Matched!!

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TubeJockeyStile said:
Congrats to those who matched!!!

Good luck to those that are in the SOAP process. Just be positive!!! Good vibes....
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So... does anyone know if sideburn guy matched? Does everybody know who I'm talking about? Looking to match as far away from him as possible.
 
ellifino said:
So... does anyone know if sideburn guy matched? Does everybody know who I'm talking about? Looking to match as far away from him as possible.
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That's funny. I'm sure the back story is hilarious. Everybody on here rates the programs, but it is rare that the applicants get discussed.
 
Glad to have matched but am dreading match day.I already have enough anxiety about where my life is going to take me without having to share that information in what amounts to a prick measuring contest.
 
Matched at Emory.....
Anybody else bummed about where they matched??
 
TubeJockeyStile said:
Matched at Emory.....
Anybody else bummed about where they matched??
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I matched outside of my top 5. While I liked the program I matched to, it was kind of a shock to match to somewhere I wasn't even really thinking about moving to. I think I'm still processing, but yeah, I'm pretty bummed I did not match to those I ranked higher. Part of me would like to know what I did wrong, as I got positive feedback on the trail. I did have all competitive programs ranked at the top so I guess it was a rough year.

Nonetheless, I'm grateful to finally become a doctor. It's been a long road. Congrats to everyone else who matched!
 
Matched at my #1 choice! I still can't quite believe it!!

Congrats to everyone who matched today!
 
GlowInTheDark said:
Matched at my #2!!!

There are a number of spots left open even after the SOAP...wonder if some places just said "screw it, we'd rather not fill."

Penn State, USC, UCSF, UWisc...odd
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There are many qualified pgy-1 from many programs who switch from other specialties into anesthesia. Sure many of those programs had candidates who had discussions with many of those programs to fill slots outside the match. And the easiest way is not to full unmatch slots.
 
GlowInTheDark said:
Matched at my #2!!!

There are a number of spots left open even after the SOAP...wonder if some places just said "screw it, we'd rather not fill."

Penn State, USC, UCSF, UWisc...odd
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Where are you seeing what programs have open spots? I thought we can't see the programs who didn't fill until the NRMP releases that data.
 
We can see more now:

R3-->my reports-->Match Outcome of All Programs by State

This PDF shows all programs results immediately PRE-SOAP.

If you matched you can't see the doc that has unfilled programs AFTER SOAP though.
 
Bru said:
We can see more now:

R3-->my reports-->Match Outcome of All Programs by State

This PDF shows all programs results immediately PRE-SOAP.

If you matched you can't see the doc that has unfilled programs AFTER SOAP though.
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I was thinking that was post-SOAP...makes more sense being pre.
 
GlowInTheDark said:
Matched at my #2!!!

There are a number of spots left open even after the SOAP...wonder if some places just said "screw it, we'd rather not fill."

Penn State, USC, UCSF, UWisc...odd
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UCSF didn't fill??????? I didn't interview there, but that's surprising because I from what I've heard it's considered to be a very good program.
 
Sanj04 said:
UCSF didn't fill??????? I didn't interview there, but that's surprising because I from what I've heard it's considered to be a very good program.
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That's not the first time they didn't fill.
 
So is gas more, less, or about the same level of competitiveness this year?
 
Carbocation1 said:
So is gas more, less, or about the same level of competitiveness this year?
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There are so many programs (ever increasing, I think there are 3 new ones in Florida alone this year) that I think it is hard to make generalizations. At the mid-to-upper tier programs I think competition remains pretty high, our average scores (at an upper-mid to upper tier program) were slightly up for newly matched residents. I think we had 5-7% more applications overall from last year which is pretty consistent for the past few cycles. Overall around here in the southeast it's a slight trend towards increased competition.

At the bottom with the newer community-based programs I would suspect it is a little less competitive, simply due to increased supply. But honestly it's purely speculation on my part.

Nivens said:
From what I remember, that's in purpose to pick up some subspecialty people in the SOAP.
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Yep, some programs intentionally do this including mine. We used to do this often for advanced spots since there was such minimal (or at least much less) interest and the majority of applications did not compare well to the categorical interest. Now that we have converted to mostly categorical we did not need to participate in SOAP this year.
 
Psai said:
That's what they say but I don't buy it for a second
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Yeah, there's no way they could plan to hold X number of spots. They have no way of knowing how far down their rank list they will fall, so they would be taking a huge risk to rank fewer applicants with the hopes of not filling.

My guess is that people are turned off by the insane COL in SF, and aren't as dedicated to the 'big name'.
 
teacher2md said:
Yeah, there's no way they could plan to hold X number of spots. They have no way of knowing how far down their rank list they will fall, so they would be taking a huge risk to rank fewer applicants with the hopes of not filling.

My guess is that people are turned off by the insane COL in SF, and aren't as dedicated to the 'big name'.
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Doubt it, stanford has no trouble filling nor do the manhattan programs
 
Not fill on purpose? Not buying that bs for a second. Elaborate. How would that even work with the match.
 
Perhaps UCSF just ranks the people they really want. They know that they may or may not fill and also know it's not a big deal to fill the unmatched slots. It's a big program with a good reputation in a desireable area. Their calculus is probably different from most other programs. I remember when I was applying their Saturday morning meetings knocked them down a couple notches.
 
nimbus said:
Perhaps UCSF just ranks the people they really want. They know that they may or may not fill and also know it's not a big deal to fill the unmatched slots. It's a big program with a good reputation in a desireable area. Their calculus is probably different from most other programs. I remember when I was applying their Saturday morning meetings knocked them down a couple notches.
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That also makes no sense. You take only the people you want so that you can match the people that no one wanted? Real great strategy, thats why everyone is doing it
 
They were probably just overconfident in the pre-interview stage. If the interview was like last years I could see how it could turn some people off... I really hope they were not turning away people who wanted to be at the institution in favor of orth/derm/whatever rejects. That's a pretty awful move.
 
Psai said:
That also makes no sense. You take only the people you want so that you can match the people that no one wanted? Real great strategy, thats why everyone is doing it
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They fill with people who didn't match uro or Ortho or Germans or whatever. All I'm saying is they have no problems filling unmatched vacancies with well qualified candidates so they're not afraid to go unfilled.
 
NotFrankUnderwood said:
They were probably just overconfident in the pre-interview stage. If the interview was like last years I could see how it could turn some people off... I really hope they were not turning away people who wanted to be at the institution in favor of orth/derm/whatever rejects. That's a pretty awful move.
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I personally don't see anything awful about it.
 
nimbus said:
They fill with people who didn't match uro or Ortho or Germans or whatever. All I'm saying is they have no problems filling unmatched vacancies with well qualified candidates so they're not afraid to go unfilled.
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If you're banking on filling your class with people that an entire field didn't want, you're probably doing something wrong.

It's a supposedly top program, there's no way they don't get enough great apps from people who are better than whatever they can dredge up from soap. The real good people who don't match do a research year or a prelim and reapply, they don't look for an open anesthesiology spot.

Do you think Columbia cardiac surgery is going to get better applicants from the soap than they would have from eras?

Why doesn't every program just try to leave spots open and grab superstars from soap? Oh right, because it's a terrible idea.
 
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nimbus said:
All I'm saying is they have no problems filling unmatched vacancies with well qualified candidates so they're not afraid to go unfilled.
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Yeah, pretty much this. I can speak for my institution (which filled this year actually) and I'll try to explain what I'm trying to say - we certainly don't start the interview/ranking process fantasizing about SOAP'ing people who fall through the cracks of subspecialties, we would absolutely prefer to fill with people who take the time and effort to express and interest in the field as well as our program, it's a total no-brainer there.

We have had no issues filling our categorical spots, and we often interview somewhere between 8 and 10 applicants per categorical spot on average (most programs do as well, when we asked around). This year we ranked about 3/4 of those, easily above 5 applicants per spot. But for advanced spots we simply don't get the same level or even near the same number of applicants on average. The last few years we have only interviewed between 3 and 4 applicants per advanced spot if even that many (we generally restrict our invites to competitive AMGs and stellar IMGs which knocks a large amount of the applicant pool off right away), and again since we filter out 1/4 with the interview process that leaves about 2 or 3 ranked advanced applicants per spot. That simply isn't enough to reliably fill the spots, we have found. So we are in the process of transitioning to mostly categorical or R spots.

Simply put, we would rather not fill and be forced to snag some people from SOAP for those spots rather than take undesirable candidates. But we certainly don't go through the interview and application process with this goal in mind (and the algorithm wouldn't easily allow you to plan that way unless you didn't rank anyone)! It's a total gamble and we could easily end up with someone who could jump ship and head into that subspecialty if offered (and we have had it happen). We could interview more for advanced, and we were more lenient with our cutoffs for that group but we can only safely go so low for step scores and clinical performance before it becomes a risk - especially if those scores haven't shown any sign of improvement. Plus we aren't going to rank interviewees who turn us off on interview day. We are largely restricted from taking all but the amazing IMGs because of some political pressure from the GME office I'd rather not go too much more into, it's an institution-wide policy.

Finally, applicants that come through not-so-secretly discuss the lack of ability to fill spots and it seems to be interpreted in a negative light.
 
Psai said:
If you're banking on filling your class with people that an entire field didn't want, you're probably doing something wrong.

It's a supposedly top program, there's no way they don't get enough great apps from people who are better than whatever they can dredge up from soap. The real good people who don't match do a research year or a prelim and reapply, they don't look for an open anesthesiology spot.

Do you think Columbia cardiac surgery is going to get better applicants from the soap than they would have from eras?

Why doesn't every program just try to leave spots open and grab superstars from soap? Oh right, because it's a terrible idea.
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I'm just saying it's what they do. They went unfilled in the early 1990s when I was in the match and many times since. If they wanted to fill, they could assure it by interviewing and ranking enough applicants but they don't. They've been at it a long time. I'm sure they know what they're doing and aren't too surprised when they go unfilled.

And no anesthesia residency program is remotely comparable to Columbia cardiac surgery.
 
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AdmiralChz said:
Yeah, pretty much this. I can speak for my institution (which filled this year actually) and I'll try to explain what I'm trying to say - we certainly don't start the interview/ranking process fantasizing about SOAP'ing people who fall through the cracks of subspecialties, we would absolutely prefer to fill with people who take the time and effort to express and interest in the field as well as our program, it's a total no-brainer there.

We have had no issues filling our categorical spots, and we often interview somewhere between 8 and 10 applicants per categorical spot on average (most programs do as well, when we asked around). This year we ranked about 3/4 of those, easily above 5 applicants per spot. But for advanced spots we simply don't get the same level or even near the same number of applicants on average. The last few years we have only interviewed between 3 and 4 applicants per advanced spot if even that many (we generally restrict our invites to competitive AMGs and stellar IMGs which knocks a large amount of the applicant pool off right away), and again since we filter out 1/4 with the interview process that leaves about 2 or 3 ranked advanced applicants per spot. That simply isn't enough to reliably fill the spots, we have found. So we are in the process of transitioning to mostly categorical or R spots.

Simply put, we would rather not fill and be forced to snag some people from SOAP for those spots rather than take undesirable candidates. But we certainly don't go through the interview and application process with this goal in mind (and the algorithm wouldn't easily allow you to plan that way unless you didn't rank anyone)! It's a total gamble and we could easily end up with someone who could jump ship and head into that subspecialty if offered (and we have had it happen). We could interview more for advanced, and we were more lenient with our cutoffs for that group but we can only safely go so low for step scores and clinical performance before it becomes a risk - especially if those scores haven't shown any sign of improvement. Plus we aren't going to rank interviewees who turn us off on interview day. We are largely restricted from taking all but the amazing IMGs because of some political pressure from the GME office I'd rather not go too much more into, it's an institution-wide policy.

Finally, applicants that come through not-so-secretly discuss the lack of ability to fill spots and it seems to be interpreted in a negative light.
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Do people really rank categorical and advanced separately and have different pools of applicants for the positions? Most schools I interviewed at said - "you are interviewing for both positions, we will submit the same rank list regardless ." I know UCSF did that.
 
nimbus said:
Perhaps UCSF just ranks the people they really want. They know that they may or may not fill and also know it's not a big deal to fill the unmatched slots. It's a big program with a good reputation in a desireable area. Their calculus is probably different from most other programs. I remember when I was applying their Saturday morning meetings knocked them down a couple notches.
Click to expand...
9b4c5146e6cd2feeaa2067cb08cd0987076663267b84f939f51e29e2b966bdd4.jpg
 
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