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who here has the longest RoL out of curiosity? mine is 42 programs for psych only. cost me a pretty penny though.
longest RoL
- Thread starter sga430
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you must be out of your mind...42 programs on your ROL?? You interviewed at all 42 programs? For Psych?!?!
Congratulations...you've just won the award for the most wasted time and money...
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if u dont match then u definitely have to go postal on the nrmp...cuz psych is a field that's a free give away...they love to sign outside of the match...my list is 10 programs for IM and i thought that might have been a lil too much...but u definitely win the medal for the longest
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42 programs. That's 3.5 interviews/week straight from Nov 01 through January 31. Possible but implausible.
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lol @ comparing length of RoLs
What's next? Are we going to psychoanalyze the phallic symbols in Top Gun? Maybe 300, since it was just released.
Remember, it's not the size that matters but how well you know how to use it.
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dude i applied to 42 programs total...i thought that was too high....
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Hey Carrigallen... haven't caught you around lately. What are you matching into?
I only applied to 23 programs for IM, interviewed at 13, ranked 10.. and that was likely overkill...
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you win
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how much did the entire process cost you? my guess would be close to $14,000 between apps, interviews, and the rank list.
D
deleted109597
I smell something fishy.
Nobody needs to rank 42 programs for anything, much less psych.
Nobody needs to rank 42 programs for anything, much less psych.
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actually i didnt go to my home airport much. it was from interview to the next interview. i didnt get an interview at home anyways and only 2 invites in my state.
btw i am an IMG. psych is getting more competitive every year and last match didnt go well for me. i went to 44 interiews but 2 of them dont use the match. i had 48 invites but could not schedule 4. i had 3 prematch offers but didnt like the location. i know 44 ivs is a lot but i think it would have been more idiotic for me to only have gone to 15. it is better to err on the side of safety in this case.
also i did a decent job of grouping them together. also lucky to have a place to stay in NY and other places. also had a little fun along the way and got to meet up with old friends. except for the $ i have no regrets.
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I don't understand why you applied to all those places if you never seriously planned on going there in the first place. In less, you did not like the location only after going on the interview.
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well since i had so many ivs i was not desperate for a prematch. would have considered it if it were in my top 6 or even top 10.
my main goal was to match. being unmatched or scrambling is something i wanted to avoid at all costs. additionally i wanted the best possible residency. so to accomplish both i wanted to use the match yet be as safe as a prematch. the best way was to go to as many interviews as possible. i do admit it was overkill. 30-35 should have been more than enuff. lol, maybe even 25 would have been enough. but then again i didnt want to take any chances.
btw i matched. if i get my top choices i would be too happy to regret going to so many. if i get my bottom choice i would be justified in what i did.
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I canceled alot of my interviews and in the end it made me worried. I ranked a few programs that I didn't love. What if some of the ones I canceled were better. Guess I'll never know. Can't wait for Thursday.
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I would think that 4-5 would be enough for psych.
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...that is assuming you haven't been a patient at any of those programs.
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I had the same issue. I did not accept half of my interviews and then just ranked 11 programs. I started worrying last week that I might not match.
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Hey congrats! I think everyone was wondering about that. Personally, I'm also impressed that you attended so many. I don't think I'd be able to present myself consistently well over that many interviews in a season. Actually, there were some days where I got absolutely SICK of answering "what are your strengths and weaknesses" for the fifth or sixth time and it wasn't even lunchtime yet.
But I matched in psychiatry also. This is my first time through the match so I was sort of learning as I went along. But in the end, I went in with a very short list. Just 3 programs. At times, I thought about making it longer but when I sat down and thought about it, I really couldn't see myself as being happy at all with some of the programs (for various reasons) so I left them off my ROL just like the NRMP says to do.
But I felt confident that I did the best that I possibly could at the interviews for my top 3 choices so I just left it to that. I understand the rationale of wanting a longer ROL. In a sense, yeah it does reduce your risk of not matching.
But the way that I understood the Match, you could have an ROL that could be even 100 choices long. But if you don't interview well or don't remain memorable to anyone at those 100 programs, then you could still go unmatched. Conversely, you could just have a single choice on your ROL but if they absolutely loved you, then you should have no worries. I guess I gambled on the latter.
But of course as is the case with the practice of medicine, there are many pathways to the same bottom line.
Hey SGA, are you still traveling in Europe? I'll be taking a two week vacation in Germany and the Netherlands starting next week. Maybe we can meet up and have a beer?
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I was about to call you an idiot, continuing the theme of thinking how we know more about people and their situation then themselves... but then I read about your last years situation... tough cookies. 42 is a lot, but you're absolutely right... I would interview in Baghdad to make sure I matched the second time around. Good luck!
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I talked with a classmate applying to derm, and he claims he applied to 42 spots (why is the number 42 so popular, other than the whole "answer to the universe thing?). I'm not sure if that's his derm + prelims, and I'm not sure how many he went to (not invited for an interview vs. chose not to attend). And this is, ostensibly, a good student from a decent school.
