Is taking a day to respond to invitation requests considered rude?

[ExcaliburPrime1]

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I received an invitation in the middle of the afternoon but I was in the middle of my clerkship activities. I didn't think it professional or appropriate to stop what I was doing to rapidly reply to the invitation invite, especially as they asked for more than interview dates (they wanted to know about areas of interest, including research interests and specific faculty, so I would have needed a good chunk of time to put that together).

I ended up waiting a few hours until I finished my work for the day and got home.

I suppose ideally I'd already scout every program and have responses already generated for what faculty I want to see, if it comes up again, but in the meantime, I don't really feel bad that I waited until after-hours to respond. Do you think they would take it poorly though?

 

[Monocles]

No, they probably get hundreds of emails a day and no one is keeping track that ExcaliburPrime1 took 5 hours, 45 minutes and 13 seconds to respond. 😛

 

[ExcaliburPrime1]

No, they probably get hundreds of emails a day and no one is keeping track that ExcaliburPrime1 took 5 hours, 45 minutes and 13 seconds to respond. 😛

That's what I figured, but many of my classmates drop everything when they get that e-mail and are sure to respond within minutes. I feel like if you're at home, sure, but if you're in the hospital doing something, then it can wait a few hours.

It's all good though, I can certainly see the eagerness to respond if someone wants that extra "edge" in getting a preferred interview date, especially if they have some other obligations in Dec/Jan.

 

[shan564]

Nobody will even notice. Don't worry, I had the same anxiety when I was in your place three years ago, but you're overthinking it.

 

[bd290]

That's what I figured, but many of my classmates drop everything when they get that e-mail and are sure to respond within minutes. I feel like if you're at home, sure, but if you're in the hospital doing something, then it can wait a few hours.

It's all good though, I can certainly see the eagerness to respond if someone wants that extra "edge" in getting a preferred interview date, especially if they have some other obligations in Dec/Jan.

I think it's pretty much about the interview date priority.
I don't think it's rude to take your time to respond, but within reasonable general email etiquette rules (ie not 3 days later).

 

[Psychotic]

The reason to reply asap is one of getting the best possible interview date - remember they sent out other emails when you received yours.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

You are allowed to check flights and try and coordinate with other programs in a city. A few days is fine. If you take a week, we may detect some ambivalence, but even then, some people are just trying to get a response from an other program on our end of a flight.

Come on everyone, lets get some synaptic pruning going and cancel those extraneous invites. Let's unclog this stand off please. If you don't care that much about meeting us, we don't care that much to meet you. Of course in general this is a wonderful process and it is always exciting to meet so many impressive young and talented people. Interesting dialectic, I would name it the MDT dialectic, but MDT is already an eponym and I'm sure there is a rule against epi-eponyms.

 

[bd290]

Come on everyone, lets get some synaptic pruning going and cancel those extraneous invites. Let's unclog this stand off please.

I feel like this isn't going to happen. I scheduled a couple of programs I'm less interested in for January so that I can cancel them with plenty of time if I hear from something I'd prefer. I know some people in my class who have a couple of interviews scheduled for the same day already who are sitting on them still though. 😵

 

[Leo Aquarius]

When I got interviews from big name places, I dropped everything and called right away, even after-hours and left a message to confirm. I remember being at the grocery store when I got one - left my shopping cart to go make the phone call. It was that important to me.

If you're not interested, email or call quickly to cancel. It's a small world, program directors may remember your name, program directors do talk, so you never know.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I'm just remembering having to do this without cell phones. We had a device that plugged into the phone, known as an "Answering Machine". For that matter, Psych wasn't on ERAS yet, either.

 

[technopoly]

I'm just remembering having to do this without cell phones. We had a device that plugged into the phone, known as an "Answering Machine". For that matter, Psych wasn't on ERAS yet, either.