Ms4 help 2026 application number??/competitiveness

[futuremd2125]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hi everyone, I am a 4th year DO student and planning to apply to psychiatry. I have been planning to apply psychiatry since mid-3rd year and have done a few psych related activities.

I really want to stay on the West Coast (ideally California) but dont want to shoot myself in the foot by not applying to enough places.

I have lots of leadership and service activities.

Passed Step 1, 256 on Step 2, Passed COMLEX 1, Waiting on COMLEX 2.

How many places should I apply?

I know I have a strong step score, but not sure if it will really make difference since I go to a DO school.

Any help or advice would be very appreciated!!

 

[mistafab]

You're a good candidate for good psych programs.

If you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot... don't. Apply broadly, put in a few safety programs and a few reaches. Meat and potatoes should be competitive programs where you're signaling. Plenty of them. Signal regions you are okay doing for 4 years. Do not apply to places you will not want to live at - and do not suicide your app by underapplying. Go directly to your school's psych department and meet 1 on 1 with a program director or other leadership of some kind to go over your entire CV and give advice based on people from your school and where they have matched with your stats.

Good luck.

 

[SPsych6]

Hi everyone, I am a 4th year DO student and planning to apply to psychiatry. I have been planning to apply psychiatry since mid-3rd year and have done a few psych related activities.

I really want to stay on the West Coast (ideally California) but dont want to shoot myself in the foot by not applying to enough places.

I have lots of leadership and service activities.

Passed Step 1, 256 on Step 2, Passed COMLEX 1, Waiting on COMLEX 2.

How many places should I apply?

I know I have a strong step score, but not sure if it will really make difference since I go to a DO school.

Any help or advice would be very appreciated!!

You will be totally fine. Still apply broadly, but you score is killer. It honestly matters more how confident you are during your interview. If you interview really poorly, your scores won't matter. Psychiatry care more about fit once you start interviewing. We basically forget about the rest of your application once we interview you. So just don't be too autistic and you will be great 🙂

 

[futuremd2125]

@SPsych6 @mistafab Thanks for the advice!! How many programs would you say is broad enough?? My school doesnt have a PD I can talk to, so I'm kinda limited on who I can get advice from on this application process

​

 

[comp1]

There are a fair number of programs with moderate competitiveness in CA. They've been blossoming all over. You've got Bakersfield, Visalia, Stockton, Chico, Oroville and the classics of Fresno and Lake Arrowhead amongst many others. I'm really glad you're prioritizing geography because this isn't just determining where you live for four years, but statistically the rest of your life. I'm seeing almost 40 programs in CA alone now. I'm pretty confident you can match here if you try.

 

[SPsych6]

You should include OHSU in Oregon, along with California programs. I would say you should apply to minimum 30 programs. You could also consider a handful of programs outside the state that you might be interested in. I trained midwest at a level 1 trauma hospital and I thought it was a good fit for me even though I am from the west coast. You don't have to apply outside of CA, but I would at least consider it. Personally, training at a more difficult program with higher acuity will be much better for you in the long run than training at a remote community program in CA.

 

[comp1]

Hard core disagree with anything other than geography determining where you apply/match, but 30 seems fine. I definitely applied to OHSU and wanted to stay in CA, but there were a lot fewer places to apply back then. I think CA only had 12 residencies at the time. Now you can get 30 and never leave the best state.

 

[FlowRate]

FWIW, it's not that hard to move somewhere else after residency, if you don't want to stay where you trained. But there are huge advantages to doing residency somewhere you want to live forever, especially if you intend to start a private practice. In terms of employed positions, though, we've hired many people straight out of residency from out of state, myself included.

 

[Merovinge]

Hard core disagree with anything other than geography determining where you apply/match, but 30 seems fine. I definitely applied to OHSU and wanted to stay in CA, but there were a lot fewer places to apply back then. I think CA only had 12 residencies at the time. Now you can get 30 and never leave the best state.

I really enjoy CA, have family there and was bummed when my partner couldn't get a job in San Diego (I had one lined up), but are you seriously saying it's better to live/train in Stockton than at a good academic program somewhere else? That's an absolutely wild take to me if so. Gold doesn't just rain down from the sky in California, and it's not like you are actually close to any of the cool outdoors/cultural stuff in Stockton. I guess you can easily weekend at Yosemite but I digress...

 

[comp1]

If family or some other geographic pull is in Stockton or Sacramento or even the Bay Area, then it's definitely far better than a Midwestern academic program. Even with Central Valley heat, the weather is probably better too. This has nothing to do with the quality of any given program. Quality is for comparing within a narrow geographic area. You're only in the program and dealing with its "quality" for four years and no employers, even academic ones, are going to care to any significant degree about such a nebulous thing after you graduate. Everybody is hard up for psychiatrists everywhere. Knowing the program in Stockton, you aren't going to have time for cultural stuff regardless, but at least your family can visit you easily and you'll be close to them post graduation.

 

[SunMouse]

Just going to put it out there that I had a higher step score than you but otherwise similar app with lots of longitudinal psych related activities and leadership, and didn’t match last year on the West Coast, despite applying to every single program in the region. Granted I had to leave for med school and was trying to get back so perhaps that influenced things.

Perhaps I was also a terrible interviewer and you’ll do better, but just wanted to share my recent experience.

 

[Stagg737]

Quality is for comparing within a narrow geographic area. You're only in the program and dealing with its "quality" for four years and no employers, even academic ones, are going to care to any significant degree about such a nebulous thing after you graduate.

Going to completely disagree with this. I agree that geography should be a, if not the, top consideration for applicants. However, saying that quality of program doesn't matter is just crazy as that's where you're going to learn the skills you need for the next 20-40 years of your career. It's probably not an issues in California where there is a plethora of solid programs, but in other areas there they may only be 1-2 programs geography should become less important if the only programs in those locations are terrible. Some employers won't care, but colleagues absolutely will if they're constantly having to clean up another person's messes and constantly deal with their incompetency.

ETA: To the OP, you're app on paper seems solid, some of this will depend on strength of MSPE and LoRs. I had multiple PDs straight up tell me those were the reasons I got an interview as a poor-on-paper DO candidate (9 ii's total, applied to 75 programs). If you want to apply to top programs I'd say 40-50 total with some "safer" programs mixed in should be fine. Staying west should be very doable as there are around 40 programs west of Salt Lake City/Phoenix.

 

[comp1]

I guess I can indeed only speak for CA, but I genuinely don't believe that it's the residency program that creates an incompetent clinician. They come from everywhere. Perhaps being nestled in the wonderland that is CA I just haven't seen a truly, horrifically poor (yet somehow still accredited?) program. The incompetent clinicians I see have bad attitudes and are focused on doing as little as possible. They certainly have book knowledge, but no desire to use it. They seem to have come into med school like this and I just doubt the best residency could have made any sort of dent in it.