Interviewing and then not ranking at all?

[sella turcica]

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Hypothetical question, and over 30 minutes of searching on SDN did not answer it for me.

Let's say I apply to some residency programs through the match and after interviewing at program XYZ I decide that it's definitely not for me - not even worth being on the bottom of my ROL. Can I simply delete that school from my ROL before I certify it, and that is it?

Thanks

 

[ShyRem]

You do not have to put all schools on your ROL. I knew someone who interviewed at 9 places and only submitted 1 on their ROL.

 

[sella turcica]

cool - I figured. Hopefully I won't ever have to do it.

 

[alphaholic06]

You do not have to put all schools on your ROL. I knew someone who interviewed at 9 places and only submitted 1 on their ROL.

Did they match?

 

[ShyRem]

They did. In ACGME OB nonetheless. Very gutsy.

 

[alphaholic06]

They did. In ACGME OB nonetheless. Very gutsy.

Indeed!

 

[Law2Doc]

... Very gutsy.

If by "gutsy" you mean "foolish", then I agree with you.

You guys have to realize that odds are very good that there won't be a lot of great options falling through to the scramble. Competition has been getting tighter each year and the number of gems falling through the cracks wasn't so impressive last year, and will be worse this year. So if you don't rank a place, you may actually be saying "I'd rather go to whatever malignant prelim program in the middle of nowhere that falls through to the scramble than this place". And that might be the case. But sometimes it's better to go to your 10th choice program that's not a great fit and didn't give you a great vibe, rather than forego being in that specialty at all. So the question of whether or not to rank them shouldn't be "is this a good fit". It should be, "is this better than nothing". Most of the time it is better than nothing. There will always be people who overestimated their odds and end up during match week whining that they threw away this kind of opportunity and now are at the mercy of the scramble.

 

[ShyRem]

This particular person was prepared to take a year off and reapply to the match the next year due to family issues. They were not going to scramble if they couldn't match to their one program that fulfilled their needs. So not foolish on their part as they had good reason for their selection and number of ranked programs. Gutsy that they were willing to try for only one.