OMFS residency, feasibility of applying to many schools in only one city....

[BobertSaget]

Howdy. Looking for advice for anyone who knows about applying to OMFS residency but was geographically restricted because of family factors (e.g. wife's high paying job is in this one city and the kids go to school here; moving again would highly undesirable). Lucky for me the city has many residency program options, but I saw some threads regarding externing in a diversity of locations to signal broad interest.

Will me externing at 4 schools in the same place be looked on disfavorably for some reason?
Should I feign interest at other schools further away and risk not visiting the programs I'm limiting myself to applying for?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated, background info: D3, Male, 31, CBSE 80, laundry list of research pubs.

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[rotichawal]

I know many people who only applied to NY/NJ/PA/CT programs, no problems with interviews or matching. Keeping your externships regional would probably only raise eyebrows if you applied outside the region. Having a link to a particular geographic region is probably a plus for programs in that area, many programs I interviewed at that were a flight away questioned whether I would even be interested in living in their area.

 

[jva94]

I was in a very similar situation to you. I ended up extending only at programs within my desired region and it wasn’t an issue. Be prepared to discuss this at interviews however. I was asked why I didn’t extern more broadly, I just honestly explained my desire to stay within the geographic region.
There was only one interview where after I explained, they were still like “oh but it would have been nice anyway to extern in a different part of the country just for the exposure.” So I guess if you can try to extern at least at 1 hospital that is outside of your desired location it could help you.

 

[Ivy.ch]

Possibly you match in the city you want. But, if forced to choose…

Would you rather not match and do a non-cat and try again next cycle to match in the city, OR, match far away?

If you prefer the former, then yes, apply to just the specific location.

 

[BobertSaget]

I know many people who only applied to NY/NJ/PA/CT programs, no problems with interviews or matching. Keeping your externships regional would probably only raise eyebrows if you applied outside the region. Having a link to a particular geographic region is probably a plus for programs in that area, many programs I interviewed at that were a flight away questioned whether I would even be interested in living in their area.

Good to hear a commitment to the region can be seen as a positive. Thank you.

 

[BobertSaget]

I was in a very similar situation to you. I ended up extending only at programs within my desired region and it wasn’t an issue. Be prepared to discuss this at interviews however. I was asked why I didn’t extern more broadly, I just honestly explained my desire to stay within the geographic region.
There was only one interview where after I explained, they were still like “oh but it would have been nice anyway to extern in a different part of the country just for the exposure.” So I guess if you can try to extern at least at 1 hospital that is outside of your desired location it could help you.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I was considering one distant externship for regional diversity experience sake (e.g. south)

 

[BobertSaget]

Possibly you match in the city you want. But, if forced to choose…

Would you rather not match and do a non-cat and try again next cycle to match in the city, OR, match far away?

If you prefer the former, then yes, apply to just the specific location.

Im guessing the implication here is to still apply widely without geographic limit then, yes?

 

[Ivy.ch]

Im guessing the implication here is to still apply widely without geographic limit then, yes?

Either choice is valid, but you’ll need to decide before you apply - possibly not match vs. match somewhere far away.

I’ve seen people go for either. Sounds like you have a special lady in your life - so you gotta decide what you can live with and what you can live without.

If you apply widely and match far away, there are no takebacks. But you may miss a spot somewhere if you only apply in a geographic area.