard of people doing these auditions and not even getting an interview invite. OUCH.

The window for doing these audition rotations is pretty narrow, too. Like right now or next month would be ideal, and the problem with that is the prime months conflict with the interview season, and I think it would be bad form to be at an away rotation and be asking/telling them you need time off for interviews elsewhere.

I agree with this and the attending above. VSAS is a pain in the arse. Away rotations are also expensive. I don't have the bachelor's luxury of letting go of my apartment and renting somewhere else for a month.

I've got 12 interviews so far and never left the mothership except for crosstown rotations. Nobody seems concerned that I'm not a known entity.

 

[Cottonwoods]

My sense is that you do what you need to do to have a letter (or two) from a psychiatrist. OP, it sounds like you sought out an opportunity at your home institution, so that's perfectly reasonable. I have heard that audition rotations are not A Thing in psychiatry. I am applying to academic programs all over the country, and I thought I might need one to demonstrate that I'd seriously consider living on the opposite coast from where I am now. But the cost was prohibitive, so I skipped it. So far, things are going fine.

 

[notdeadyet]

Audition rotations' usefulness is proportional to the length of the shot....

If you are applying to a non-competitive program as a non-competitive applicant, it's probably not necessary.

If you are applying to a competitive program as a competitive applicant, it's probably not necessary.

If you are applying to a competitive program that you really want as a non-competitive applicant and you are really good, it's probably a good idea.

IMGs, DOs, and USMDs with red flags have landed into competitive places, and it's often because they rotated there and were rockstars. But it's really not worth your time unless you're willing to burn the candle at both ends and make programs feel that they'd be nuts to pass you over. Otherwise, save the airfare.

 

[Nasrudin]

Audition rotations' usefulness is proportional to the length of the shot....

If you are applying to a non-competitive program as a non-competitive applicant, it's probably not necessary.

If you are applying to a competitive program as a competitive applicant, it's probably not necessary.

If you are applying to a competitive program that you really want as a non-competitive applicant and you are really good, it's probably a good idea.

IMGs, DOs, and USMDs with red flags have landed into competitive places, and it's often because they rotated there and were rockstars. But it's really not worth your time unless you're willing to burn the candle at both ends and make programs feel that they'd be nuts to pass you over. Otherwise, save the airfare.

Yeah this totally makes sense. And is the reason I thought I might do it. But for me the economic, bureaucratic, and to-be-perpetually-dancing-a-month-long-jig added up to too much resistance. And I folded. Who knows. Could be a decision that would have altered the entire course of my career.

It's definitely worth considering if, like you say, your taking a long shot up the food chain.

 

[JustAGuy]

One program told me they accept a large % of their residents from people who've rotated through their program. You figure a lot of programs are getting 40+ 4th years rotating through competing for just a few position. I wonder how common this is for programs to select almost solely from sub-i students.

 

[notdeadyet]

One program told me they accept a large % of their residents from people who've rotated through their program. You figure a lot of programs are getting 40+ 4th years rotating through competing for just a few position. I wonder how common this is for programs to select almost solely from sub-i students.

Next to nil. It's a terrible recruitment strategy. You are essentially reducing your pool of potential residents from hundreds to dozens. You won't find many residencies doing this because it's bad logic.

 

[LoveMedicine100]

I just wanted to thank everyone for their input!!! thanks for the advice!!!

 

[JustAGuy]

Next to nil. It's a terrible recruitment strategy. You are essentially reducing your pool of potential residents from hundreds to dozens. You won't find many residencies doing this because it's bad logic.

But wouldn't it allow them to pick people who are good and easy to work with? I'm not saying they only rank 40 people, but they implied most of their top ranks were people who went through their program.

 

[Fenster]

Next to nil. It's a terrible recruitment strategy. You are essentially reducing your pool of potential residents from hundreds to dozens. You won't find many residencies doing this because it's bad logic.

It actually makes a lot of sense to me. Many applicants may be good on paper, and one day is not really enough to gauge anyone adequately. I am not saying picking an applicant over another only because the former had done a sub-I and did well on that is good logic. I am saying that if two applicants were comparable on paper, and were comparable on interview day, they are naturally going to pick one who did the sub-I at their program and did well (or the reverse if he/she did poorly). It may not seem like much, but in competitive specialties at the top programs, it can really be significant.

 

[gibits]

I personally didn't match with any of the two programs I sub-I'd in. And it was very awkward since I still had like 2 weeks to spend there.

I wasn't the most competitive applicant so I thought it would help, but it didn't. I ended up in a different program that wasn't as good but in a much better locale so I figured I broke even.

If you're an awesome candidate I don't think you would even need to audition. You'd likely just match the old fashioned way. In short, no it doesn't really help much.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

It actually makes a lot of sense to me. Many applicants may be good on paper, and one day is not really enough to gauge anyone adequately. I am not saying picking an applicant over another only because the former had done a sub-I and did well on that is good logic. I am saying that if two applicants were comparable on paper, and were comparable on interview day, they are naturally going to pick one who did the sub-I at their program and did well (or the reverse if he/she did poorly). It may not seem like much, but in competitive specialties at the top programs, it can really be significant.

This in spades!
Known quantities, even with faults are much less risky than guessing who is easy to work with based on paper and a couple of conversations. Rotations are not required, but they do add a lot of substance to the selection committee discussions and these discussions are starving for real data. If you really want a particular program and you represent yourself well, this is the best way to show it. Obviously, most applicants have not rotated in programs they apply to, and programs don’t expect that they should have, but it does help a lot if you do and do well. It also hurts you a lot if you do poorly, but say la vie.

 

[notdeadyet]

But wouldn't it allow them to pick people who are good and easy to work with? I'm not saying they only rank 40 people, but they implied most of their top ranks were people who went through their program.

Ah, sorry. I was responding to the comment:

I wonder how common this is for programs to select almost solely from sub-i students.

I thought you were asking if this was done as policy anywhere. I haven't heard of this.

You're right that programs love to take people they fall in love with during sub-I's. But this isn't a big enough n to fill most programs. By law of averages, many-to-most of the best applicants you interview will never have rotated with you. Limiting yourself to only people that have bothered to sub-I with you would really be limiting your program's quality. For one thing, many of the best potential residents don't audition or only audition at 1-2 places, which is likely not yours. You don't want to shut out the best applicants because they didn't audition there.

Auditions tend to be reassuring to programs who are considering applicants they are borderline or on the fence about. If you have an applicant with good marks, a good pedigree, a good interview, and good letters, it's not much of a risk. The last two are particularly important. I don't so much mean a glowing letter from an advisor no one's heard of. I mean a heartfelt letter from someone known personally by the admissions committee. A good letter of reference is essentially a thumbs up from someone the ad com can trust. Psych's a smaller field than you think and people know each other. That goes far.

Again, not diminishing the power of a good sub-I. If you audition somewhere and glow, it can only help your application. Hats off. I'm just saying that I don't think not doing them limits you much if you're otherwise confident about the stength of your application.

 

[alina_s]

It's been a while but I did two audition rotations. I thought that one was pretty helpful for learning more about the program and the culture and I liked the site. The other rotation, though, was not a great experience and I don't think it helped me at all in the interview/ranking process. I guess most schools fill their rotations with their own students first, and maybe psychiatry was just super-popular at this school that year, because I had to rank 5 rotations I wanted and I got placed at none of those. I was instead at a VA site that was physically distant and felt pretty removed from the rest of the department, no residents were on the unit with me, and I had pretty limited contact with the attendings. Not that anything went wrong on the rotation, but having so little opportunity to make any impression may have hurt my ranking, and I didn't feel like it helped me much in forming an opinion of the program. Except that they don't see the need to recruit.

 

[Nasrudin]

It's been a while but I did two audition rotations. I thought that one was pretty helpful for learning more about the program and the culture and I liked the site. The other rotation, though, was not a great experience and I don't think it helped me at all in the interview/ranking process. I guess most schools fill their rotations with their own students first, and maybe psychiatry was just super-popular at this school that year, because I had to rank 5 rotations I wanted and I got placed at none of those. I was instead at a VA site that was physically distant and felt pretty removed from the rest of the department, no residents were on the unit with me, and I had pretty limited contact with the attendings. Not that anything went wrong on the rotation, but having so little opportunity to make any impression may have hurt my ranking, and I didn't feel like it helped me much in forming an opinion of the program. Except that they don't see the need to recruit.

This is my problem with viewing it as a recruitment tool. If it is. It's not a very sophisticated instrument. The application process is completely soviet. And if not selecting for locals it selects for financial advantage. I know people get creative and pull off an upset win with this tool. And I'm not taking anything from their galant effort and victory.

But if I'm running a program. And I require shot records from preschool onward. A complete physical. A transcript. Multiple letters of recommendation of very specific sorts before students have even had that rotation yet. Medical malpractice insurance. An essay. An application fee and maybe extra tuition. While providing no financial assistance, no housing, and only the privilege of a stressful one month interview where I'll watch the student constantly as they struggle to learn a new EMR so they can look up a patients labs etc. Then what I'm actually saying is...if you're a crap applicant with a dream of being at my program....then prove it.

Frankly. I don't think that's the best bargaining chip for an applicant. If I do all that and you string me along with an insincere, obligatory interview and rank me low. Then I would have wasted way too much than is justified. There's just too many great psych programs that are in cool places to live.

Hats off to those that have used it to get what they want. But the mixed bag of results combined with the huge cost is why it is only recommended with specific caveats and conditions.