Making the final cut of ranks?

[RxBoy]

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Any significance with a program emailing you that you made the final cut and will be ranked? I got this email shortly after one of my interviews. I thought everyone gets ranked, it was just a matter of how high???

 

[Exsurg]

Not everyone gets ranked. Some programs will interview 150, rank 100 to match 25. Especially at the more competitive places it's the same group of 100 or so people interviewing at all of them and the same group being ranked by each program. Basically they're all competing for the same applicants. That being said the programs wanna make sure they match the best applicants so they'll tell you that you'll be ranked. They can even tell you you'll be ranked highly. Costs them nothing to do this but hey, maybe you'll rank them higher if you know they'll be ranking you well.

A friend of mine was on the committee for another specialty. His program director told every applicant they would be ranked very highly, even applicants that they did not intend to rank at all. again, the program has nothing to lose and a lot to gain by doing this.

I got one of those letters from a program too. I loved the place and I'd love to think that the letter means something, but I am hesitant to do so.

Having been through the match process once before I can tell you that I was given very positive feedback/indications that I'd be ranked competitively at many places, only to find out on match day that this was not so. Maybe I'm jaded, Just my $.02

 

[RxBoy]

Thanks for the input.... and crushing my ego! J/K I kind of figured especially since the " Dear My Name" was in different font than the body of the message. You know its just a good old copy and paste scheme. The ugly side of the match seeps through.

Then again we're never honest about our ranking either. I always come up with a SPECIFIC reason I am going to rank their program highly. Costs me nothing as well 🙂~

 

[cchoukal]

Then again we're never honest about our ranking either. I always come up with a SPECIFIC reason I am going to rank their program highly. Costs me nothing as well 🙂~

Exactly. The advice that always surfaces here I think is true: rank the programs in the order in which you'd like to match. It's as simple as that. You gain nothing by taking these emails and letters into account. The programs tell people they are ranked highly in the hope that more people will rank THEM more highly. I guess there's some pride being able to say they only went "so far" down their list to fill their program.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

I would not believe anything a program tells you. Every year there are stories that float around of empty promises.

 

[cchoukal]

And I've never really understood why this causes problems. Do people really get these emails and think, "Oh man, they really want me! I'm going to suicide match and rank only them!"

I guess maybe people would bump a program up on the rank list based on "feeling wanted," but even that I don't fully understand. If you've got your programs ranked 1, 2, 3, and 4, and program 3 says, "we're ranking you really highly," you don't have to move them up in order to match there if 1 and 2 don't pick you.

That's the beauty of the match. You rank the places in the order you want to go there, and the programs do the same. The highest place that picks you and still has places is where you go. You get the highest program on your list that has a spot for you based on where they ranked you. There's really no way to "game" this to your advantage unless you really think that you can influence where a program ranks you. And keep in mind the programs have all been doing this a lot longer than you have. I can't imagine PDs would be so easily duped into moving you up their list just because you told them you ranked them highly. Why would fall for the same thing from them?