interviews and complimentary hotels

[Igor4sugry]

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I'm just curious about people's experiences with complimentary hotel stays being offered by psychiatry residency programs. Out of my interviews 50% of programs are providing free hotel stay. There were some that were just amazing (such as Conrad in Indianapolis).
What is interesting is that other programs in the same university don't offer this.
Is this unique for psychiatry? How can programs afford all this?

 

[digitlnoize]

I'm just curious about people's experiences with complimentary hotel stays being offered by psychiatry residency programs. Out of my interviews 50% of programs are providing free hotel stay. There were some that were just amazing (such as Conrad in Indianapolis).
What is interesting is that other programs in the same university don't offer this.
Is this unique for psychiatry? How can programs afford all this?

I agree that most programs are doing this, but not all. Oddly, MUSC did NOT provide a hotel, despite being one of the highest funded psych departments around...go figure.

Recruitment is very, very important for psych. It's a "buyers market" so to speak, so they're trying to wine and dine us.

Other specialties are NOT so generous. I have friends applying to Peds who are getting some hotels, but not nearly as many as I have been. Other specialties, forget it.

The most horrifying story: A classmate of mine interviewed for ortho, and walked into a room, was placed on a pedestal, the lights were turned off, a very bright spotlight was placed on him, and he was asked to answer a bunch of questions regarding ortho films (diagnoses, treatments, etc) to a panel of ~15 attendings. Not kidding. 😱

This is all I can picture since I heard this story:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt9aFw7MkjM&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

I love psych. 😍😍😍

 

[Saluki]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've only gotten a hotel paid for at two of my interviews.... 🙁

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've only gotten a hotel paid for at two of my interviews.... 🙁

Most of the programs that I interviewed at also did not offer free hotels, so you're not doing anything wrong. 🙂 If you interview largely in the middle of the country or at somewhat less prestigious programs, you're more likely to get your hotel paid for. If you're on the coasts or at bigger name academic places, you're on your own.

And some of the places I interviewed at had other programs at their school that did pay for hotels. Those other programs were more procedurally driven, so I'm assuming they have more money. So from my perspective, not the norm.

 

[notdeadyet]

Agree with Doctor Bagel. I interviewed at I think 12 places last year all but 2 coastal, and I had a grand total of one hotel popped for. That was UNM, who really roll out the red carpet nicely. Hotel Andaluz was absolutely stunning...

 

[pingouin]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've only gotten a hotel paid for at two of my interviews.... 🙁

Eh, I'm 3 for 10 on hotel stays, and one I didn't even need b/c it's my home program.

Props to Indiana for the Conrad though. My goodness that place was nice. 👍

 

[digitlnoize]

Eh, I'm 3 for 10 on hotel stays, and one I didn't even need b/c it's my home program.

Props to Indiana for the Conrad though. My goodness that place was nice. 👍

I'm 7 for 9. I guess it's really where you apply. If you guys want, we could make a list of which programs have provided lodging and/or dinners this year...

It may not be entirely prudent to go posting our own lists, so if you want privacy, you can PM me your lists of who provided lodging, shared cost, or paid zip and I'll add it to the list.

I guess I can go ahead and add one for sure:

Indiana: Fully paid lodging. Conrad Hotel (Hilton). Very, very nice. Flat-screen-in-the-bathroom nice.

 

[whopper]

During my interviews for forensic fellowship, I interviewed at a program that made me stay there for two days and rent a car because one of the places I would work was a few hours away.

The first interview was at a prison where the first attending was on vacation so my 3 hour drive there was a waste of time. The second interview was at the wrong hospital with the same exact name as the hospital I was supposed to show up (and yes someone told me to go to the wrong hospital), then I was supposed to show up to another hospital where parking was impossible to find, and the program told me they would have a parking spot ready that they did not so I spent about 40 minutes trying to find parking and showed up late to another interview and because of that the guy wouldn't talk to me.

I was pretty ticked and wondering if I did something wrong. Turned out that every single person I met who interviewed at this place (several) that I met later on at AAPL had extremely similar experiences.

Let's see now, my plane ticket to this place was a few hundred dollars, my hotel stay was hundreds, the food was about $150....

What a complete waste of time. I only don't state the program's name because it was a few years ago, things may be better, and I don't feel like getting into a possible flame war with someone from that program. I will say though that if you interview at a program that spreads it out over two days, it could likely be the one I mentioned.

One of the few interviews I actually managed to have during that voyage of the damned was with an attending who told me he thought his own program blew.

I really can't say that if a program offers free hotel stay it means it's a good program, but if it's well organized, you wouldn't see the problem I had. If things are arranged well, and a free hotel stay is a sign, though a weak one, it does slightly suggest their program coordinator knows a thing or two about a thing or two.

 

[billypilgrim37]

In general, I would think that offering accomodations suggests a well-organized program that is a good bargain because of a likely "quality to competitiveness" ratio that is pretty positive. That, and they have trouble recruiting because the location isn't somewhere that most people good enough to be at the program would choose over other more "hip" places, and at the same time the program cares enough about getting decent candidates that they aren't willing to just accept whatever bum is dying for a spot to fill a service need. I think Louisville and Wash U were two programs that offered me hotel rooms (I didn't go to either interview in the end), and I think those are both places where the QtC ratio (ain't I clever?) is pretty high, though they are probably in very different tiers.

 

[JabsterL]

can someone plz tell me how you delete a post after submitting? i know u click edit, but then don't know what to do...

 

[JabsterL]

I'm 7 for 9. I guess it's really where you apply. If you guys want, we could make a list of which programs have provided lodging and/or dinners this year...

It may not be entirely prudent to go posting our own lists, so if you want privacy, you can PM me your lists of who provided lodging, shared cost, or paid zip and I'll add it to the list.

I guess I can go ahead and add one for sure:

Indiana: Fully paid lodging. Conrad Hotel (Hilton). Very, very nice. Flat-screen-in-the-bathroom nice.

U of Florida-Dinner and Hotel
U of Miami-Dinner
Wayne St/Detroit Medical Center-lunch at restaurant
Creighton/U of Nebraska-Hotel and lunch at restaurant
U of Maryland-Dinner

I think Pilgrim is prolly onto somethin with his QtC ratio theory...

 

[notdeadyet]

In general, I would think that offering accomodations suggests a well-organized program that is a good bargain because of a likely "quality to competitiveness" ratio that is pretty positive. That, and they have trouble recruiting because the location isn't somewhere that most people good enough to be at the program would choose over other more "hip" places, and at the same time the program cares enough about getting decent candidates that they aren't willing to just accept whatever bum is dying for a spot to fill a service need.

Maybe. But I'll be you that a lot of programs in less desirable places killed the idea of free hotel for just the reason you describe. While you might attract more decent candidates by offering a free hotel, you also run the real risk of attracting more "bums" whose logic is "I wasn't going to interview there, but, hey, it's a free hotel room and will be a cheaper interview than their competitor. Score!"

I can see a lot of quality programs NOT offer free hotel rooms and instead focusing marketing dollars on print adverts, booths at conferences, put speakers on the road, etc. I think trying to sway people with free hotel rooms might sway the sort of folks you don't really want to sway.

Could go either way, but I wouldn't use it as much of a selection criteria.

And if you run a list of every program that offers a free dinner, you're going to run a list of almost every psych programs and those that don't doesn't mean much.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

In general, I would think that offering accomodations suggests a well-organized program that is a good bargain because of a likely "quality to competitiveness" ratio that is pretty positive. That, and they have trouble recruiting because the location isn't somewhere that most people good enough to be at the program would choose over other more "hip" places, and at the same time the program cares enough about getting decent candidates that they aren't willing to just accept whatever bum is dying for a spot to fill a service need. I think Louisville and Wash U were two programs that offered me hotel rooms (I didn't go to either interview in the end), and I think those are both places where the QtC ratio (ain't I clever?) is pretty high, though they are probably in very different tiers.

WashU didn't offer hotel rooms when I interviewed. I wonder if it's becoming less common.

About dinners, yeah, they are almost universal. It would probably be more useful to list places that don't offer dinners. When I interview, New Mexico didn't have a dinner, but they paid for a hotel, so I guess it was a balance.