Linked / Guaranteed Prelims

[pietachok]

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I applied to several programs with linked and guaranteed prelims for which I had to submit a separate prelim application to Internal Medicine in ERAS. (Example: UC Irvine, Rush, U Mass, Brown . . .). I also applied to several independent prelims. I have not had a great response from the latter. I wonder if anybody can shed some light on how these affiliated prelim programs rank us -- is being ranked at all contingent upon matching to their Neuro?

With a few exceptions, I have not received a separate interview invitation for the prelim. Instead, Neuro has offered to arrange the prelim interview on the day of my Neuro interview. So, I'm unclear as to whether I can "count" these as prelim interview invites. In other words, if my goal is to interview at 10 prelims to safely match to a completely independent advanced Neuro program, can I count the Rush interview toward that 10 if I were to match advanced at Northwestern? Or do they have a way of ranking me highly if matching to their Neuro program but leaving me totally unranked if not going to their neuro program? Should I only be counting the prelims that invited me without being persuaded by a Neuro department?

And if the latter, is there any utility to adding prelims at this point or would it just be a waste of application fee?

 

[Jubears09]

I applied to several programs with linked and guaranteed prelims for which I had to submit a separate prelim application to Internal Medicine in ERAS. (Example: UC Irvine, Rush, U Mass, Brown . . .). I also applied to several independent prelims. I have not had a great response from the latter. I wonder if anybody can shed some light on how these affiliated prelim programs rank us -- is being ranked at all contingent upon matching to their Neuro?

With a few exceptions, I have not received a separate interview invitation for the prelim. Instead, Neuro has offered to arrange the prelim interview on the day of my Neuro interview. So, I'm unclear as to whether I can "count" these as prelim interview invites. In other words, if my goal is to interview at 10 prelims to safely match to a completely independent advanced Neuro program, can I count the Rush interview toward that 10 if I were to match advanced at Northwestern? Or do they have a way of ranking me highly if matching to their Neuro program but leaving me totally unranked if not going to their neuro program? Should I only be counting the prelims that invited me without being persuaded by a Neuro department?

And if the latter, is there any utility to adding prelims at this point or would it just be a waste of application fee?

Academic center prelims can get super competitive since they tend not to have too many spots and some going into super competitive specialties may want them. If you add more focus on the local community type ones without affiliated advanced residencies.

Re the interviews you already have, I think you just have to ask. I applied to a prelim in one of the categorical neuro programs and just told them Id like to be ranked independently even if I didn't end up there and the Medicine PD said sure. Others said they couldn't do that. And others still told me they would as long as I was invited for prelim year independently by the medicine committee. So bottom line is it depends and IMO its a very reasonable question to ask the medicine (not neuro) dept pc.

With regard to ranking - they have no way of knowing where you will end up matching for your advanced program, its possible Im missing something, but i dont think anything stops you from linking any prelim to any program.

 

[pietachok]

With regard to ranking - they have no way of knowing where you will end up matching for your advanced program, its possible Im missing something, but i dont think anything stops you from linking any prelim to any program.

Thank you so much.

I think you answered it. I was curious if they rank us in their general list for the unlinked spots. It sounds like you had to ask for that to be done and some places might tell me they can't.

Do you know of any way to figure out which prelims are less competitive and whether there's any point in adding them at this point in the year?