Only have one interview so far

[Protonac]

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Honestly? Maybe not time to panic, but time to start making sure that you have a solid back up plan in place. You will definitely get more, but its highly unlikely that you'll end up with >10 at this point I'd think. I know people personally who matched into Rad Onc with only a few interviews, so it definitely isn't over till its over. Also, theres a chance that perhaps the programs that will interview you just haven't sent out invites yet.

Whats your back up?

Sheldor,
Thank you for being so helpful. Can you please tell me what a decent number of interviews at this time? I know that on nov 6 or seven should be the time when 50 % of programs have sent invites out.
Also what do you mean by a "good" back up plan?

 

[bob1988]

Honestly? Maybe not time to panic, but time to start making sure that you have a solid back up plan in place. You will definitely get more, but its highly unlikely that you'll end up with >10 at this point I'd think. I know people personally who matched into Rad Onc with only a few interviews, so it definitely isn't over till its over. Also, theres a chance that perhaps the programs that will interview you just haven't sent out invites yet.

Whats your back up?

Back up plan as in different specialty? Or rather what I would do if I don't match and have to re-apply?

 

[Sheldor]

Sheldor,
Thank you for being so helpful. Can you please tell me what a decent number of interviews at this time? I know that on nov 6 or seven should be the time when 50 % of programs have sent invites out.
Also what do you mean by a "good" back up plan?

So, I feel like in general (with exceptions of course) the number of interviews you have percentage wise of your total goal should track roughly with the percent of interviews sent out. Of course this isn't a perfect solution, but as a rough guide I found it to be fairly accurate, ie I had 50% of my total invites around the time that 50% of the programs had sent out invites. This method is obviously less accurate early on in the cycle but the more that get sent out the better it gets.

As for a good back up plan, I mean one that is likely to result in you having a job next year that will help you reach your ultimate goals.

Back up plan as in different specialty? Or rather what I would do if I don't match and have to re-apply?

I mean the latter. Research year? Prelim med year? Etc.

If I had to guess if somebody has 1 interview now, and they are a solid applicant I'd expect them to end up with 5-8 interviews. (Disclaimer: This is random, and based only on following these forums the last few years and going through it last year.)

 

[bob1988]

I mean the latter. Research year? Prelim med year? Etc.

If I had to guess if somebody has 1 interview now, and they are a solid applicant I'd expect them to end up with 5-8 interviews. (Disclaimer: This is random, and based only on following these forums the last few years and going through it last year.)

My issue is that I'm coming off a research year which will eventually yield ~5 first author pubs + additional posters, so not sure what else I can necessarily do. My grades and steps aren't great (230/255 and not very many Honors), so I know that hurts, but overall not sure what else I could realistically do at this point. Everyone I've talked to in the field has told me I'd be fine based on the match in the past, so it's a bit surprising I guess. By the way, thanks for all your helpful and insightful posts.

 

[Sheldor]

My issue is that I'm coming off a research year which will eventually yield ~5 first author pubs + additional posters, so not sure what else I can necessarily do. My grades and steps aren't great (230/255 and not very many Honors), so I know that hurts, but overall not sure what else I could realistically do at this point. Everyone I've talked to in the field has told me I'd be fine based on the match in the past, so it's a bit surprising I guess. By the way, thanks for all your helpful and insightful posts.

So in that case, your best back up will be to do a Prelim/TY year and reapply. I met other people on the trail, some interviewing at top 10 programs, that were currently in an intern year. So that is by far not a deal nail to getting into Rad Onc. The best thing about doing an intern year is that you can take an open PGY-2 spot OR reapply through the match.

As to TY vs Prelim, you have to ask yourself what your back up specialty will be if Rad Onc doesn't work out the second time. For me, It would have been radiology/IR, so I chose to use a TY as my back up plan. However, if Heme/Onc is your back up specialty, then you'd want to do a Prelim medicine year to get the ball rolling.

What this means, is that you want to make sure you go on a sufficient number of intern year interviews (I'd aim for 7-10), and then you will rank all of those at the bottom of your main match list. This way, you will for sure have a job next year and then you can reapply during.

If you have no research and that is the problem, a viable alternative would be to do a research year, but the problem is that if you apply in September and start the research year in May/June, that doesn't give you much time.

Hope that helps!

 

[SJSM001]

So here's a theory - last year the big group of interviews went out 11/12, but that was the Monday 1 week after ASTRO ended, so perhaps programs reviewed apps the week after ASTRO and that's why they all went out that date. I wonder if they will be more spaced out through November. According to last year, it doesn't look like many interviews should go out next week, so maybe it's just my way of hoping next week won't actually be a week of silence.

Also agree that we should merge this with the interview chit chat thread, if possible.