making up list of programs to apply to- question

[psychotrope]

I'm a recent american allopathic graduate. I would describe myself as a fairly non-competitive applicant as my board scores are not good(took step1 twice) and my performance on non-psych rotations was mixed in some ways. I do feel I performed well on psych rotations. Anyways, I'd rather not go into more detail or rehash how I should have performed better, but just wanted to make it clear that my goal is to match into a program somewhere, preferably a smaller community type of program with perhaps less emphasis on research.

I'm planning to apply to 45-50 programs and hopefully get ~15 or so interviews out of those so I can rank 15 programs, and am looking for programs that aren't in california or huge cities(ny, boston) and would consider applicants without research experience who didn't do as well wrt usmle scores as they might have hoped.

What are some possibilities out there for me? I know members of the forum dont want to take the time to make up their own big list, so I'll list some programs that I've read/heard about and anyone who is familar with them can tell me if they would be a good fit. Also feel free to add in ones Im missing....

1) the non-utsw/baylor texas schools? Meaning utmb, texas tech, austin/seton healthcare networm program, texas A&M, john peter smith program, Ut-houston and Ut-san antonio?

2) programs in tennessee to include UT-memphis, ETSU, and meharry?

3) other smaller programs in the southeast like east carolina, carilion clinic(salem, which isnt really the southeast), south alabama?

4) the programs in ohio to include toledo, northeastern, and wright state?

5) the programs in arizona to include maricopa program, banner good samaritan, and the UPHK rural program? I know az is a popular place to be/live, but all three of these programs seemed to be less-competitive
than many other programs?

6) various other programs to include southern illinois, the two kansas programs, south dakota, the two missouri programs, and the two west virginia programs?

Thanks...any advice is much appreciated.

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[Doc Samson]

I'm a recent american allopathic graduate. I would describe myself as a fairly non-competitive applicant as my board scores are not good(took step1 twice) and my performance on non-psych rotations was mixed in some ways. I do feel I performed well on psych rotations. Anyways, I'd rather not go into more detail or rehash how I should have performed better, but just wanted to make it clear that my goal is to match into a program somewhere, preferably a smaller community type of program with perhaps less emphasis on research.

I'm planning to apply to 45-50 programs and hopefully get ~15 or so interviews out of those so I can rank 15 programs, and am looking for programs that aren't in california or huge cities(ny, boston) and would consider applicants without research experience who didn't do as well wrt usmle scores as they might have hoped.

What are some possibilities out there for me? I know members of the forum dont want to take the time to make up their own big list, so I'll list some programs that I've read/heard about and anyone who is familar with them can tell me if they would be a good fit. Also feel free to add in ones Im missing....

1) the non-utsw/baylor texas schools? Meaning utmb, texas tech, austin/seton healthcare networm program, texas A&M, john peter smith program, Ut-houston and Ut-san antonio?

2) programs in tennessee to include UT-memphis, ETSU, and meharry?

3) other smaller programs in the southeast like east carolina, carilion clinic(salem, which isnt really the southeast), south alabama?

4) the programs in ohio to include toledo, northeastern, and wright state?

5) the programs in arizona to include maricopa program, banner good samaritan, and the UPHK rural program? I know az is a popular place to be/live, but all three of these programs seemed to be less-competitive
than many other programs?

6) various other programs to include southern illinois, the two kansas programs, south dakota, the two missouri programs, and the two west virginia programs?

Thanks...any advice is much appreciated.

I can only speak to the AZ programs. I think AZ as a whole is less competitive for psychiatry because of the mental health system which parses out the seriously mentally ill/involuntary populations to the state/county, leaving the residency programs with mostly insured, voluntary type folks. Thus the exposure at maricopa, banner, and even the U of A main program is somewhat imbalanced. The UPHK program, on the other hand, is actually based at the the hospital that handles the involuntary and SMI cases for Pima County, so the patient mix is more in keeping with training opportunities in other states. It may've been seen as less competitive, but that's mostly b/c it's a new program (only in its second year). Despite this, it has been doing very well, as demonstrated by its getting permission by the ACGME to expand its class size.

 

[psychotrope]

thanks for the info doc samson....so based on what you know(and I should add Im not from the southwest), which of those 3(or 4 if you include the u of a main university program) should someone in my situation apply to?

I can only speak to the AZ programs. I think AZ as a whole is less competitive for psychiatry because of the mental health system which parses out the seriously mentally ill/involuntary populations to the state/county, leaving the residency programs with mostly insured, voluntary type folks. Thus the exposure at maricopa, banner, and even the U of A main program is somewhat imbalanced. The UPHK program, on the other hand, is actually based at the the hospital that handles the involuntary and SMI cases for Pima County, so the patient mix is more in keeping with training opportunities in other states. It may've been seen as less competitive, but that's mostly b/c it's a new program (only in its second year). Despite this, it has been doing very well, as demonstrated by its getting permission by the ACGME to expand its class size.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

You aren't striking me as very geographically constrained. I would guess that you will be more competitive than you think as long as you interview (and rank) a fairly wide variety of programs.

Since you mention the South Dakota program (we do have an alum here on SDN), you might consider widening your Upper Midwest investigations to include Creighton, Missouri-KC, Medical College of Wisc, and others. Don't count out university programs like Iowa (which never seems to fill lately ), Kansas, and Minnesota. There's also a very good community program in Minneapolis at Hennepin County which sometimes gets overshadowed by UMN and Mayo.

Bottom line is you'll have plenty of choices once you decide what part of the country you really want to live in.

 

[Doc Samson]

thanks for the info doc samson....so based on what you know(and I should add Im not from the southwest), which of those 3(or 4 if you include the u of a main university program) should someone in my situation apply to?

Agree with OPD - but if you want to sample life in AZ, I'd apply to all 4 programs and see which one(s) you like the look of the most.

 

[psychotrope]

You aren't striking me as very geographically constrained. I would guess that you will be more competitive than you think as long as you interview (and rank) a fairly wide variety of programs.

Since you mention the South Dakota program (we do have an alum here on SDN), you might consider widening your Upper Midwest investigations to include Creighton, Missouri-KC, Medical College of Wisc, and others. Don't count out university programs like Iowa (which never seems to fill lately ), Kansas, and Minnesota. There's also a very good community program in Minneapolis at Hennepin County which sometimes gets overshadowed by UMN and Mayo.

Bottom line is you'll have plenty of choices once you decide what part of the country you really want to live in.

thanks for the advice, of the ones you mentioned I'm definately applying to missour-kc and the minneapolis community program.

I don't think I would be competitive for wisconsin or iowa. Sure I'd like to apply to those programs(especially the one in madison), but really there are only a limited number of interviews I can go on due to time and financial constraints.

I feel that ranking 15-16 is a safe number, *as long* as those 15-16 are all programs I actually feel I would be a good fit for considering my failed step1 score, lack of research, etc......and if I broke the 15-16 interviews into things like "dream" programs in tier1, programs like wisconsin/iowa in tier 2, and then true community/smaller programs I do feel I'd have a shot at, that would mean only ranking 5 programs I have a really good shot at. Given the fact that there were only 2-3 actual positions in the scramble last year, I don't feel I can afford to do that.

 

[billypilgrim37]

Dude, don't sell yourself short. You're an American allopath grad who can string together multiple sentences without painful grammatical errors. You may fare much better than you think.