Local applicants

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[gutonc]

Totally program dependent. You'll see places that primarily take people from their institution (in the case of univ. progs), while others limit the number of "homers" they have. Most programs will list the places their residents come from so you can look at places you're interested and see if they do that.

 

[NinerNiner999]

In general, programs like applicants that they think will be happy there and "a good fit." Often times, coming from the same area and wanting to stay is a positive trait, but not the only defining factor of happiness....

 

[atsai3]

Do programs (i.e. FM, Internal, Peds) favor local applicants? As in ones that live in the same city or state as the program?

Residency programs will generally grant their own medical students an interview (although that is not always the case -- a few years ago, UCSF unpredictably had a spate of medical students applying to psychiatry, and the UCSF psychiatry residency, much as they would have liked to, could not offer all of their own students an interview). However, it is not necessarily the case that residency programs would necessarily be more likely to accept their own medical students. What confounds this assessment is that their own medical students are much more likely than outside students to have rotated through and therefore to have provided the program director / attendings / residents with opportunities to directly observe their suitability (ability, social appropriateness, etc) for the program. Some residency programs will not even consider an applicant if she hasn't done a visiting rotation with them. (Anecdotally, I know this is true for some ENT programs.)

As for geographical bias, I don't know. For what it's worth, on the interview trail there was always the rumor that the California programs favored applicants who lived in California, or who had previous ties to the area, or who had family in the area, or -- you get the point. My guess is that this does not necessarily represent a geographical 'bias' but rather simply that program directors seek to identify characteristics in applicants that would increase their probability of remaining happy in the program and less likely to drop out.

-AT.

 

[DOtobe]

As someone said earlier, programs sometimes are searching for people who are from the area and would like to stay in the area after their residency is complete.

However, in my residency class, only 5 of us (out of 13) are from the Pittsburgh area. I think there's more in the class below us.

So I'm sure it has some influence on resident selection, but not that much.