Matching in California

[Joe Waitlist]

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Everyone tells me that matching into any field in California is especially difficult. Is this also true of rad onc? I'd like to train out west if possible for personal reasons and there aren't as many programs out west compared to the east. California has quite a few programs, but is it realistic to try to match there if you are not from California and don't have ties to the area/programs?

 

[nothingman]

Yes, it is thought to be difficult, mostly because there are many applicants with ties to the area or who want to live there for relatively few spots, especially in academic-leaning programs.

If you're not from the area, doing well on away rotations at CA programs and getting good letters from known attendings there can help open doors in a very significant way.

 

[Neuronix]

You can try, but it's still rad onc. Be prepared to apply to 40+ programs and take a spot wherever you get one. There are plenty of people every year who are from California, want to stay in California, and still match off the west coast.

 

[Jiantkwazi]

just quickly counting off the top of my head, last year there were 16 spots available in California, and over the whole country there were ~225 applicants, so yes, it is hard to match in rad onc in california. You can get all the exact numbers on the NRMP website.

That being said, there was one spot in Cali that did not fill last year, but that was basically a fluke, and was gobbled up instantaneously in the scramble.

There definitely is a regional bias, and connections to Cali help you out. If you are a top applicant from a top school, you will get Cali interviews though. Each place only interviews 20-30, so it is hard to get interviews / match in Cali.

 

[OTN]

Always tough to match in Cali, no matter what the competitive specialty.

 

[RadOnc1234]

Yes, pretty tough to match in Cali in general. If you're a competitive rad onc applicant then you will get Cali interviews though. It's an interesting dynamic: the top bunch of applicants (like 30 or so?) got almost all of the interviews and the rest of the applicant pool gets less. Rad Onc programs don't interview all that many for each spot... There's a range of programs in Cali though, so good luck!